Cosmonauts: How Russia Won the Space Race

[Leszek]

That's the thing - N-1 never flew correctly. At that point Russia hardly was a beginner at space stuff. So when a top-tier rocket fails spectacularly five times in a row, it indicates something wrong is with the project.

It does not. The Russians expected the first few to be failures because they tested things in operation much sooner than the US did. The US got all the bugs out of the system during static tests. There are good and bad sides to doing it this way, one of the bad sides is that you have to go through several large expensive rockets to get things working.

[peadar1987]

Given that both sides were in fact trying to send men to the moon, how did they "win?"

The US was reactionary to Soviet achievements, having started with the aim of science (Ike was not keen on the "race" aspect), but ended up pushing the Soviets to reacting once Gemini was going. The notion they never wanted the moon seems a revisionist response to the program after the death of Korolev.

The Soviets were reaching for the moon, but that wasn't all the space race was about. They didn't make the moon, but were ahead in terms of Venus research and space stations. Pointing to the moon and declaring victory in the contest doesn't really hold much more validity than pointing at Mir and saying "sure the Americans had an early lead with Apollo, but the first large, modern, modular space station was put the there by the Soviets".

[tater]

They went with earth orbit because it was all that was left for manned flight with their lunar failures. Their planetary probes were ok, but their failure rate was pretty high.

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Venus probes before 1971. 23 total, 3 by the US 2 of which worked. Of the 20 Soviet probes, 3 were not failures. 15% CCCP success, vs 66% NASA success. In the '70s, there were 8, 2 US, 6 Soviet. Both US probes worked, only one soviet probe failed (finally a decent success rate). Venus is up there with Mars as the kite eating tree of the solar system for the Soviets.

Mars? Before the 90s, 17 Soviet probes, 14 failures (82% fail). 7 US probes, 2 failures (29% fail). Past the '90s, 14 US Mars probes, 3 failures. The Russians have 1 attempt, 1 failure.

I don't think anyone can argue winning "the space race" based on probes and not put NASA/JPL at the top of the pile.

The space race was about manned flight as a PR gesture. It was a "go big or go home" thing, and many times both sides went with higher risks than they would have liked to score points. People got bored with MOON flights, what possible metric makes them somehow more excited by Mir?

[Brethern]

That's the thing - N-1 never flew correctly. At that point Russia hardly was a beginner at space stuff. So when a top-tier rocket fails spectacularly five times in a row, it indicates something wrong is with the project.

Before that point most of the Russian rockets were variants of the R7, So When they started on the N-1 they were essentially entering a brand new field for them.

Actually looking back the N-1 and LK lander seems like a stop gap measure just to get a man on the moon, especially since most Russian equipment to that point was well designed and though out. It's almost like they decided to focus on other things and let the Americans have the moon.

[tater]

The other reason why the premise they won is so bizarre. The point, for both sides, was to demonstrate publicly, to any on the fence societies in the Cold War that they were the future. The US did everything in the harsh light of news cameras. Every failure known. Few people outside space nuts like us are even aware of Soviet failures as they often hid them. Sometimes very successfully (only known for sure after the CCCP fell apart). The premise of this show is an exercise in moving the goalposts, IMO. The reason the moon is the goalpost is that IMO, the Space Race ended at that point. After the moon, it was not a driving thing for either power (had it been, the US might have kept going with it instead of languishing).

The US was publicly committed by JFK, so we had to finish, even though the VN war was becoming all-consuming. Our success knocked the wind out of the Soviets in the "race," and then they ended up by the end of the 70s in their own version of that.

I don't think that that's an unreasonable take. Both were happy to spend less $$$ once the obvious race was effectively over.

[Nikolai]

It does not. The Russians expected the first few to be failures because they tested things in operation much sooner than the US did. The US got all the bugs out of the system during static tests. There are good and bad sides to doing it this way, one of the bad sides is that you have to go through several large expensive rockets to get things working.

And also, that you lull yourself into thinking that all you need to make the big rocket work are more tests. Arguably, the KORD system meant to monitor and control the rocket engines during flight would not have been able to keep up with adjusting to the transient responses of thirty rocket engines firing at once.

[Kibble]

N1 was a bad rocket, it just couldn't accomplish a piloted Lunar landing according to Sergey Korolyov's 1962 draft - with 24 NK33 rocket engines. 24 rocket engines is not hard to monitor. Unfortunately Korolyov died, and N1 was modified and pushed to lift the 70mt L3 stack, and among those modifications was the addition of 6 more NK-33s.

[tater]

Remember that they worked on automatic docking partially because they had a multi-earth rendezvous option for a lunar mission in mind.

[magnemoe]

Given that both sides were in fact trying to send men to the moon, how did they "win?"

The US was reactionary to Soviet achievements, having started with the aim of science (Ike was not keen on the "race" aspect), but ended up pushing the Soviets to reacting once Gemini was going. The notion they never wanted the moon seems a revisionist response to the program after the death of Korolev.

Russia won as in having an active manned space program, currently they are the major player, China is the follow up, no other active players.

US won the manned moon landing and is best on deep space exploration.

This was an political decision, Soviet did not want to be nr 2 on Moon, they focused on space stations, one of the few ideas I agree with the Soviet union about

[Reddragon]

Russia won as in having an active manned space program, currently they are the major player, China is the follow up, no other active players.

US won the manned moon landing and is best on deep space exploration.

This was an political decision, Soviet did not want to be nr 2 on Moon, they focused on space stations, one of the few ideas I agree with the Soviet union about

The US also has an active manned space program, they just decided to go along with a gap between the shuttle program and new space capsules. It was also a political decision. They could have stayed with any of their historic launchers as well. Which space agency or nation won what is just a matter of perspective but humanity itself sure won the most by entering the space age.

Btw. none of the old links worked for me but I could find it on another site. It's a good documentary!

[Bill Phil]

Is say the soviets had better engineers. Not better vehicles, but the people were okay with "good enough" and most american engineers usually aren't...

I say that both the USA and USSR won the space race. One on the moon, the other in LEO.

Cosmonauts and Astronauts are both badass groups of people.

[tater]

Russia won as in having an active manned space program, currently they are the major player, China is the follow up, no other active players.

US won the manned moon landing and is best on deep space exploration.

This was an political decision, Soviet did not want to be nr 2 on Moon, they focused on space stations, one of the few ideas I agree with the Soviet union about

The Space Race ended in 1969. The country we were competing with no longer exists. Period. The Space Race was a Cold War thing. The Soviets didn't even win orbit, which is a poor 2d place anyway. Orbital anything is overrated. Scientifically, probes are better.

I like manned spaceflight, just because it's cool, but measure based upon useful science gained about the universe if you want to go past the actual space race.

Edited March 21, 2015 by tater

[Kibble]

just because it's cool

Isn't that the reason we do most things we do?

[tater]

Isn't that the reason we do most things we do?

Yep.

That's the reason behind the thing that "The Space Race" refers to, BTW. As I said above, the Space Race was part of the Cold War, and was nothing more than PR for how awesome each superpower was. Unmanned craft didn't count, it was men in space that people wanted to see.

All the space station flights ever done, combined, have less PR value than one manned moon landing.

We're talking adventure, PR, etc. That's what it was about, not how many hours in space (though early on, that was part of the pissing match). The documentary can rewrite the premise and argue again.

EDIT: to be clear, I'm not saying all manned orbital stuff is useless, but the Space Race was about PR, not substance.

Edited March 21, 2015 by tater

[Dispatcher]

The space race will be won when humanity reaches planets at other stars.

[Kibble]

Other stars are lame! The planets and minor planets of the Solar System are great <3

[Coam]

Other stars are lame! The planets and minor planets of the Solar System are great <3

But we don't have a laythe!

We have Europa, which may have water, but we're 5 years too late to be allowed a landing there.

[hugix]

Nobody won the space race since the 'race' didn't have a clear finish line. It depends on your personal idea of what the finish is.

[tater]

Since it was a cold war phenomenon, it ended with the Cold War. There is no current race, period. The race was that it was an important focus of national effort, and each side reacted to the other's accomplishments. That's not a thing right now.

[LordFerret]

Neither the USA nor the USSR won the "space race". The Germans did. : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregate_(rocket_family)#A4_.28V-2_rocket.29

I've been arguing that for quite some time now... and the first 'astronaut' for a sub-orbital flight was Hanna Reitsch - a woman.

[tater]

V-1 was an aircraft. Using that as a "sub orbital" flight means all aircraft are suborbital flights. Even limited to rocket propulsion, the Germans did that in the late 1920s, anyway.

All relevant to firsts in rocketry, but irrelevant to the Space Race which explicitly refers to the Cold War race between the USA and CCCP.

[LordFerret]

V-1 was an aircraft. Using that as a "sub orbital" flight means all aircraft are suborbital flights. Even limited to rocket propulsion, the Germans did that in the late 1920s, anyway.

All relevant to firsts in rocketry, but irrelevant to the Space Race which explicitly refers to the Cold War race between the USA and CCCP.

True, kinda sorta. The V-1 was a rocket powered (pulse-jet) glider... a flying bomb, akin to a cruise missile. Being the first of its kind, and first flight(s) of such, with Hanna onboard, I'd still give it (her) credit. The German program may be irrelevant to the Space Race proper, but were it not for their technology there would have been no space race in the first place. You have to give credit where credit is due.

[Bill Phil]

There were rocket powered aircraft before the V-1(which was jet propelled, btw).

[tater]

True, kinda sorta. The V-1 was a rocket powered (pulse-jet) glider... a flying bomb, akin to a cruise missile. Being the first of its kind, and first flight(s) of such, with Hanna onboard, I'd still give it (her) credit. The German program may be irrelevant to the Space Race proper, but were it not for their technology there would have been no space race in the first place. You have to give credit where credit is due.

I'm well aware of what the V-1 is. How is that less of a rocket propelled aircraft than the Lippisch Ente (1928), or the Opel Rak.1 (1929), or the the He176 (1939)? All flew before, all rocket powered (all German).

All manned, suborbital flights anyone cares about were in excess of altitudes possible by aircraft. If you do not set some altitude minimum, please set us a definition of what constitutes a "suborbital" flight, please. It needs to be universally applicable. Then see if the V-1 flight somehow magically makes it vs earlier flights (if rocket propulsion is to be the arbitrary standard, for example).

Generally, we think of suborbital spaceflight, not suborbital flight (which is to say, ALL flight). Don't leave the atmosphere, and it's not a suborbital spaceflight.

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There were rocket powered aircraft before the V-1(which was jet propelled, btw).

Yeah, that's what I was pointing out, earlier, just not as clearly as you did.

[Bill Phil]

And, technically we're all in orbit right now. So, was the first human being ever the first one in flight? Or was it someone else?