AHC : Soviet Moon Landing With Or Without Korolev Between 1968 and June 1969

[roderickgibsono]

I am going to tag @CountofDooku because he is the first I have seen which is doing a USSR timeline, @nixonshead @TimothyC @SingularityG3 @Tshhmon @Juumanistra since you have timelines regarding space.

I was thinking of what would need for the Soviets to reach the moon between those dates, not necessarily much earlier than 1969. I am also trying to make my own drawing of said rocket, but have no idea for the moon lander to have more than 3 people in it, like between 5 or 10, potentially to also literally laid the groundwork for a potential base on it.

Any suggestions how should be done?

 

[CountofDooku]

I am going to tag @CountofDooku because he is the first I have seen which is doing a USSR timeline, @nixonshead @TimothyC @SingularityG3 @Tshhmon @Juumanistra since you have timelines regarding space.

I was thinking of what would need for the Soviets to reach the moon between those dates, not necessarily much earlier than 1969. I am also trying to make my own drawing of said rocket, but have no idea for the moon lander to have more than 3 people in it, like between 5 or 10, potentially to also literally laid the groundwork for a potential base on it.

Any suggestions how should be done?

I'm by no means a expert, should ask my stepdad since he is form the Eastern Block some day if he knows more, but all models and plans I have seen suggest the Soviet module would be even more crammed and smaller then what we put on the moon, so I'm unsure if we could go beyond 3 Cosmonauts (at least with the original planned versions)? I assume that would mean bigger moduls, bigger rockets and so on, but it should be possible in the time, should even be possible before the US arrives there given a few lucky dice in the Soviet Program and a few more failures in the US one.

 

[Juumanistra]

I am going to tag @CountofDooku because he is the first I have seen which is doing a USSR timeline, @nixonshead @TimothyC @SingularityG3 @Tshhmon @Juumanistra since you have timelines regarding space.

I was thinking of what would need for the Soviets to reach the moon between those dates, not necessarily much earlier than 1969. I am also trying to make my own drawing of said rocket, but have no idea for the moon lander to have more than 3 people in it, like between 5 or 10, potentially to also literally laid the groundwork for a potential base on it.

Any suggestions how should be done?

With regard to the original question: The Soviets need to roll a few more sixes/tens/twenties, depending upon what dice system you think the Universe runs on. They would need to recognize the seriousness of the American Lunar effort earlier and, upon doing so, decide-upon and implement a Lunar program of that is run with relative harmony amongst the Soviet space design bureaus. This is not impossible, but given that Korolev and Glushko had a literal blood feud, the Soviet program is always going to be fractious even when its factions are nominally pulling together. (It would also need liberally enough funded to actually accomplish things, which is always the trick with the Soviet space program, but I'm just hand-waving that for the moment.) It also requires that the Soviets be willing to hurl cosmonauts into the void and, more pressingly, have the gamble actually work. The latter part is why I am not terribly confident that the Soviets could actually do it, because the propaganda consequences for launching the first Lunar expedition and the cosmonauts dying horribly are so bad that the Politburo would be unlikely to take the necessary risks in the first place.

What would that look like in practice? An R-56-launched LK-700 direct-ascent lander that just sucks it up with 3 dedicated tanker flights, perhaps? Yangel works on the booster, Korolev works on the integrated spacecraft, while Chelomei works on the lander would keep the would-be kingpins busy with appropriately challenging work while also keeping Korolev and Glushko as far away from each other as humanly possible. Korolev won't be happy, of course, but he was like Von Braun in that he wouldn't be truly happy unless he were doing Cool Space Things and in charge. But with that arrangement he might actually get the hydrolox TLI engine he wanted, so that'd be a decent enough consolation prize at any rate.

Or, alternatively, you could just go pants-on-head crazy and use the power of Grug Tier Soviet Engineering to do the Space Stations Operations Analysis Using Gemini-Titan II-Agena study's plan, but with R-7s, Vokshods, and the Soviet equivalent of Agena. The American response to the mass production of ~700 R-7s for that plan would be hilarious, given the amount of pants-wetting that was had over a non-existent Missile Gap.

 

[e of pi]

They would need to recognize the seriousness of the American Lunar effort earlier and, upon doing so, decide-upon and implement a Lunar program of that is run with relative harmony amongst the Soviet space design bureaus. This is not impossible, but given that Korolev and Glushko had a literal blood feud, the Soviet program is always going to be fractious even when its factions are nominally pulling together. (It would also need liberally enough funded to actually accomplish things, which is always the trick with the Soviet space program, but I'm just hand-waving that for the moment.)

This is definitely the core of the issue: have the Soviets take it seriously and fund it seriously, and force the major players to work together seriously, in spite of the issues. Saturn V was approved in 1962. So was N-1. The first Saturn V flew in November 1967, thanks to good management and often a degree of micromanagement from NASA on high. By contrast, the N-1 didn't make its first launch attempt (which ended in total failure) until almost 15 months later:

From Challenge to Apollo by Siddiqi (p390-391 in text, p408-409 of PDF SP-4408pt1):

The management of the N I program--certainly the most ambitious "civilian" Soviet space project of its time--was mired in the gridlock symptomatic of the poor performance of the Soviet civilian economy. Thus, it never mattered whether a particular production order was supposed to be carried out; the job might never get done were it not for some personal favor or "unconventional" input. Deadlines often depended on a personal visit, a letter, or a telephone call from a well-placed individual, not on a signed and sealed document. This type of management naturally resulted in a chaotic system in which parts were often delivered months later or in some cases not at all. There was no "single plan of action" to coordinate the hundreds of plants and research institutions. Because the military was not particularly interested in the project, by default, many of the subcontractors were from the "civilian" economy. OKB-I First Deputy Chief Designer Mishin, one of the leading architects of the entire program, recalled later that:

The N I was being made by 500 organizations in 26 departments. O[ these, only nine fell within the jurisdiction of the Military-Industrial Commission. The rest had to be begged for. Resolutions [rom the Council of Ministers did not help at all: the tasks were just outside their competence and delivery schedules were not met.., we failed to agree with minister after minister as they made the rounds, and often it ended in checkmate. 4

Bad management, insufficient funding, and insufficient testing as a result were the main issues behind the Soviet lunar failure. Some changes to the rocket selection or architecture could help, like going to multi-launch from the start instead of the backwards way they backed into it, or a smaller rocket like R-56 or the like which could have been more easily transported and tested and wouldn't have strained their construction and testing systems as much, but still without being serious about program management, I think they would have struggled to beat the Americans without significant delays on the American side of the race. That said, even a "close second" by a year or so could have spurred a longer ongoing moon race, I think.

 

[Nivek]

I am going to tag @CountofDooku because he is the first I have seen which is doing a USSR timeline, @nixonshead @TimothyC @SingularityG3 @Tshhmon @Juumanistra since you have timelines regarding space.

I was thinking of what would need for the Soviets to reach the moon between those dates, not necessarily much earlier than 1969. I am also trying to make my own drawing of said rocket, but have no idea for the moon lander to have more than 3 people in it, like between 5 or 10, potentially to also literally laid the groundwork for a potential base on it.

Any suggestions how should be done?

Can be on july 4?

 

[Sasza]

You would have to first determine what their program looks like in the end than going to N1

 

[nixonshead]

You said landing. Do you need the guy to come back? Because a one-way trip might - just - be doable.

 

[BlueTrousers]

This is definitely the core of the issue: have the Soviets take it seriously and fund it seriously, and force the major players to work together seriously, in spite of the issues. Saturn V was approved in 1962. So was N-1. The first Saturn V flew in November 1967, thanks to good management and often a degree of micromanagement from NASA on high. By contrast, the N-1 didn't make its first launch attempt (which ended in total failure) until almost 15 months later:

This is the key one, IMO. The United States had a space program. The Soviets had four or five, all competing with each other, and didn't decide to go to the moon at all until August 1964. The N1, while approved two years earlier, was as much a launcher for heavy space stations as for lunar flight, and to some extent was being developed in the expectation that once they had a big rocket, they'd find payloads for it.

I don't think it's inconceivable for the Soviets to decide, in the heat of the moment after the Sputnik launch (or even Vostok) that it would be a good idea to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution by putting the Soviet flag on the moon. I don't think it'll quite be achieved, but you could probably get a succesful crewed circumlunar flight in 1967 and a landing in 1968. It's quite possible that, with a decision no later than 1961, they commit to a three-launch mission with Earth orbit rendezvous and a direct landing.

If they do do that, and the US doesn't realise until they're locked in to the Apollo single-launch lunar orbit rendezvous architecture, they'll start having kittens about the Soviets stealing another march.

 

[Qalqulserut]

I don't think I have anything to contribute that says it better than e of pi and Juumanistra. Outside of launch architectures, the best way to unfuck the Soviet space program is to unfuck the USSR itself; the fractious nature of its space program, in lieu of a centralized space agency, is much better for the bureaucracy. An easier way is probably offing some of the characters there the right way at the right time.

 

[RanulfC]

I am going to tag @CountofDooku because he is the first I have seen which is doing a USSR timeline, @nixonshead @TimothyC @SingularityG3 @Tshhmon @Juumanistra since you have timelines regarding space.

I was thinking of what would need for the Soviets to reach the moon between those dates, not necessarily much earlier than 1969. I am also trying to make my own drawing of said rocket, but have no idea for the moon lander to have more than 3 people in it, like between 5 or 10, potentially to also literally laid the groundwork for a potential base on it.

Any suggestions how should be done?

What's with the renewed interest in a Soviet Moon landing scenario? Just curious because I've seen a couple in the last few months suddenly

As noted the main issue was the Soviets didn't really have a 'space program' as much as a bunch of competing bureaus looking to try and spring-board off military missile research and then the unexpected propaganda from being in the early 'lead' in the Space Race. But in the end the Soviet military and leadership were only interested in what they could milk out of the early program with minimal effort and support. You have to convince them to throw in full support like the Americans did, but there's not a lot of incentive for them to do so given the costs and risks. The 'easy' path is to simply claim there's no "race" and just keep plugging along which is what they did OTL.

The problem is that even with the N1 (and arguably even the UR-700 monster) the actual planned Soviet mission was going to be rather marginal compared to the US one. Three was about the limit with two planned because of the need to depressurize the Soyuz to transfer to the lander and only one on the surface due to size of that lander.

The main question is can the USSR actually afford to go the US route?

Randy

 

[e of pi]

What's with the renewed interest in a Soviet Moon landing scenario? Just curious because I've seen a couple in the last few months suddenly

For All Mankind effect, I think?

 

[Brylyth]

Kind of related, but I have had a little doubt about the space race and this thread might work to awnser it.

The reason the US got to the moon is because they had the Saturn V while the USSR had the N1. The Saturn actually worked, while the N1 was started by Korolev but then he died and the engineers who picked up the prototype weren't up to make it work in time.

Why didn't the USSR just abandon the N1 and shift focus to using what they did have instead on the R7? Instead of a straight moonshot with a single vehicle, why not just split the load, assemble the thing in orbit and go skipping the annoying and hard step of making the N1 work? One rocket takes the Soyuz up, another takes the lander with some supplies in a automated launch, the Soyuz then meets up and they go from there? It might even be feasible to have 3 launches, with a 3rs one having the bulk of fuel/supplies/paraphernalia needed to get to the moon that might let the lander get away with a bigger safety margin to land and more cargo space to bring rocks back.

Sure it's more expensive than a single launch, and would take longer sue to the need to do orbital rendvous but os it that much worse than the single heavy rocket was better in every way?

And this plan would allow for the USSR to get there without Korelev. Maybe they would be willing to spend the extra cash if they found out how close the US was getting?

 

[22000 Kevin]

Well for all the criticism that the N1 gets it did almost complete its first stage burn in its fourth and final flight in 1972.

The Soviets would have likely seen its first successful flight of the upgraded N1F in 1974 had the rocket not been cancelled in that year, they were building 4 of them at that time with two of them only months away from launch before being scrapped by Glushko.

Abandoning N1 and moving to a Soyuz based moon landing would probably work but politically it will struggle.

 

[e of pi]

Kind of related, but I have had a little doubt about the space race and this thread might work to awnser it.

The reason the US got to the moon is because they had the Saturn V while the USSR had the N1. The Saturn actually worked, while the N1 was started by Korolev but then he died and the engineers who picked up the prototype weren't up to make it work in time.

Why didn't the USSR just abandon the N1 and shift focus to using what they did have instead on the R7? Instead of a straight moonshot with a single vehicle, why not just split the load, assemble the thing in orbit and go skipping the annoying and hard step of making the N1 work? One rocket takes the Soyuz up, another takes the lander with some supplies in a automated launch, the Soyuz then meets up and they go from there? It might even be feasible to have 3 launches, with a 3rs one having the bulk of fuel/supplies/paraphernalia needed to get to the moon that might let the lander get away with a bigger safety margin to land and more cargo space to bring rocks back.

Sure it's more expensive than a single launch, and would take longer sue to the need to do orbital rendvous but os it that much worse than the single heavy rocket was better in every way?

And this plan would allow for the USSR to get there without Korelev. Maybe they would be willing to spend the extra cash if they found out how close the US was getting?

Something like this was considered, the issue is you need a lot of launches not just three. R-7 only throws about 7 to 8 tons, so to get the ~90-100 tons minimum for a lunar flight, you're talking like 11-12 launches with a small fairing volume available by lunar standards. A multi-launch mission using the 20-ton Proton would have been more practical, but but in 1968/69 Proton reliability was only slightly better than n-1, with like an 80-90% failure rate.

N-1's issues weren't unsolvable, much like Proton's issues were worked through, but they hadn't had the money and time to have ground test infrastructure nor the ability to launch rockets fast enough to work through things empirically with in-flight testing (especially after the second flight failed so early it fell back and blew up one of the two pads).

EDIT: You can read here about early R-7 launched lunar orbiter plans, which needed five R-7 launches (Soyuz, TLI stage, three tankers) just to get to lunar orbit. It's just a lot less practical than a heavier lift vehicle, the only issue was the unexpectedly poor time getting N-1 organized and flying.

Although the future course of the Soviet space program was unclear when the Soyuz was conceived in 1959-62 (space stations, lunar missions or even a manned flight around Mars were considered), it was generally agreed on that rendezvous & docking would play a major role. So this requirement was part of the design right from the start. Like the US Apollo CSM, the new spacecraft (initially called "Sever" or South) would also be capable of flying around the Moon (Feoktistov, 1996). On 10 March 1962, actual work got underway when Korolev approved a document entitled 'Complex for the assembly of space vehicles in artificial satellite orbit (the Soyuz)'. This described a 3-man spacecraft that would dock in orbit with a stack of five separately launched solid rocket motors to boost 7K to the Moon, but other leading OKB-1 engineers convinced him this approach was not the right one. Korolev then turned to another system consisting of one manned spacecraft (Soyuz-A), a translunar injection stage containing automatic rendezvous and docking equipment (Soyuz-B) and three tanker spacecraft (Soyuz-V). The latter would refuel the Soyuz-B, which would dock with Soyuz-A, sending it on a circumlunar flyby. Initially, the "Soyuz complex" would allow the Soyuz to maneuver to high orbits and refuel the OS-1 space station. This plan was approved on May 10 1963 by Korolev, who already had experimented with launching two manned spacecraft at the same time during the Vostok 3,4 mission half a year earlier (Harvey, 1996). He also had plans for a manned lunar-landing craft that would have ferried cosmonauts between the lunar surface and a Soyuz craft in orbit around the Moon. But the Soviet leaders rejected both plans and continued to support Chelomei's LK-1 project.

 

[BlueTrousers]

EDIT: You can read here about early R-7 launched lunar orbiter plans, which needed five R-7 launches (Soyuz, TLI stage, three tankers) just to get to lunar orbit. It's just a lot less practical than a heavier lift vehicle, the only issue was the unexpectedly poor time getting N-1 organized and flying.

The original L1 scheme is surprisingly influential. Not only did it give us the 7K Soyuz, but the 9K stage ultimately became the Briz upper stage. It also tied in with the L2 scheme, intended to launch a lunar rover using the same architecture - it became Lunokhod. In the same development plan, L3 was the N1-based, 3-launch lunar landing I mentioned above, which came to nothing, though there are elements of it in the later L3M plan. L4 was a single-launch lunar orbiter using what effectively became the Soyuz 7K-LOK, so arguably has more to do with the flown L3 than the original proposal.

All in all, it seems like a pretty solid incremental developmental plan for orbital rendezvous and fuel transfer, lunar soft landing techniques, and crewed lunar surface exploration.

 

[Brylyth]

Something like this was considered, the issue is you need a lot of launches not just three. R-7 only throws about 7 to 8 tons, so to get the ~90-100 tons minimum for a lunar flight, you're talking like 11-12 launches with a small fairing volume available by lunar standards. A multi-launch mission using the 20-ton Proton would have been more practical, but but in 1968/69 Proton reliability was only slightly better than n-1, with like an 80-90% failure rate.

N-1's issues weren't unsolvable, much like Proton's issues were worked through, but they hadn't had the money and time to have ground test infrastructure nor the ability to launch rockets fast enough to work through things empirically with in-flight testing (especially after the second flight failed so early it fell back and blew up one of the two pads).

EDIT: You can read here about early R-7 launched lunar orbiter plans, which needed five R-7 launches (Soyuz, TLI stage, three tankers) just to get to lunar orbit. It's just a lot less practical than a heavier lift vehicle, the only issue was the unexpectedly poor time getting N-1 organized and flying.

Ah I get it now. The issue was the weight itself. Didn't occur to me to check the actual weights of the plans. If I had I might have realized 3 launches wouldn't have covered it.

 

[Seandineen]

Almost impossible without the Chief Designer. Sergei Korloev is a genius, who understood how to pacify the Politburo enough to get the Tovariches off his back.

 

[Ravinoff]

Almost impossible without the Chief Designer. Sergei Korloev is a genius, who understood how to pacify the Politburo enough to get the Tovariches off his back.

And the only person on the planet who could make sense of the thirty-engine first stage on the N1. I know Soviet rocket technology took some different paths from what the US developed (albeit mostly on the missiles side of things, not space launch), but...30 liquid-fueled rocket motors with their own individual plumbing, using a completely different feed system than other liquid-fuel rockets at that. And depending on how much longer Korolev lives than IOTL, things get potentially very interesting if the space race keeps going. Certain other people in the Soviet space program had big plans (Mikhail Tikhonravov) and a working N1 would be a major step towards the planned interplanetary missions that were proposed.

 

[RanulfC]

Almost impossible without the Chief Designer. Sergei Korloev is a genius, who understood how to pacify the Politburo enough to get the Tovariches off his back.

Except he didn't and couldn't. He fell out of favor with Chelomei and Glushko gaining favor which greatly reduced his influence and options. As noted the competative nature of the various "designers" was a major issue with the entire Soviet program.

And the only person on the planet who could make sense of the thirty-engine first stage on the N1. I know Soviet rocket technology took some different paths from what the US developed (albeit mostly on the missiles side of things, not space launch), but...30 liquid-fueled rocket motors with their own individual plumbing, using a completely different feed system than other liquid-fuel rockets at that. And depending on how much longer Korolev lives than IOTL, things get potentially very interesting if the space race keeps going. Certain other people in the Soviet space program had big plans (Mikhail Tikhonravov) and a working N1 would be a major step towards the planned interplanetary missions that were proposed.

Er, the Saturn 1 had a similar plumbing and feed design and had fewer issues and was a success from the start likely BECAUSE of the extensive test firing and quality control. The problem was there was no way to do such testing and checking on the N1. Korolev living longer does not actually effect these issues. Glushko proposed replacing the kerolox engines with much more powerful (and toxic) storable propellant engines (the RD-270) but neither Korolev nor the over-sight committee were willing to go that route so the large number of kerolox engines remained.

The 'focus' needed was at higher levels than the designers and you needed both a more supportive leadership AND a willingness to support and pay for an actual Lunar program neither of which was in place at the time. By the time the leadership was taking the American program seriously (1965+) it was already too late and to compound the problem the leadership STILL didn't 'choose' and option but chose and supported multiple options at the same time.

Randy

 

[Michel Van]

In Time line 2001: A space-time odyssey
Korolev hire Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita Khrushchev (instead Chelomei)
So Korolev has better connection to Nikita Khrushchev, to get more budget and material.
Also start USSR earlier the Moon race after Kennedy announce it in may 1961.
And Sergei Khrushchev manage to get N1 working after Korolev died.