The Space Race Never Ends

Archibald

Banned
Well, certainly, with no ABM or space demilitarization treaties, both we and the Russians WILL have some ABM systems in space, as well as anti-satellite and satellite defense system.

I did some extensive research on space ABM for my space TL, Explorers. And I've found some amazing things. Go figure: while Reagan bragged about Star wars in 1983, the Soviet space ABM program has actually started as early as 1976 !
The Soviet flew an Il-76 with a laser in the nose in 1981. Soon thereafter they decided to fly that same laser into orbit - hence Skif (better known as Polyus), the laser battlestation that failed to reach orbit in 1987. Three Skif were planned: Skif-DM was Polyus, essentially a mockup without much system operationnals. Skid D1 was to fly the Il-76 laser, while Skif D2 would have a full blown laser able to shoot down things in space.

Meanwhile they also developped a system, Kskad, that had kinetic killers - first on a Salyut, later on modified Progress cargo ships. Some of these military Progress were build (!) but at the end of cold War kaskad was cancelled and the Progress flew as civilian cargoes.

Amazingly, when Gorbatchev come into power in 1985 he knew absolutely nothing of either Kaskad, Skif or Polyus. The military hide the thing to him. Which is hardly surprising: Minister of rocketry was Oleg Baklanov. Well, a certain day of August 1991, the same Baklanov was one of the plotter in the failed coup...
 

jahenders

Banned
I did some extensive research on space ABM for my space TL, Explorers. And I've found some amazing things. Go figure: while Reagan bragged about Star wars in 1983, the Soviet space ABM program has actually started as early as 1976 !

Of course, ABM research actually began as early as WWII (to counter V-1s) with the first systems (Nike and Russian equivalents) fielded in the 50s.

The 1972 ABM treaty limited ABM systems to 100 interceptors to protect one target. The Russians deployed the A-35 Galosh around Moscow and the US briefly deployed the Safeguard system around missiles fields at Grand Forks.

The US effectively withdrew from the ABM treaty 2002.

As you no doubt know, the US now has several systems (Ground-Based Midcourse Defense), Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense, Terminal High-Altitude Are Defense, and Patriot) as part of it's Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS), though none are space based. Star Wars, Brilliant Pebbles, etc were all considered for space, but none have panned out thus far.
 
The Soviet flew an Il-76 with a laser in the nose in 1981. Soon thereafter they decided to fly that same laser into orbit - hence Skif (better known as Polyus), the laser battlestation that failed to reach orbit in 1987. Three Skif were planned: Skif-DM was Polyus, essentially a mockup without much system operationnals. Skid D1 was to fly the Il-76 laser, while Skif D2 would have a full blown laser able to shoot down things in space.

Meanwhile they also developped a system, Kskad, that had kinetic killers - first on a Salyut, later on modified Progress cargo ships. Some of these military Progress were build (!) but at the end of cold War kaskad was cancelled and the Progress flew as civilian cargoes.

How good were any of their space-based ABM systems?

My understanding of the US SDI programs is that all the space-based systems were proven quite impractical, with only Brilliant Pebbles having any promise. With laser weapons in particularly, I've read that the US couldn't figure out a way to get a powerful enough laser up there...

Were the Soviet efforts similar, or did they solve problems that were beyond the Americans?

fasquardon
 

jahenders

Banned
How good were any of their space-based ABM systems?

My understanding of the US SDI programs is that all the space-based systems were proven quite impractical, with only Brilliant Pebbles having any promise. With laser weapons in particularly, I've read that the US couldn't figure out a way to get a powerful enough laser up there...

Were the Soviet efforts similar, or did they solve problems that were beyond the Americans?

I think that's really hard to say. They loved the propaganda effect of being able to say they'd done some things, but that doesn't mean they'd work any more than the Star Wars pieces. The Russians may simply have been more willing to build and deploy them before finding out they were impractical.

That being said, the Russians supposedly started taking renewed interest in the Beriev A-60 (the IL-76 with a laser) as recently as 2010.
 

Archibald

Banned
How good were any of their space-based ABM systems?

My understanding of the US SDI programs is that all the space-based systems were proven quite impractical, with only Brilliant Pebbles having any promise. With laser weapons in particularly, I've read that the US couldn't figure out a way to get a powerful enough laser up there...

Were the Soviet efforts similar, or did they solve problems that were beyond the Americans?

fasquardon

Laws of Physic don't care about the Iron Curtain so I suppose they had teething problems, too.
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5501.10
http://danielmarin.naukas.com/2012/07/05/estaciones-espaciales-laser-de-combate/

http://www.airspacemag.com/space/soviet-star-wars-8758185/?page=2

the Soviet military accelerated work on the Polyus-Skif laser cannon to destroy SDI satellites. Up until then, the plan had been to use a powerful laser built by the Astrofizika design bureau. But that program had fallen behind; the Astrofizika laser and its power systems were too big and heavy for existing rockets to launch. So when Soviet engineers were told to pick up the pace on Skif, they came up with an interim plan. They would adapt a small, one-megawatt carbon dioxide laser that had already been tested on an Il-76 transport aircraft as a weapon against missiles. In August 1984, the new spacecraft was approved and designated Skif-D, the "D" standing for the Russian word for "demonstration."
 
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The problem is the Soviets just gave up. Their moon program was hardly anything and they stopped dining it. Compare it to the Nazi atomic bomb program.

Maybe the US makes clear they want to put weapons on the moon. The Soviets then quickly land on the moon. The US goes to Mars. It just escalates but it actually benefits mankind

As Trurle and Michel note, the Soviets *did* have a viable Manned Moon program, and devoted serious resources to it. The problem was that they started it too late, and failed to exert enough decisive program leadership to resolve rival bureaucratic fights over architecture. (Sergei Korolev's tragic death in 1966 did not help in this regard.) Which in turn denied the resources needed to resolve the reliability and safety issues Trurle speaks of. By the time the Zond program was just starting to bear fruit (late 1968), Apollo was moving into high gear. The Soviets by that point had only a marginal chance of beating the U.S. to cislunar space, and pretty much none of beating it to a landing, barring some really major setback to the Apollo Program (which would probably require something even more than a Loss of Crew - the Soviets were that far behind).

In fact, there's very good evidence now that the Soviets were a lot closer than was long thought to attempting a manned circumlunar Zond flight just before Apollo 8 in December 1968. Of course, it would have been an extraordinarily high risk mission even had it come off, given the reliability issues with the Proton, and reentry issues with the Zond. But they came close to trying, and even in that context, it wouldn't have taken much of a butterfly to make the mission happen (though perhaps with a high chance of Loss of Crew).

But you have hit on an important truth in noting that the Soviets "just gave up." Which they did, eventually, by 1974. But the Soviets really were the drivers in the Space Race; had it not been for Khrushchev's push of the Soviet manned program in the late 50's, Apollo would never have happened. Conversely, a Soviet effort to reach the Moon and establish a regular presence there would give Apollo a renewed lease on life...and then you'd see all that Apollo Applications architecture stay in the pipeline (i.e., ALSS, LESA, etc.). And yes, maybe even a military component, if Cold War tensions remain hot through the 70's.

The Soviets would have a hell of a time paying for it, though.
 
As for the space race stopping

a) Apollo was not a practical system to reach the lunar surface (7 stages, none reusable)
b) the so-called space race was just like the missile gap before it - an urban legend.

Oh, I think Apollo was practical. It just wasn't easily sustainable.

Apollo did exactly what it was supposed to do: Get men safely to the lunar surface and back and manage the feat as quickly as possible. Every architecture decision was made with that in mind.

That said, the hardware was robust enough that it could have been the basis of a more extensive lunar exploration effort had the political will (and thus money) was been there - moving to LESA man-tended bases by the mid-70's, and a permanent base based on same by the early 1980's - and really, the LESA development costs ($1.5 billion) would have been chickenfeed next to what Apollo development costs would have been.

The problem, of course, was that the political will wasn't there. Not once we'd gotten Neil Armstrong's footprints in the lunar regolith, and the Soviets were plainly no longer making a public effort to do the same or one-up. The will was thus no longer there to go for a manned base, or even to keep Apollo flying. And so we ended up with an unsustainable flags-and-footprints legacy for Apollo which has hobbled NASA ever since.

A public, serious Soviet effort to establish themselves on the Moon, along the lines contemplated in the original post, would likely ignite that will.
 
Oh, I think Apollo was practical. It just wasn't easily sustainable.

Apollo did exactly what it was supposed to do: Get men safely to the lunar surface and back and manage the feat as quickly as possible. Every architecture decision was made with that in mind.

That said, the hardware was robust enough that it could have been the basis of a more extensive lunar exploration effort had the political will (and thus money) was been there - moving to LESA man-tended bases by the mid-70's, and a permanent base based on same by the early 1980's - and really, the LESA development costs ($1.5 billion) would have been chickenfeed next to what Apollo development costs would have been.

The problem, of course, was that the political will wasn't there. Not once we'd gotten Neil Armstrong's footprints in the lunar regolith, and the Soviets were plainly no longer making a public effort to do the same or one-up. The will was thus no longer there to go for a manned base, or even to keep Apollo flying. And so we ended up with an unsustainable flags-and-footprints legacy for Apollo which has hobbled NASA ever since.

A public, serious Soviet effort to establish themselves on the Moon, along the lines contemplated in the original post, would likely ignite that will.

Considering how close the Americans came to giving up the moon race before Kennedy became a martyr, I wonder if the Soviets going to the moon would have really been enough to spur the Americans into going further unless the Soviets REALLY showed the Americans up (like a permanent moon base or a Mars mission).

fasquardon
 
Considering how close the Americans came to giving up the moon race before Kennedy became a martyr, I wonder if the Soviets going to the moon would have really been enough to spur the Americans into going further unless the Soviets REALLY showed the Americans up (like a permanent moon base or a Mars mission).

fasquardon

I think you probably need a Soviet public push for a base, at least a man-tended one.
 
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