I wonder why the Russians stopped their lunar program?

[Pawelk198604]

USSR beat them, but they beat USA in space exploration many times, yet USA don't quit their space program.

Yes their will not be first on the Moon, but does is so important.

Robert Falcon Scott was second on South Pole, but wasn't forgotten.

Human must return to Moon, regardless who done this

America(again) this time teamed with EU.

Russia

China.

Human must return for many reason.

1st because Lunar mission are awesome:D

2nd We can learn more about early days of earth.

3rd prove that human spirit prevail, today most people are so wimpy, i think that our parents or grandparents in case of younger KSP community members, ware more active i mean more courageous, in both western and eastern block, my mom was volleyball player, she was not "professional" albeit in former eastern block it was pure amateurism (at lest "officially") my mom was good enough, that she was asked to play for Poland(Polish People's Republic) Volleyball national team, but she was refused, my mom told my that she was mad at the couch, because he not take her to 1964 Olympic games in Japan:D My mom now said it was silly at at her part that she rejected.

Now i read and article that many parents are so overprotective that ban their kids sport, because it's to dangerous. (In my case it was opposite by mom persuaded my to sport, but i'm not like it, now i'm fatty )

4th reason to explore Mun are that it has loot resources, the mining moon resources maybe very profitable

Edited September 3, 2014 by Pawelk198604
stupid mistake

[Ralathon]

Because:

1st because Lunar mission are awesome

2nd We can learn more about early days of earth.

3rd prove that human spirit prevail, today most people are so wimpy, i think that our parents or grandparents in case of younger KSP community members, ware more active i mean more courageous, in both western and eastern block, my mom was volleyball player, she was not "professional" albeit in former eastern block it was pure amateurism (at lest "officially") my mom was good enough, that she was asked to play for Poland(Polish People's Republic) Volleyball national team, but she was refused, my mom told my that she was mad at the couch, because he not take her to 1964 Olympic games in Japan My mom now said it was silly at at her part that she rejected.

Now i read and article that many parents are so overprotective that ban their kids sport, because it's to dangerous. (In my case it was opposite by mom persuaded my to sport, but i'm not like it, now i'm fatty )

4th reason to explore Mun are that it has loot resources, the mining moon resources maybe very profitable

are ........ reasons to send humans. A lot of other things are awesome as well, robotic probes can do any science a human can, why would we need to prove 'human spirit' to ourselves and the moon is a horrible source for in situ resources.

Human lunar missions are exceedingly expensive and don't do anything that a robot cant. The only reason anyone ever bothered was the biggest dickwagging competition in human history between the USA and the USSR.

[Red Iron Crown]

USA beat them, but they beat USA in space exploration many times, yet USA don't quit their space program.

The USSR/Russia didn't exactly quit their space program either. In many ways it has been more successful than the US program.

[xenomorph555]

The Russians had 2 lunar programs, one was cancelled while the other was mostly finished.

The Soviet manned program lost in the moon race because politicians do not understand science, they saw it as a race and started late and did not fund it enough, when they lost they didn't see a reason to continue and cut funding. Poor soviet scientists who put so much time into their work . Also the space station project was taking up resources.

The unmanned robots program however was a major success, not only did it beat the Americans to many things it gained massive amounts of data about the moon, by the 24th mission they had completed all the goals they had set for themselves and had gathered most of the data possible to get at the time. With the project basically complete it was stopped so other projects such as commercial sats could start or continue.

In summary, moon projects were stopped to make way for other projects, because they were complete, because they costed a lot or political reasons.

[Pawelk198604]

The USSR/Russia didn't exactly quit their space program either. In many ways it has been more successful than the US program.

What do you mean?

[Red Iron Crown]

What do you mean?

I mean that the Soviet and later Russian space program went on to many successes after losing the race to a manned moon landing. They basically ran the show in space stations until ISS (and ISS began with Russian modules), they have the most reliable and cost effective launcher system, they have one of the few man-rated launch systems in current use, etc, etc.

To imply that they quit their space program after the manned lunar program failed is a bit of a falsehood.

[Sky_walker]

Yep. Basically: US won a space race, but ever since manned space exploration is pretty much lead by USSR/Russia - both: on a practical and technological frontier. Even more so since Space Shuttle got retired (though space shuttles, at least in that form, where a miserable mistake - Russians seen that, US didn't till few years ago, heck: some people in US still consider it to be a great idea - but... I'm going off topic here). It might change in future though - not as much as NASA taking over the lead, cause SLS keeps on being troublesome and Orion will never compete with Soyuz, not in it's current form, but with commercials companies taking over. Space tourism will be a real, large market to explore, and hopefully - this will eventually benefit scientific goals too (it actually already started to happen with Dream Chaser signing contracts to cooperate with ESA and JAXA).

Edited September 3, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Kryten]

If you're using a real definition for 'exploration', then space exploration has been led by the US, unquestionably. Russia's orbital scientific programs are few and far between, and the planetary exploration program hasn't successfully put a payload out of earth orbit since before the collapse of the USSR.

[Godot]

The Russians had 2 lunar programs, one was cancelled while the other was mostly finished.

The Soviet manned program lost in the moon race because politicians do not understand science, they saw it as a race and started late and did not fund it enough, when they lost they didn't see a reason to continue and cut funding. Poor soviet scientists who put so much time into their work . Also the space station project was taking up resources.

...

I guess part of this also had to do with the deadly accidents that overshadowed the sowjet attempts at the moon race

and the loss of engineers in the project due to political reasons

[Brethern]

I mean that the Soviet and later Russian space program went on to many successes after losing the race to a manned moon landing. They basically ran the show in space stations until ISS (and ISS began with Russian modules), they have the most reliable and cost effective launcher system, they have one of the few man-rated launch systems in current use, etc, etc.

To imply that they quit their space program after the manned lunar program failed is a bit of a falsehood.

Also didn't the soyuz from fairly early on have a space toilet instead of bags and hoses?

[VirtualCLD]

I can see this thread devolving (I know that's not a real word) very quickly, but I will add to what others have said. If you look at the Russian/Soviet program post-Apollo, they did amazing work in manned orbital programs. Specifically, they lead the way to the current ISS with the whole modular space station design/format. I would say both the US and the Russian programs have done pretty darn well for themselves over the years, the US is just a little better at marketing/PR. Both countries have still visited the moon since the Apollo days, they've just done it with orbiters and landers. (Not to mention other countries joining in). Collecting data over a long period of time is a lot more useful than all of the resources needed to send human-rated rockets to the moon and back. Great, now this thread is going to devolve into human vs. robotic spaceflight. Oh well, I tried...

[Kryten]

Except the last Soviet Moon mission was in 1976. Every single planetary mission since then has been at least a partial failure, and all since 1988 have failed completely. Their current capability is behind India, never mind the US.

[Mazon Del]

There was a history channel special on the Soviet space program a while back, it was quite good. One of the reasons their manned program fell apart was actually the N1 rocket detonation. It was the second launch of the N1 and the rocket detonated with a nearful full fuel tank on the pad as a result of a loose bolt getting sucked into an oxygen pump. The explosion is one of the largest man made non-nuclear detonations in history. There were quite a few casualties as a result, including a bunker filled with the higher ups in the Soviet government that were behind the manned program. As a result of their loss and the repeated failures of the rocket, the opponents of the manned program were easily able to defund and cancel it.

[Kryten]

That would work, except none of the N1 explosions actually killed anybody. What do you expect from the channel that publishes Ancient Aliens?

[Pawelk198604]

I wonder does the N1 rocket if it was working good, does ii can mach Saturn V

Edited September 3, 2014 by Pawelk198604

[xenomorph555]

I wonder does the N1 rocket if it was working good, does ii can mach Saturn V

The N-1 version 1 could take up 95 tonnes, the second version (N-1F) could take 130 tonnes so yes.

On a side note a lot of people get the second N-1 explosion (no deaths) with the R-16 missle test (+200 deaths).

[montyben101]

The N1 blew up on every single launch

[Sky_walker]

If you're using a real definition for 'exploration', then space exploration has been led by the US, unquestionably. Russia's orbital scientific programs are few and far between, and the planetary exploration program hasn't successfully put a payload out of earth orbit since before the collapse of the USSR.

US lost it's essential leading role, being a driving motor of a manned space exploration, after the space race just like NASA lost a large portion of it's funding. Their only real success in terms of manned missions was ISS... if you can qualify that as an US success - I would argue that you can't cause even though US does provide majority of funding - station couldn't be done without international support, with russians playing key role there - heck: right now it's Russia that keeps ISS alive, not US. US can't even send one person onboard without Russian help. ISS would still be build without US help - as a Mir 2, sure, it'd be delayed and smaller, but still there. On the other hand - Space Station Freedom would never happen on it's own. Ok, to be fair - you might add 171 days of Skylab to that list of successes, as it was put on orbit after the space race though whatever it was a success or a very expensive failure still remains debatable.

In either case though - don't overestimate the importance of USA.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Kryten]

US lost it's essential leading role, being a driving motor of a manned space exploration, after the space race just like NASA lost a large portion of it's funding.

That's is no such thing as 'manned space exploration', unless you stretch the word 'exploration' past breaking point. The US has retained actual exploration capability, Russia has nothing but Soyuz and various communications and weather sats.

[Sky_walker]

That's is no such thing as 'manned space exploration'

Depends on a definition, really.

The US has retained actual exploration capability,

Unmanned exploration capability. Which, by the way, even India has.

I'm not disputing that.

Russia has nothing but Soyuz

And US doesn't even have an equivalent to that. Right now only Chinese do.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Sky_walker

[Kryten]

Depends on a definition, really.

Why would anybody's definition include the ISS? It's in one of the most heavily exploited areas in existence, to the point it's regularly threatened by dead sats. There's very little useful left to do there.

Unmanned exploration capability. Which, by the way, even India has.

I'm not disputing that.

Think about that yourself. MOM is already more successful than anything out of Russia since '88. What does that tell you about relative capability?

And US doesn't even have an equivalent to that. Right now only Chinese do.

They've got five under development. Right now it's looking like the gap will be on the order of five-six years, and by the end of it they'll have developed at least one new crewed spacecraft; another thing the way Russians only have limited capability to do. At the current rate, the Indians will have their own crewed craft ready before the Russians.

[Sky_walker]

Why would anybody's definition include the ISS? It's in one of the most heavily exploited areas in existence, to the point it's regularly threatened by dead sats. There's very little useful left to do there.

You should really educate yourself on ISS research. We're barely scratching the surface.

Think about that yourself. MOM is already more successful than anything out of Russia since '88. What does that tell you about relative capability?

You mean in what? Flying? So far it haven't done almost anything at all other than that. Let's not go ahead of ourselves

Russians meanwhile got stuff like Spektr-R, constant presence and research on ISS, and a dead-Geckos satellite (long live the memory of their space-... adventure), hehehehe

At the current rate, the Indians will have their own crewed craft ready before the Russians.

At a current rate NASA won't have any manned space craft done ever, cause everything will keep on being delayed and delayed till oblivion.

[Kryten]

You should really educate yourself on ISS research. We're barely scratching the surface.

You've pretty much reached the limits of the crewed platform. Why do you think things like Foton or Bion exists? Human presence ruins most experiments sensitive enough to have to be put into space in the first place.

You mean in what? Flying? So far it haven't done almost anything at all other than that. Let's not go ahead of ourselves

Exactly my point. All it's done is put itself on a Mars intercept trajectory; that's more than any Russian probe has ever done. Don't forget they had Chandrayaan 1 as well; it may have ended prematurely, but it successfully entered lunar orbit and returned months of science data;, whereas Russia hasn't even reached 'make spacecraft respond to commands'.

Russians meanwhile got stuff like Spektr-R, constant presence and research on ISS, and a dead-Geckos satellite (long live the memory of their space-... adventure), hehehehe

The Gecko sat was an ancient Vostok-based design, and Spektr-R was literally designed 30 years ago. I'm not saying they don't have the capability they have, I'm saying they've lost the ability to build on it.

At a current rate NASA won't have any manned space craft done ever, cause everything will keep on being delayed and delayed till oblivion.

CCDEV is still on track for 2017/early 2018.

Edited September 4, 2014 by Kryten

[Godot]

US lost it's essential leading role, being a driving motor of a manned space exploration, after the space race just like NASA lost a large portion of it's funding. Their only real success in terms of manned missions was ISS...

I disagree.

IMHO the space shuttle with its multiple missions was extremly useful both, in terms of science missions (spacelab and the like) as well as in terms of manned maintenance missions (to Sats and the HST) .

It also served to gather lots of useful practical data with regards to the operation of resusable spacecraft (including data on what can fail ... especially thanks to the columbia and challenger disasters)

Edited September 4, 2014 by Godot

[rtxoff]

I'm not saying they don't have the capability they have, I'm saying they've lost the ability to build on it.

And i am saying they did'nt lost it, there is just no one willing to pay for. It's the same story like everywhere. Russia is no more a communist country they have capitalism now and things in capitalism work like everywhere else where there is capitalism. If there's no money for it it won't be done.