No Cancer for Korolev...

MacCaulay

Banned
In the vein of "Von Braun lives Longer," I figured I'd pitch this one that I'd had banging around for awhile. I watched a National Geographic channel special on the space race, and it was interesting just how bad the timing was for Korolev's retirement and then death.
The lunar program seemed to be in it's final stages, but there were still problems to overcome and there didn't seem to be another person who had the ability to think through problems like he did.

So...come on space junkies...what if cancer hadn't taken Korolev?
 
Well...now, that one's interesting. Korolev's genius was in management and politics, rather like Webb, not actual rocket design. The butterflies this one would have are rather large due to that, especially since the OTL successor to Korolev, Mishin, was rather his antithesis. Of course, Korolev had so many other health problems beyond "just" undetected metastatized colon cancer that it's a real question how much longer he could have lived anyways.

The most likely things for this POD to push are first the Soyuz and second the N1 programs. Both of those suffered tremendously from poor management and repeated delays and errors. Generally, this period was the nadir of the Soviet space program. To quote Siddiqi,

during [Mishin's] tenure [1966-1974]...[there occurred] the Soyuz 1 and 11 fatalities, which killed four Soviet cosmonauts. There were also the docking failures in Soyuz 2/3, Soyuz 7/8 and Soyuz 10, the repeated failures in the L1 [circumlunar spaceship] and DOS [large space station] programs, and finally...the incredible catastrophes and delays in the N1 rocket program

I'm honestly not sure what effect having Korolev in there would have, especially since some of the problems of the Soviet space program were not Korolev's fault. For example, the Proton was initially very very unreliable; of the first few launches, the majority--an absolute majority--failed. And this was to be the L1 launcher!
 

Cook

Banned
Russia’s space program problems were in manufacturing and quality control. Blaming management and design really ignores the problem endemic to all Russian industry during the Soviet era.
 
Russia’s space program problems were in manufacturing and quality control. Blaming management and design really ignores the problem endemic to all Russian industry during the Soviet era.

Well yes. My point was in fact that the period 1966-1974 was in many ways the absolute nadir of the Soviet space program, and that keeping Korolev alive may not change that much, at all. Past 1974 it started getting better, if only because ambitions were scaled down, a lot of the old guard was dying off, and the leadership had become more consolidated, especially with Glushko taking over OKB-1, the historical home of anti-Glushko feelings.
 

Cook

Banned
What I’m saying is that wishing that Korolev had lived longer is blaming management and design for things going wrong when really the problem was manufacturing and quality control.

You had rockets being built by a nation that struggled to manufacture a reliable tractor.
 
What I’m saying is that wishing that Korolev had lived longer is blaming management and design for things going wrong when really the problem was manufacturing and quality control.

You had rockets being built by a nation that struggled to manufacture a reliable tractor.

Well, they were doing all right up until he died after all, and as I said that was directly followed by the nadir, the Dark Years of the Soviet program. It's understandable people wonder WI about him not dying.

Besides, the Soviets were not all THAT bad. Except for the nadir, most of their stuff worked most of the time. For their manned stuff, it worked almost all the time (there haven't been ANY lethal Soyuz failures since Soyuz 11, IIRC). After that, their biggest problem was wasting money on Energia-Buran and the repeated failures of their Mars missions (seriously, not a single Soviet Mars mission has been particularly successful).
 
Tragedy upon tragedy

Well, they were doing all right up until he died after all, and as I said that was directly followed by the nadir, the Dark Years of the Soviet program. It's understandable people wonder WI about him not dying.

Besides, the Soviets were not all THAT bad. Except for the nadir, most of their stuff worked most of the time. For their manned stuff, it worked almost all the time (there haven't been ANY lethal Soyuz failures since Soyuz 11, IIRC). After that, their biggest problem was wasting money on Energia-Buran and the repeated failures of their Mars missions (seriously, not a single Soviet Mars mission has been particularly successful).
Not to mention the Totally Denied Never Ever Happened REALLY Comrade Zond Soviet Moon Rocket Program.:rolleyes: It may sound cruel, and it is, but the lack of cancer wouldn't have made a big difference. His health was wrecked for life by spending years in a soviet slave labor gold mine (the name escapes me at the moment-Golmya?) where conditions were horrific even by the standards of Stalin's gulag.

Anyone having doubts about where the Sov program was going need only look at the immediate history of the program before he died. "The Voshkod Follies", a series of dramatic stunts using a one-man capsule (Vostok) reconfigured for two and then three cosmonauts. All designed for the splashy spectacular "Firsts". Nothing else, including R&D, mattered. Also, the US devoted 4 times the number of aerospace engineers in NASA as opposed to the Soviets. The US had caught up by Mercury, slightly passed with Gemini, and (with the exception of the Apollo 1 tragedy, where NASA had started taking a page from the Soviet program) with Apollo 8 pulled so far out in front the Soviets terminated their moon program and then fiercely denied it ever existed. The Zond 1st stage had 32 engines. The Saturn V had three. Can you say moving parts? I wish Korolev had lived to be 100. Maybe he would have gained enough influence to prevent the Salyut 1 tragedy (Two per Soyuz, not 3!).:(
 
Not to mention the Totally Denied Never Ever Happened REALLY Comrade Zond Soviet Moon Rocket Program.:rolleyes: It may sound cruel, and it is, but the lack of cancer wouldn't have made a big difference. His health was wrecked for life by spending years in a soviet slave labor gold mine (the name escapes me at the moment-Golmya?) where conditions were horrific even by the standards of Stalin's gulag.

Mentioned all this in my first post! :) By manned stuff I meant manned stuff that was actually launched; even if some of it was stupid and dangerous, you can't deny that there have been remarkably few deaths in the Soviet/Russian program.
 

Cook

Banned
Well that’s what happens when you blame failures on a lack of party loyalty and think production will be improved by shooting or imprisoning engineers who can meet impossible productivity quotas.
 

Archibald

Banned
Look at the problem from the following perspective.

You have four titans in the soviet space program

- Korolev
- Yangel
- Chelomei
(rockets)

- Glushko (engines)

Not only Glushko refused to build the engines Korolev needed for its N1. Thirty years earlier, it had been Glushko that had denonciated Korolev and send him to the gulag.

In the gulag Korolev lost all its teeths, and developed the earth ilness that finally killed him 30 years later. Plus the aferomentioned cancer.

I think a nice POD for the soviet space program would be to destroy the Ustinov-Glushko connection. Then have Korolev live longer, or
Chelomei favoured by Brejnev.

Krutchev liked Chelomei very much, Krutchev's son and Chelomei were very close friends. Once Krutchev was ousted of power, Chelomei plans were dead. Glushko and Ustinov made him paid very high his connection with Krutchev son.
 
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