SunlitZelkova

Sounds like depression.

If it succeeded they'd be forced to use it a little bit, but by cancelling it before it could have a successful flight they could write off the program as hopeless. It was probably a good thing though, because if N1 succeeded there might not have been Mir, only more failed lunar flights. I see what your thinking. Wasn't the R-7 mass produced though? There were like a thousand launches in the 70s because of that satellite mapping program I forget the name of. I think this is feasible if Stalin died a little earlier, and wasn't able to sign the decree authorizing the development of the R-6. Maybe Chelomei wouldn't have lost his bureau then too.

Thank you for the informative post. Good point. I think most of their plans were feasible in theory but matched up with neither the political commitment or economic feasibility, along with underlying issues with Soviet technology. I didn't know that, that's interesting to know. The N1 was mainly cancelled because the CPSU and military did not care for it after the Americans beat them. Three days before Mishin was even dismissed, Grechko signed an order forbidding further launches. Glushko also desired to spite Korolyov's work because of his bad relationship with him. Actual questions of whether it was useful played little role in deciding to cancel it. Former VPK head Smirnov said in 1991 that the leadership was afraid it would succeed, and that's why they cancelled it. Saturn rockets were so expensive they had to be cancelled, I think Delta would be a better example of industrialism. Even Titan wasn't launched that often. UR series is an example of industrialism, but we'll never know if Energia could have been because there wasn't a healthy economy to fund it. We'll never know if N1 was industrial or not. It was crafted in segments in Kuybyshev and then shipped to Baikonur for assembly. But they never really had a regular production line like Saturn did, instead producing a couple rockets at a time only. 15 Saturn Vs were ordered and all were built between 1965 and 1968, but 16 of the N1 were ordered and only three were on hand after 1966-1969, and then one at a time over the next couple years. The 10th one wasn't even complete by 1974. If it worked they would have used it for something, and the upgrades with better upper stages were viable. Blok SR could take 24 tons to the Moon. It still would require a docking though. Like I said, the 60s was barnyard rocketry. Saturn V, N1, Vulkan were all too ahead of their time. The economy wasn't there to support such a large program. Apollo and L3 might as well have been the GIRD-09s of the 1960s. They weren't feasible in the long term. Vulkan was a crazy proposal on Glushko's part considering he just cancelled a lunar base program. Even Energia was questionable for lunar missions. The Energia based Moon mission still had a separate LOK and LK, just like L3M, that needed to dock in orbit around the Moon. On the other hand, there was more experience with dockings from Salyut by that time, so maybe it wouldn't be as dangerous.

That’s difficult when you yourself have brought up political topics like how much a government can intervene in a family’s right to choose when and the debate on capitalism, which are literally politics. This has nothing to do with science or spaceflight.

I was gonna hold off on replying but I feel like this could be a fun discussion. So, Successful flight of the N1 might not have allowed a lunar landing (apparently all of the ones that flew but the last one did not even have a throw weight high enough to even carry both the LOK and LK), especially considering that given the L1 had all the problems it did with solar panels, who knows how many issues the LOK would have had with its fuel cells. On the other hand the LK was tested in LEO in 1971 and worked perfectly. But anyways, what a successful N1 flight would allow would be the launch of MKBS, the modular space station made of roughly two Skylab sized modules. So stations would not have slowed down, especially considering a number of DOS and OPS failed during or shortly after launch in the 70s. They had plans for the L3M complex, launched on a variant of the N1 with a hydrogen upper stage. Because of the death of Isayev and potential problems with fuel cells, it probably wouldn’t have succeeded, but in theory, the N1 could be upgraded. The 60s was basically barn yard rocketry anyways. Saturn V was never meant to be sustainable and neither would N1 be. They were both way ahead of their time. It’s very possible that even if the N1 did have a successful flight, say around 1971, it would have been cancelled anyway like the Saturn V was. So my 80s Moon base tale at the end of the post was a fantasy. But it’s fun to dream.

https://x.com/cnspaceflight/status/1770252121784701029?s=46&t=Jd73T2beq0JLNtwTy1uR5A Queqiao-2 lunar relay satellite lifts off on a Long March 8 from Wenchang. Chang’e 6 lunar sample return mission to the South Pole will follow soon! The various parts of the Long March 5 have already arrived at Hainan for assembly.

Make love cat videos, not war artillery shells!

I feel like that was just a ploy for media attention. ”Beating Elon to Mars” is so vague it could mean anything. *FH launches probe to Mars* “Um, actually we meant humans.” *Starship launches humans to Mars* “Um, actually we meant building a base or colony.” *SpaceX builds small outpost on Mars* “Um, actually we were talking about how we already beat them to Mars by holding shares in ULA which launched Perseverance before Starship even flew lolololo.”

Apparently not a MAX, but an Alaska 737, also in the Portland area, arrived with at the airport cracked windshield. https://www.koin.com/news/portland/alaska-airlines-flight-cracked-windshield-safe-landing/

-snip- It got too political so I’ll PM you.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ef8124031cfcf448b11db32/t/5f1c3d55d311d6348af232b6/1595686238201/Siddiqi+What+if+Korolev+Had+Lived+2019.pdf Article from Quest magazine by leading American historian of the Soviet space program Dr. Asif Siddiqi. He paints a picture of what he thinks would have happened if Korolyov lived (For All Mankind's premise) based on his years of research. Even if he survived the surgery, he probably would have only lived for a few months. But for the sake of the scenario he assumed he lives 2 to 3 years longer. 1. Voskhod-3 and Voskhod-4 fly, with Voskhod-3 having two crew and breaking the spaceflight duration record again and Voskhod-4 having an all female crew. 2. There is an attempt to launch a 7K-L1 (Zond) with a crew in early December 1968 ahead of Apollo, but it would probably fail because historically the booster that would have been used had issues and failed to launch the payload it had IRL. 3. The N1 might have flown in 1968 on schedule due to better quality control under Korolyov's management, but it would still explode anyways, the only difference is when. At a "maniacal pace of work" the N1 might have had a successful flight by the end of 1969 but not in time to beat Apollo. That assumes a lot of luck, something the Soviets didn't have much of. IIRC both the Soyuz-1 and Soyuz-11 disasters' investigations stated the circumstances that allowed the accident to happen were almost inexplicable. This might have been a way of saving the workers responsible for the spacecraft, but the details do make it seem that way. (The following is my speculation) It's a cool scenario though, because if the N1 succeeded, it probably would have continued development despite not allowing them to be first, leading to a three man Soviet lunar landing around 1974 or a little later. The Soviets then might build their own lunar base instead of embarking on the pointless Buran project, prompting the Americans to return to the Moon in the 1980s or 1990s.

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/books/sovietReach/index.pdf A brief history of the Soviet Moonshot project, for anyone uninitiated and interested.

Do we know if it was in the predetermined spots though? What is the possibility there wasn't enough control (and clearly was not enough control of Starship during reentry) that it went outside the designated landing/impact zones?

You would be mistaken because none of that is different from any other social media app. Facebook asks for access to my contacts all the time, among other things. I have also granted it access to my location to make tagging local businesses easy when I post. I agree it is a security threat, but I don't think banning it is the best course. For one thing it echoes what China does to its own people with X and other Western social media apps, second, if it's a problem for government employees and journalists, government employees and journalists just need to not use it. Are they that stupid that the government has to outlaw something that is a danger to them instead of being able to handle it on their own? What's next? Outlawing relationships for government employees and journalists because both romantic partners and friends could compromise them?

So I’m assuming when I write some space alternate histories I can take liberties with the way some celestial events happen. For example, I assume asteroids bouncing around the solar system during its early era was so chaotic, an asteroid or comet (I can’t remember which I was told it would be off the top of my head) could have hit Mars and given it the thick atmosphere needed for the 1950s glider missions to succeed. But what about solar activity? Is that pretty random (like how weather can be plausibly altered in alternate history) or is it something you can expect to happen no matter what? Kinda like how the isthmus of Panama was always going to form, and you can’t really write it away without going into fantasy territory when it comes to tectonics. I ask because there was a big CME in 1973, which would have ruined the Apollo Manned Venus Flyby project. I’m wondering if an alternate history in which it succeeds would be more realistic writing away the CME or just having the astronauts all die.

Lol TikTok being banned isn’t going to kill the culture associated with it. Someone’s just going to make a new app with the same features and it will continue. YouTube shorts is already a viable backup. Vine existed long before TikTok. The “short video-short attention span” brains are never going to go away.

Hey now, Skylab was pretty big in its own right.

They said on the SpaceX stream they were deliberately not going to soft land it. There were no recovery assets out there, after all. What is your point? The answer is that problem, if it exists, is just to do more testing. I imagine your solution to this would be to build a single stack SLS based lunar landing architecture, but that is not going to solve the problem any faster than further testing of Raptor- it will just take longer. If you want to get to the Moon fast, we need to have faith in Starship and continue testing it. Not drop it and start on a new design. Starting a second design when something is already in testing is what helped kill the Soviet N1 lunar landing program, and it is often speculated that if NASA had elected to build any of the Lunar Gemini concepts that were touted as a “faster” way to the Moon- that coincidentally are not unlike your SLS based frankenrocket proposals- it probably would have delayed a Moon landing past Kennedy’s 1969 goal.

I'm glad the "Alaska" flight I'm flying on this summer is actually a Horizon Air flight on an Embraer something.

It kinda makes sense to me. “If you don’t have a smart phone you probably don’t have the money and sense to buy our products.” It’s cruel, but there is a twisted logic to it. I for one will not be frequenting Dutch Bros because even though I have a smart phone I dislike how they don’t have a proper physical menu. I’ll stick with Starbucks. I tried to tell my sister it was elitist for them not to have physical menus and she didn’t believe me!

Not exactly. The only thing launching next year is the LEO version of the Long March 10, which is a single stick/core. We don’t even know when recovery will begin, construction has not begun on a recovery ship. We would know if this was happening probably, believe me, there are A LOT of people watching what happens at Chinese shipyards. I do not believe a Falcon 9 Heavy based plan will allow any cheaper or regular access to the Moon than a Starship one. Now, that’s not to say it could be improved. Instead of trying to rework the lander (which hopefully IFT-3 will prove is coming along just fine tomorrow), the crew launch vehicle needs to be reworked. To do this all we need to do is throw out SLS. Have crew launch to LEO on F9 and Crew Dragon, dock with Starship and then go to the Moon. This removes the dangerous flight in a tiny capsule, something Apollo dealt with by having a separate lunar module (lifeboat). It also uses an existing vehicle, not requiring any new dev which could take years. Even with SLS the chances are still pretty high we’ll be on the Moon at least a couple years before China. But if we try to build a new lander vehicle? Kiss that goodbye. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and China doesn’t seem to care whether they beat us or not, but apparently a lot of Artemis supporters do. I for one couldn’t care less.

Kind of expected from the mission statement (focus on cheap materials instead of reusability), but I hope they can work it out. https://jp.reuters.com/business/5XP3FIQZQVOYLKL3VUCN5QVA5U-2024-03-13/ According to a press conference with the CEO, investigation is underway into what happened.

It's a much better take than the Netflix documentary. I like how they review past aviation incidents when talking about possibilities. Although they do talk about a couple conspiracy theories, it only last for a minute or so, and it isn't presented as a "subtle truth" in the same way the Netflix one did. Compared to this, the Netflix one really looks like it was created to peddle conspiracies.

I just watched the MH370 documentary series on Netflix and boy is it a steaming hot load of garbage. 1. These people seem to not know a lot and be in total denial. Aircraft vanishing without a trace has happened before, and yet we moved on. Finding things in the ocean is hard, yes, iN tHis DaY aNd agE things do go missing and can’t be found. There are still massive WWII ship wrecks we can’t locate. How are we supposed to figure out where a plane that’s been blown into pieces is? 2. It legitimizes conspiracy theories. There’s a funny moment in the first episode where a journalist called Jeff Wise talks about “going through heaps of trash” on the internet; baseless theories about what happened. But his arguments and the theory of a French journalist called Florence basically rely on the same logic, rhetoric, assumptions, and tactics as any other more fantastic conspiracy theory involving aliens or the Bermuda Triangle. Yet, the producers chose to present their theories as the mainstream ones. 3. It is too heavily dramatized and focusing on shock and mystery instead of facts. The wreckage found in Madagascar, the route on the computer simulator, and the military radar data are rejected for ridiculous reasons (“One guy couldn’t possibly find that much,” “The pilot seemed like a good man/there was this random peculiarity in the flight simulator data,” “there are no radar images,” “they didn’t scramble.” Aircraft control and air intercept radars don’t produce recorded images. It isn’t satellite SAR. Of course one guy will find all the debris if no one else is looking on the beaches. Of course the pilot would use the cursor to drag the plane to the southern Indian Ocean, who would fly in a straight line for hours on their flight sim just to crash? Did the journalist even know if fighter jets were based at the airport it flew over? It could have been full of transports? The documentary’s one saving grace is Blaine (the guy who found wreckage on the beach), Mike (an aviation expert who worked on the fact supported Indian Ocean theory), and the former commander of the search effort from Australia. As the former commander says, “opinions are like [redacted], everyone’s got one.” At the very least after leading people along with these garbage theories backed up by pure rhetoric and connect the dots instead of evidence, it tries to debunk them in the end. Unfortunately, I’m highly skeptical the average viewer will see it that way. By allowing the conspiracy theorists to paint themselves as “journalists” and “experts,” they legitimize the theories in the eyes of the average viewer and cause them to stick compared to the 3 minute rebuttal at the end. I swear, I’m afraid for the world and society if this is what passes as good journalism or education nowadays. It’s very disappointing compared to how well done the Challenger disaster documentary series was done. I believe the families interviewed are simply in denial. MH370 is not “the future of aviation safety” as they claimed recently on the 10th anniversary. It’s an echo of the past, and can just be thrown in the disappearance bin alongside Star Tiger and Star Ariel. In this world things go bump in the night and sometimes can’t be found anymore. They need to accept that instead of becoming conspiracy theorists rivaling David Icke in their tenacity. It’s not healthy and is a bad precedent for how we as a society respond to future disasters and incidents.

Knowing it’s his 90th makes me wonder how long he would have lived if he didn’t die in the plane crash. Leonov lived to 85, and Tereshkova is still alive.