soviet mars direct

lets say that some smart soviet space engineer comes up with Mars Direct style mission to mars.......
and the Gagarin survives his jet fighter crashing and pushes for a mission to the red planet......
the N1 is not cancelled, and succeeds on the fifth flight....and all flights after that....
can the soviets land a man on mars?
and what if they do?
 
Interesting topic... let's see what would happen.

1968: With the American landing of astronauts on the moon imminent and the Soviet lunar program in shambles, the Soviets decide to secretly work on sending a human to Mars, permanently.

1969: The N1 rocket spectacularly lifts off in a completely successful maiden flight.

1976: The even larger derivative of the N1, the N2, lifts off in a flawless maiden flight.

1976: NASA and the CIA think that the Russians are planning to send a larger spacecraft to the Moon with more people and establish a moon base.

1976: A fiscally responsible Congress and White House refuses to give NASA funds for continued Moon/Mars exploration, and asks that it focus on LEO stuff. Most people assume that the Soviets are just planning a big space station, or maybe a manned moon mission.

1981: An N2 rocket launches from Baikonur Cosmodrome, containing four cosmonauts, their "Mars house" and their life-support systems. Plans are to send additional N1 rockets repeatedly to send them supplies and spare parts once they land on the Red Planet.

1981: The Soviet Union announces its grand mission to Mars, when most people weren't expecting it.

1981: The Western world freaks out, realizing that it has been beaten in the space race. People start sketching plans for manned trips to Mars, the Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, and Venus. President Jimmy Carter, however, remains adamant that space exploration should be for the sake of science, and ramps up funding for unmanned space exploration.

1982: The cosmonauts are only 0.1 AU away from Mars when a coronal mass-ejection kills all of them.
 
KyleB would a CME kill all of them instantly? I thought that the cosmonauts would be exposed to them throughout their journey, and while there would be very nasty long term side effects, such as cancer, that it would not actually kill while in route?

However, I am not expert in anything space related so I could definitely be wrong.
 
KyleB would a CME kill all of them instantly? I thought that the cosmonauts would be exposed to them throughout their journey, and while there would be very nasty long term side effects, such as cancer, that it would not actually kill while in route?

However, I am not expert in anything space related so I could definitely be wrong.

There will always be a general trickle of radiation, both from the Sun and from galactic cosmic rays. This will cause cancer. How long before death? I'm not sure; it depends on the shielding of the spacecraft, though shielding can't delay the inevitable and there will always be some radiation entering the spacecraft.

A coronal mass-ejection, which is an infrequent but not rare occurrence, would cause acute radiation sickness which can easily prove fatal.

Apollo 17 launched just days after a CME, and if that event had happened a week later, Cernan and his crew would be dead.

Given that little was known about the harmful effects of radiation back then, and the Soviets' relatively low overall regard for the effects of radiation (November class subs, Chernobyl, etc.) I don't think that the Soviet spacecraft would have been adequately shielded to protect the cosmonauts.

They might have had a small, well-shielded "safe room" to weather the effects of a CME while it lasts. I'm still not very optimistic as to their chances of survival.
 
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N1 rocket was a very problematic concept. So many engines and so many things that could go wrong. Especially as the Soviets had real problems with quality control.

Soviets best hope was to go down the route of assembling a craft in orbit with 3 or so launches of a less aggressive launch vehicle. Then head off to the moon.

I think the N1 working as designed by the soviets is really out there.

Michael
 
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