One False Step Page 7

   LOK was completely comparable to Apollo, with the same basic level of complexity and functionality. As with the L-1, it was designed for a crew of two rather than the standard Soyuz three; it still weighed more, however, partly due to the beefed-up heat shield required for re-entry at translunar velocities. Internal equipment was likewise altered for the flight, and fuel cells were carried for power, instead of the solar cells that were standard on the Soyuz. The on-board engine was less powerful than that of Apollo; the final 'Block D' stage of the launcher would place the capsule in orbit, though the on-board engine would be used to bring it home.

   The companion vehicle was the LK – the lunar lander, designed for a crew of only one man, rather than the two carried by the LM. There was far less margin for safety, and far less time for the cosmonaut to select his landing site. The internal equipment appears primitive in comparison to the LM – it did have one advantage, in that the ascent and the descent engines were one and the same, allowing an abort right up till the final second before touchdown. Another key difference was that although the LOK and LK would dock, the cosmonaut would have to leave the spacecraft to cross over between the two.

   A series of new techniques were required to make this flight possible, and as of the start of 1969, the Soyuz was finally in a position where these tests could be made. A combined flight of Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 took place in January of that year, carrying four cosmonauts on the two craft (one in Soyuz 4, three in Soyuz 5). They accomplished the first docking between two manned spacecraft, a key manoeuvre in both the American and Soviet landing programs, and the cosmonaut transfer then took place in exactly the same manner as would take place on a lunar profile. The flight was a success, but Soyuz 5 almost failed to re-enter after the Service Module failed to separate from the Descent Module; separation finally took place at the very last moment, and the pilot – Boris Volynov – survived – but it was another close call.

   Soon afterwards, the N-1 was ready for testing. Despite all the setbacks, a successful launch would give the Soviet Union at least a chance of beating the Americans to the moon. A dummy set of modules was placed as its payload, the goal being to throw a simulated LOK into lunar orbit, and return it to Earth. On February, 21st, 1969, it launched.

   The launch was a failure. The engines failed after only 70 seconds due to a fire. The one element that worked was the escape system on the simulated LOK – had cosmonauts been on-board, they would have survived. But whether the program could survive was another story. The American space program was going from strength to strength, with Apollo 9 and Apollo 10 testing landing hardware in Earth and Lunar orbit. Apollo 11 beckoned.

   There remained one last try. On July 3rd, 1969, the second N-1 left the launchpad. This failed even before it had left the ground, engines failing after ten seconds of firing. This time the launchpad itself was destroyed in the explosion. It would be months before another attempt could be made – and long before such an attempt could be made Apollo 11 had reached the moon, and Neil Armstrong had taken his famous first steps.

   While the manned program was failing, the unmanned program had continued apace – the first soft landing on the moon had been completed by the Luna 9 probe ahead of the American Surveyor series, and the state of this program gave one final chance for the Soviets to beat the Americans in a lunar project, by being the first to return lunar soil to Earth.

   Sample return had long been a goal of the unmanned probe program; even had cosmonauts landed on the moon, they would have been unable to land at many interesting sites that would be accessible to an expendable automated lander. On July 13th, 1969, the first of this series, Luna 15, launched for the moon. (One previous attempt had be made; its launcher failed in that instance.) The launch was slightly in advance of Apollo, and would return just before it, if all went well.

   Speculation was rife at the launch. It was very quickly clear that the flight was unmanned, but speculations ranged from some attempt to interfere with the manned flight to the moon, to the provision of a 'rescue' craft in case the Americans were stranded on the moon! Some thought that a sample return mission was the intention, but doubted that the USSR had the technical capability to pull it off. For the public it provided a spectacle, if nothing else, and kept the race to the Moon alive until almost the very last second.

   A disappointing climax to such a close race was that Luna 15 crashed onto the moon, and its capsule failed to return. The original timing would have put Luna 15 on the moon an hour before Apollo 11's Eagle. Though subsequent attempts at sample return were successful, this was long after the American landings, and attracted less worldwide attention.

   The landing of Apollo 11 did not necessarily mean the end of the Soviet lunar program, not in the same way that Apollo 8 had led to the eventual cancellation of the Zond program. While the USSR could no longer be first, it was thought important that at least technological parity be demonstrated, and the planning of lunar missions continued, as well as a series of test flights. There would be no further manned missions, however. While there were plans for a manned test of the docking equipment to be used by the LOK and LK, the delivery of the equipment was continually delayed, until the mission was finally cancelled in 1971.

   Unmanned tests continued, however. Test flights of the LK landing craft continued into 1970-71 – in total, three unmanned tests were completed satisfactorily, with the propulsion system of the lander checking out satisfactorily on each occasion. These led to a breach in the secrecy of the lunar program, some years later; the last of these flights, known to the world as Cosmos 434, was to crash into Australia. Following a previous scare involving a nuclear-powered surveillance satellite in 1978, the USSR announced that the craft was simply a 'prototype lunar cabin'. For a race they had never publicly ran!

   Tests of the lunar equipment did not last much beyond 1971. With one exception – the N-1 rocket. Vast resources had been deployed to try and make this rocket function, and the career of the Chief Designer was at stake. Had it been successful, the N-1 could still have been extremely useful, and would probably still be in service today as a heavy-lift booster – a booster that would enable a wide variety of space projects.

   The third attempt at a flight took place in June 1971, at night. This was as big a disaster as the first flight had been, though not so bad as the second. While ascending, the rocket began an uncontrollable spin, and the rocket started to break-up at 45 seconds. The first stage ultimately created a thirty meter crater, far downrange from the launch site.

   One last try was authorised. By this time numerous modifications had been made to the design of the N-1, both in an attempt to perfect it and to improve its performance. In response to the ongoing American lunar successes, a new lunar plan was created. In this plan, two N-1 rockets would be employed to place three cosmonauts on the moon for a month, far outstripping the capability of the Apollo program. This could have put the Soviet Union back in the lead once again. All depended on the fourth N-1 being successful; had a successful launch been completed, then this brave lunar landing attempt would have taken place, perhaps as early as the seventh launch.

   Ironically, by the time the fourth N-1 was rolled out onto the pad, the Apollo program was winding down. On 23rd November 1972, the fourth N-1 launched. It managed the best performance thus far...but after ninety seconds, it too failed, the rocket exploding in flight. Once again, the dummy capsule successfully separated, and any crew would have survived. But they would not have reached the moon.

   This was the end of progress towards plans to land on the moon. It also ended the career of Vasili Mishin. He would send up teaching aviation to university students, a far cry from leading an effort to put a man on the moon. His replacement was Valentin Glushko, Korolev's old rival, who immediately began to put his own stamp on the Soviet space program. The N-1 – Korolev's brainchild – was cancelled, despite two more rockets already being prepared for launch.

   The focus was
switched away from landing onto the Moon to another goal where the Soviet Union was already showing a lead – space stations. A more military focus was established to the program; Chelomei, the designer of the Proton, was heading a program to develop a military space station, and Glushko pioneered the start of the development of a Soviet counterpart to the American space shuttle then being planned. A recurrent theme was cutbacks; the Soviet leadership was recognising that mammoth space projects were expensive. No longer would prestige be the sole goal of a project, as arguably was the case with the lunar program. The unmanned lunar program, which had always been successful, with firsts including the sample return flight of Luna 16, and the landing of a pair of unmanned rovers to explore the moon – Lunokhod 1 and 2 – was also cancelled, though most of the already-constructed hardware was flown over the next few years.

   Despite all this, some plans for a moon landing continued. In August 1974, the Soviet Politburo established a goal of establishing a lunar base, and Glushko began plans for a new booster called Vulkan, which could deliver sixty tonnes to lunar orbit. The moonbase 'Zvezda' program would have used six of these Vulkan boosters to deliver around 130 tonnes to the lunar surface, and ultimately would have supported six cosmonauts on the moon for an extended period. Later, in the 1980s, a stripped down 'Zvezda II' project was suggested, this time using a pair of the Energia boosters designed to launch the Buran space shuttle. By the end of the Soviet Union, some plans to return to the moon in at least an unmanned capacity were being planned, but these failed to come to fruition.

   Neither of these projects even came close to realisation – as the Soviet economy began to falter, and the cost of expensive projects such as Buran, and the Soviet response to the American 'Star Wars' program began to spiral, there was no room in the budget to even consider such daring projects. The closest the Soviet Union ever came to the moon was realistically the 'Zond' series, which could have sent men around the moon in 1969, or 1970 at least.

   Had the planned lunar landing taken place, what form would it have taken? Who would have landed on the moon? And just as importantly – would it have been successful? (One can imagine that this would have been fairly important to the cosmonauts involved!)

   The same pool of cosmonauts were chosen for both the lunar-orbital and the lunar-landing missions. Two groups were selected – one of commanders, the other of flight engineers. An original large group was boiled down to ten, five in each pool. Eventually, three landing crews were selected, with four more cosmonauts in reserve. The first crew for the landing was the same as the first crew for orbit – Alexei Leonov and Oleg Makarov, with Alexei Leonov selected as the first man to land on the moon. The second would have consisted of Valerei Bykovsky, a Vostok veteran, and rookie engineer Nikolai Rukhavishnikov. The third was similar, pairing Vostok veteran Pavel Popovich with engineer Vitaly Sevastianov.

   The training program was similar to that employed by NASA to train its lunar landing program, but with less specialised equipment. Instead of a customised lunar landing trainer, a modified helicopter was utilised – a hazardous procedure, as it required violating all usual safety rules in order to properly simulate the lunar descent.

   A landing attempt would have begun with the launch of an N-1 rocket, carrying two astronauts – probably Leonov and Makarov, riding in the LOK; the LK would have been riding with it, in the same manner as the Apollo mission profile. The whole complex would have been thrown into a translunar trajectory, the final 'Block D' giving the final boost into lunar orbit. The orbit would have been far lower than Apollo, necessary because of the limited power of the LK lander.

   Alexei Leonov would have space-walked from the LOK to the LK, and then the Block D would have once again fired to take the LK down to an altitude of around a mile after the complex separated from the LOK. It would have been an amazing sight. When the Block D ceased firing, the 'Block E' engine on the LK itself would have begun firing, giving one minute of thrust. Only a very limited amount of control could have been employed; there was little margin for error.

   Once on the surface, a moonwalk similar to that accomplished by Neil Armstrong would have taken place. The Soviet flag would have been raised on the moon, likely televised in the same manner as Apollo 11, and then a series of experiments would have been deployed on the lunar surface. A selection of lunar samples would have been taken, though the cargo that could have been carried was considerably less than was carried by Apollo. (One interesting device planned was a small lunar rover, which would have been remotely controlled from Earth after the cosmonaut left the lunar surface.)

   Takeoff would have taken place after a short stay on the moon, and the LK pilot would have docked with the waiting LOK. He would then transfer back to the LOK the same way he came – spacewalking with his samples back to the return vehicle. The LK would then be jettisoned, and the LOK return to Earth, likely 'skipping' in the atmosphere in the same manner as the Zond to return somewhere in the Soviet Union. Upon arrival, the two cosmonauts would be isolated and placed in a quarantine facility similar to that employed by the Americans, to guard against the possibility of contamination.

   Multiple landings would likely have taken place; it seems reasonable to assume all three crews would have landed on the moon, probably in a variety of sites to gain the maximum scientific return. This return would, however, have been far less than was returned by Apollo. Only landing a single cosmonaut on the moon was a significant limitation, effectively removing the possibility of putting a scientist on the moon, and the light cargo return would have precluded anything like the suite of samples returned by Apollo.

   Furthermore, the lunar landing system was very much working at the limits of the potential of the developed booster technology; there were far fewer capacities for development than was the case with Apollo. Even if a prolonged program was established – and unlike Apollo, which had Apollo Applications, there is little evidence of a systematic co-ordinated program of long-term lunar exploration. There would likely have been two or three 'footsteps-and-flags' style missions, again as a series of spectaculars, before the series was bought to a halt in favour of the developing space station program.

   The effect on the American space program is also of interest. Had the Soviets actually beaten the United States to the moon, then it seems likely that space would have once again been foremost in the national psyche – NASA being beaten to the moon would have been as bad for prestige as losing the race to put the first man into space, and before that the first satellite. Would this have led to more lunar exploration, or would NASA have been called upon to put a man on Mars by 1982? Certainly some sort of response would have been required. (The amusing point here – perfecting the N-1, required for this lunar program, would have given the USSR a significant head-start in a Mars mission!)

   Had the Soviet Union landed on the moon after the Americans, there would have been a considerably lesser effect. It is possible that the cancelled lunar missions would have been restored, if only to ensure that the American lunar program outlasted that of the Soviet Union. It is probably still unlikely that a follow-on program would have been authorised, unless it was apparent that long-term ambitions were held by the Soviet space program in this area.

   The argument could be made that the Soviet attempt to reach the moon was doomed from the start. Not from any technological shortcoming. The LOK was just as advanced as the Apollo, and there was every reason to believe it would have worked perfectly, and though the LK was rather rudimentary compared to the NASA LM, this was more a matter of weight limitations than any technological incapability.

   Likewise the N-1 rocket. It may have been a nightmare to develop, but had the development continued, it would almost certainly have successfully flown. The design changes made to the fifth model, planned for launch in 1974, had a good probability of success. So why did the Soviet Union fail to reach the moon?

   The first problem was the delay in committing to a moon sh
ot – NASA had a three-year head-start, and was able to use it well perfecting lunar systems designs, constructing hardware, and beginning the development of their own test program. In contrast, the Soviet Union had yet to even determine which rocket design they would use by that point, and was far slower to make key hardware decisions.

   Funding was the second problem. The Soviet Union simply did not have the resources to commit to a prestige project such as a lunar landing, and as a result the project was run on a shoestring budget. Korolev did not adopt extensive ground testing on the N-1, which could have seen it fly successfully earlier, because he was concerned about the expense involved. In total, $4.5 billion was spent on the Soviet attempt to land on the moon – in contrast with the $24 billion spent by the Americans. Based on those figures, it should almost be surprising that the USSR came as close as it did!

   A third problem was the squabbling bureaucracies. Three different design bureaux proposing their own plans was one thing, but one of them continuing to promote those plans for years after the 'final' decision had been made was quite another. What limited resources were available were squandered, and more importantly in this context, a lot of time was lost.

   The death of Korolev himself was another great blow. Only he had the ability to unite the disparate elements of the Soviet bureaucracy required to make a moon flight truly possible. The general consensus among those involved is that this was the key moment – Alexei Leonov believes that at least the flight around the moon would have been achieved. Whether simply his survival would have enabled a landing is more problematic, though it is more likely that the N-1 would have been made operational had he lived. He did have a reputation as being more of a risk-taker than Mishin; during the Vostok program he continually pushed for bolder and bolder flights, and there is a good chance he would have been willing to take gambles such as a manned 'Zond 7', and possibly even a higher-risk lunar landing attempt if one could have been improvised – and the Soviet Union was very good at improvisation when it came to its space program.