Although America made it to the moon, the Soviets just quit. America may have walked on the moon first, but the Soviets had an opportunity to conduct a spacewalk in orbit around the moon.
Would have been cool to see the Russians land on the moon. Even though I'm American, I'd have been proud - it would have been another huge leap for mankind.
@@caxapom Only because USA was the only participant in the race, USSR never acknowleged the so-called race when it was going on. And because they did big media stunts and ignored other Soviet accomplishments.
"I take this step for my country, for my people, and for the Marxist-Leninist way of life. Knowing that today is but one small step on a journey that someday will take us all to the stars."
It was a pile of junk! If it had any merit, surely one of the four launches would at least have made it into a low Earth orbit? No, all things considered a flying deathtrap which thankfully never got so far as to actually kill anyone.
@@fast-toaston plus they develop by test rather than integrated test on ground like nasa. the rockets are expected to fail initially. and yes it's an old comment ahah
Apollo also had a contingency plan for EVAs to transfer from the CSM to the LM if there was any problem with the docking tunnel or hatch. On Apollo 15,16 and 17, the Command Module pilots performed EVS to retrieve film canisters from the Service Module on the way back from the moon.
Thanks for the video! I've never seen such a complete depiction of the mission profile. I don't know why some people feel obligated to profanely insult each other on virtually every subject on You Tube. The N-1 was a failure, but the Soviet program had many successes, which tend to be overshadowed the the triumph of Apollo. Yes, the Shuttle had its tragic flaws, but it was also a uniquely capable system. My respect to all who dream and dare in the dangerous realm of space.
The coolest evidence is the uni-directional mirror that was left there by Apollo 17. A powerful enough laser and receiver can bounce signals off it, and it's how they've managed to take incredibly accurate measurements of how fast the moon is moving away from Earth.
awsomeeee! i know about the lk havent docking sistem but i've seen how cosmonaut return to soyuz in animation after this, the song of the beatles is the cherry of the cake... i love it!
@Winner8501 Thank you! There is an add-on for Orbiter 2010 at orbithanger called 'Sovietic Lunar Mission (search under 'N1') but I found the command ship and lander stack to be 'inaccurate', if such a thing can be said. The add-on in the video is for Orbiter 2006 and is called 'N1 Moon Mission' (found at orbitmods). My only complaint with it was that the lander model didn't have a docking system, and the decent engine was underpowered, which I had to modify (or you crash on landing!)
This is very well researched and executed. Effective visuals and Russian overvoice track, and great choice of music. I lived through those times, and this work brings back the atmosphere, as well as illustrating to most of us the little-known Soviet efforts during the Moon race. Thanks!
Wow - an inspired fantasy that almost happened. Great effects and great music - especially the national anthem and Across the Universe. I've watched this video several times and am pleasantly surprised to see how much even a fictional moon landing can be so inspiring. Thanks so much!
I found a great doc on the N-1. I must correct myself, the design was inovative but they couldnt get the few flaws fixed. And one flaw is too many when it comes to rocket engines. Great video of what could have been.
I stood next to one of the Saturn V rockets. It is HUGE! It boggles my mind to see something that big was controlled by the equivalent to one of todays calculators.
rAdiant Jet They used a lot of discrete parts and "LOL Memory" - which is really just an array of ferrite donuts that are threaded different ways to represent bits... woven one at a time by little ol' ladies.
I like to think that the N1 was uncompleted rather than failed, the Russians admired the vast numbers of people at control room in Houston each monitoring the systems of the rocket, the Russians applied that towards the end of the N1 program, The last rocket 7L carried a lot of telemetry, which told them what was wrong with the rocket, the last rocket N1-8l sat at the launch pad for days and was actually fueled, the Russians were confident that this was it, but the program was cancelled.
Wonderful, a thumbs up for a great animation. Might be better if you replaced the current music with a stirring piece of Russian classical music like "Slavic March" by Tchaikhovsky.
Nice video. I particularly liked the return segment. I think they should have gone anyway. We beat them for men on the Moon, but don't forget they beat us on a few important firsts. Competition is good- stirs the blood and boosts the economy.
+Bill Seidel They decided to concentrate on their space stations instead of a moon landing, which was probably the right move. We were the best at _exploring_ space, but the Russians were the best at _living_ there.
CountArtha If it wasn't for the Soviet space program, the modern ISS, which was originally meant to be a MIR replacement, wouldn't exist. They also currently have the space industry by the balls by having the only way (other than China) to get people to space currently
Matt Bowen No, the ISS was not meant to be the next MIR station. It has *one* module on it that would have been part of MIR 2. Virtually everything else is American, except for the European and Japanese laboratory modules.
This video is excellent! I often wondered what the actual Soviet moon mission would have been like had it happened. In the 1969 movie 'Moon Zero Two' the animated title sequence shows both US and Soviet moon landings very close together (and the astronaut and cosmonaut arguing once they ran into each other), so at least the producers of the movie believed that moon landings by the USSR were inevitable.
Considering that it's been over 43 years since the U.S. first landed men on the moon and the Russia still hasn't, I'd have to conclude the the race to the moon in the 60s turned out to be a rout for the U.S.
No tears here! I'm an American space fan who believes in celebrating the pioneering concepts and accomplishments of ALL nations, including concepts that 'might have been'. Pry open your mind a little bit, and don't be so bitter. Yes, Russia cancelled it's moon program, which is why it's such a sad irony that the nation who put man on the moon now has to hitch rides into space on 'commie' rockets. By the way, 1956 called and they want the expressions 'Ivan', 'ruskie' and 'commie' back.
I must say the N1 was a very elegant rocket, too bad it didn't work, I would have liked to see an Apollo/Soyuz in moon orbit, or even two astronauts and one cosmonaut working together on the surface of the moon. Could you imagine that?
No, it wasn't. Surface mission planned to be short and simple, merely demonstrative, and materials can be held in one's hands. So no need in some hundred kilos wasting for docking mechanism. It can be said, the whole Н-1(N-1) rocket project was almoust avantouristic than Apollo, designed on the very edge of possibilities, forced by propaganda. So, vonBraun and Armstrong save Alexey Leonov's life... Thank you, guys)))
Эммет Браун Alexey Leonov, what a great cosmonaut and a great man. I remember back to the the Days of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project when some scatter brained US news man tried to maneuver Leonov into saying that the Apollo was a better safer spacecraft than the Soyuz. Leonov laughed and said "Apollo is a good Space Craft and Soyuz is a good space craft" Then Astronaut Tom Stafford laughed at the reporter and leaned in and said "If there were safety questions about Soyuz or Apollo we wouldn't be flying this mission but there are none so lets move on. The Reporter looked like he had been slapped in the face. Then Leonov and Stafford laughed the reporter out of the room.
Very nice animation - only issue I have is that the space suit is not krechet-94 but something like orlan which was introduced in 1977. While both Apollo and Saturn V were expensive pieces of gargantuan proportions for one-time use, Soyuz capsules and carriers are still used. Pity that soviets didn't use two Proton carriers to mount the lander and capsule on orbit, instead of trying to copy american single-launch mission. But for 1/5th of the budget US had is is still impressive.
Really good! kinda sucks they didn't carry on with their manned landings, would've kept up the competition to do more than just make 6 moon landings. Although, i would like to see another What If kinda orbiter film, like a ASTP in lunar orbit, or maybe a Apollo rescue of trapped cosmonauts in lunarorbit. great work!
@HoustonApollo Thanks for the info. It is quite challenging to do this mission in Orbiter, but that's what I like about it :-) I am glad you made a video of it so that people can see how it would look like (more or less). If the N1 had worked, the Soviets *might* have had a chance to pull it off.
Soviets should've followed USA's footsteps; make the finish goal longer, don't just give up when your enemy passes you in the race, they Should have extended the race to Mars
+Matt Bowen Are you quite sure, because the N1 was barely--if at all--adequate for a manned Moon landing mission? The Saturn V could send more than twice the mass to the Moon as the N1, and it definitely was not designed with Mars in mind--that's what the much larger Nova rockets (never built) were supposed to be for.
The reason this configuration was so sketchy was because it entirely hinged on beating the Americans to the moon. It wasn't their best effort at landing there and doing it right. It was entirely about putting a single person's boots on the ground and then getting back for a political point. Once that point disappeared, so did the motivation for this method of moon landing. If they'd have gone afterwards, it would not only have been second, but much less impressively done. A bit of a tin can effort while the Americans were getting more adventurous in spending longer amounts of time there and using rovers. The Soviet Moon landing project was entirely about being technically first and leaving it at that, with no further scope for development.
@@rbrtck Actually, earlier N-1 design was for Mars-Venus dual flyby, free return configuration, not Lunar landing. Such flyby require only 1 escape burn and few correction burns, result in lower net delta v than a landing (TLI, LOI, landing and rendezvous back with orbital spacecraft, TEI).
I enjoyed this you did a wonderful job! It is interesting that they would use the same engine to descend and ascend the moon. WOW is all I can say, what a risk..
@@danielrafreddy Yep, the Soyuz ships are an excellent example of " if something works, keep it" let's not even mention the engines they manufacture, RD180s which still are used by the NASA. America: "this Saturn V launcher is perfect, and the Space Shuttle was great but muh taxpayer... nah we must give it up. ELON!!!"
Correct me? I recall reading that Korolev's original vision for a Lunar flyby involved a Soyuz "tanker" module that was to hook up with the original assembly to fuel it up for the trans-lunar injection burn.
There were several different proposals for Lunar mission architectures. This is the one that came closest to actually being flown. They built all the hardware. they just couldn't get it to work.
Since all 4 N1 launches blew up at one point or another, I was hoping to see an explosion! This was such a complex rocket that the Soviets had no chance to make it actually work.
Not true, the N1 might of worked eventually. All four blew up because it was a complex design, and they didn't have the infrastructure to have a comprehensive test campaign. Failure was inevitable & they knew it going in. Every launch was trial by fire as insane as that sounds. Granted, because NASA got there first. There wasn't the $$$ to work out the kinks, especially with the competing space station program.
One thing is wrong in the simulation. The LK lander ascent portion actually was to dock with the Soyuz return craft. The lunar walker was then to transfer back via spacewalk. I also read several speculations on why the EVA transfer was required. The actual answer is that all docking was to be automatic. The Soviets did not think they had enough accuracy with the automatic docking to use the American-style probe/drogue, so a docking tunnel was not feasible.
The NK-33 Engine however, was. Even until the 1980s, American rocket engineers didn't believe a practical closed combustion cycle kerosene rocket was even physically possible, yet the OKB had been building them since 1967.
On the other hand, the later Lunokhod and sample return missions qualified as soft landing from head to toe. They made three-axis stabilised, completely controllable descent till the last second and touchdown with their retractable landing gears, at less than 2.5m/s. While marginally higher than the surveyor probe and Apollo LM, I don’t see any difficulties technically to fire the retro rockets for 1-2 seconds longer to make an even gentler touchdown if needed (i.e., in a manned mission).
Going down to the moon alone seems risky as does needing to perform a complex EVA to get a cosmonaut into the lander and another one to get the lander pilot back into the command module.
Thanks for doing this project. Very interesting to watch and see a different approach to the problem. Not to many moon rocks would return via the spacewalk huh?
Please explain how it would any different than the CMP doing an EVA to retrieve the DCE tapes from the SM on an Apollo Mission? It can be argued that the russian design utilizing an EVA transfer was "safer",
Nice video. It's interesting to get a glimpse of what a Soviet moon landing might have looked like. And if anyone can tell me what is the name of the song that starts around 4:25.
I would like to see a similar presentation of the Soyuz 7K-L1 (Zond Mission) that would have used the amazing Proton to do a manned lunar Flyby mission before Apollo 8. It was a fascinating time period
Usually a hard landing refers to a surface impactor, but depends on how you define a ‘soft’ landing, Lunar 9 and 13 might be ‘hard’ landings of some sort as their landing speed is relatively high and protect themselves by cushioning, not unlike the MRE and Mars pathfinder.
I think the major advantage is that you don't have to add an rcs (reaction control system) to eater the LK lander of the command ship. and they already needed space suites for the moonwalk and in case the cabin depressurized.
Agreed, there are lots and lots of engineering feats to be celebrated all over the world. It's kinda sad that death took Korolyov so early, but his designs live on in the Soyuz rockets. It's quite an amusing thing to consider: a rocket designed and built in the 1960s is still flying today. With quite a few tweaks, but it still flies.
Few nitpicks: The lunar Soyuz would actually dock with the LK, there just wasn't a tunnel, they'd have do an EVA. But the two craft would be solidly connected to each other via the docking 'grid' shown on the LK. Also the LK's descent stage had upward-facing landing 'settling' rockets mounted to each leg. The Russians were afraid of it tipping over on an uneven surface (their LK probably wasn't as maneuverable or reliable is our LM)...
+HailAnts There is one more small mistake. Soyuz 7K-LOK also was supposed to leave orbital module (the round one) on the Moon orbit along with lunar module to reduce the fuel needed for return. The main problem of LK was extremely low amount of fuel due to insufficient N1 capability. It could hover only about 20 seconds to choose the landing spot so the landing on the slope was quite probable. But unlike LM it had reserve ascent engine so it was sort of more fail-proof in terms of return to the Moon orbit.
This is just a part of the proposed Soviet Lunar mission. At first on the Moon should have landed a version of Lunokhod designed to be manually steerable and uquipped with a seat for a cosmonaut. After that there should land another empty lunar module as a backup. And only when those landings were successful the manned mission would start.
Well said. Sad indeed that Americans are hitching rides on Soyuz craft, but what a testament to the Soviet/Russian design. Almost forty years in flight and still going.
BTW the only similarity between the LR-87 on Titan II and RD-180 is probably that they both have two combustion chambers and use regenerative cooling. LR-87 is an open gas-generator cycle engine burning either cryogenic or hypergolic fuel while RD-180 is a close cycle, oxygen-rich stage combustion kerolox engine with much higher performance.
Yes. The Soviets tested the lunar lander in Earth orbit. Here are three links with more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_manned_lunar_programs#Moon_landing_N1.2FL3_program en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LK_(spacecraft) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7K-LOK Hope that helps!
On the way to the moon, the Apollo spacecraft were put into a slow roll so the spacecraft would heat evenly on the journey. I assume the soviets would have done something similar. It had nothing to do with simulating artificial gravity.
Timm Humphreys way soviet did't walk on the moon if they has likethis spacecraft, as i know in 1968 five week befor lunch apollo 11 the N1-L3 was destroyed in air
Sorry for my ignorance, I prefer the apollo program, and someone said me to me that YES, but, had this test flights... a crew inside? I would like to be sure.
Sammy Feldman Thanks god, but that, even now, don't means that a lot of brave people died, in the U.R.S.S space program, and thanks to them other people made more safety the next travels. Thanks for answer.
Excellent job on the video. I really liked the concept of this soviet spacecraft, it has a nice 60's Sci-fi-movie touch to it. Too bad they never sorted out their rocket problems on this one. One question: Where did you find the soundfiles for the Soviet radio chatter you used in this video? I am making a Soviet space exploration video of my own and would love to use the same radiocomm-chatter in it as you did. Cheers!
Very good! Just little remark: In film sound the "new" Soviet State Anthem (1977 y.) whereas russian lunar expedition was arranged for 1970-1974 yy. :-)
Another advantage the US had was the availability of barges for transporting large engine components by water, which greatly reduced damage during transport. USSR's Baikonur cosmodrome was literally in the middle of nowhere, and the components of rocket engines etc. were transported over rugged roads or by rail. Damage done to thousands of parts in the engine was substantial, and engineers could never find all of it. That's a big reason for continual USSR booster failure.
Before Apollo 11, the Soviets have successfully landed two lunar landers (Lunar 9 and 13) in 1966, around the same time of the Surveyor probes. Later they have successfully landed two Lunokhod rovers, four robotic sample return probes, plus one landing on Mars and numerous landings on Venus.
Matt Bowen no your not alone. I am happy we got there first but they deserved to get there to. A lot of there best guys had died before they had a chance at the moon
nothing was said about promoting the evil soviet/communist/socialist regime. these are indeed purely evil. but the point here was had the US gotten some balls-busting from other competitors, that would have pushed the space race further
Lovely film, thank you! I sure wish the Soviets had made this trip. I agree with Nathbfreak about the pragmatic nature of the Russians. We developed a "space pen" costing millions because gravity isn't there to cause proper ink flow. Russia: Fuck it. Use a pencil. Problem solved! But, it has to be said: the US missions were brilliant. Docked craft greatly improved conditions for astronauts, and provided the lifeboat that saved three men. Apollo was an astounding set of great decisions.
Your point is well but. While the locotives are pulling it out to the launch pad you would make plans on getting on one heading in the opposite direction of Siberia.
kosiak10851 not all soyuz variants used the solar panel configuration. The original design of the soyuz command ship for the lunar missions didn't have the solar panel config everyone is familiar with.
If they still had the incentive to see the program through, we could've had the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project on the moon rather than earth orbit.
That was beautiful,.. Simply Beautiful. Your choice of music, especially the return and reentry sequence, was superb. Thank you, so much.
Although America made it to the moon, the Soviets just quit. America may have walked on the moon first, but the Soviets had an opportunity to conduct a spacewalk in orbit around the moon.
No, no Soviet cosmonaut ever left Earth's orbit, But yes the first ever spacewalk or EVA was conducted by Soviet cosmonaut "Alexei Leonov".
Would have been cool to see the Russians land on the moon. Even though I'm American, I'd have been proud - it would have been another huge leap for mankind.
We might have already gone to Mars. who knows.
They cash out but the say they will build a station up there
In reality, capitalism triumphed in the space race between the us and the ussr.
@@caxapom
Only because USA was the only participant in the race, USSR never acknowleged the so-called race when it was going on. And because they did big media stunts and ignored other Soviet accomplishments.
"I take this step for my country, for my people, and for the Marxist-Leninist way of life. Knowing that today is but one small step on a journey that someday will take us all to the stars."
The Soviet N-1 was an awesome concept, direct venting engine was ahead of it's time, just not ready yet. Great video.
It was a pile of junk! If it had any merit, surely one of the four launches would at least have made it into a low Earth orbit?
No, all things considered a flying deathtrap which thankfully never got so far as to actually kill anyone.
@@Warriorking.1963 they just didn't have reliable enough engines yet.
Holy shit I should have looked at how old the video and your comment is.
@@fast-toaston plus they develop by test rather than integrated test on ground like nasa. the rockets are expected to fail initially. and yes it's an old comment ahah
Apollo also had a contingency plan for EVAs to transfer from the CSM to the LM if there was any problem with the docking tunnel or hatch. On Apollo 15,16 and 17, the Command Module pilots performed EVS to retrieve film canisters from the Service Module on the way back from the moon.
Thanks for taking the time to make this video. Interesting to see the lunar lander. Only one stage, but they left their landing gear.
Thanks for the video! I've never seen such a complete depiction of the mission profile. I don't know why some people feel obligated to profanely insult each other on virtually every subject on You Tube. The N-1 was a failure, but the Soviet program had many successes, which tend to be overshadowed the the triumph of Apollo. Yes, the Shuttle had its tragic flaws, but it was also a uniquely capable system. My respect to all who dream and dare in the dangerous realm of space.
Great background music.
I really like the model for the Krechet-94 spacesuit. :-) The modder who worked on this pack certainly payed great attention to the details.
The coolest evidence is the uni-directional mirror that was left there by Apollo 17. A powerful enough laser and receiver can bounce signals off it, and it's how they've managed to take incredibly accurate measurements of how fast the moon is moving away from Earth.
Well done! Excellent research and rendering, and a clever and educational use of Orbiter Sim. Hat's off!
awsomeeee! i know about the lk havent docking sistem but i've seen how cosmonaut return to soyuz in animation after this, the song of the beatles is the cherry of the cake... i love it!
@Winner8501 Thank you! There is an add-on for Orbiter 2010 at orbithanger called 'Sovietic Lunar Mission (search under 'N1') but I found the command ship and lander stack to be 'inaccurate', if such a thing can be said. The add-on in the video is for Orbiter 2006 and is called 'N1 Moon Mission' (found at orbitmods). My only complaint with it was that the lander model didn't have a docking system, and the decent engine was underpowered, which I had to modify (or you crash on landing!)
This is very well researched and executed. Effective visuals and Russian overvoice track, and great choice of music. I lived through those times, and this work brings back the atmosphere, as well as illustrating to most of us the little-known Soviet efforts during the Moon race. Thanks!
Wow - an inspired fantasy that almost happened. Great effects and great music - especially the national anthem and Across the Universe. I've watched this video several times and am pleasantly surprised to see how much even a fictional moon landing can be so inspiring. Thanks so much!
The 1971 capsule landed intact but the crew was dead. That must have been a creepy scene for the recovery crew.
This is brilliant.
I found a great doc on the N-1. I must correct myself, the design was inovative but they couldnt get the few flaws fixed. And one flaw is too many when it comes to rocket engines. Great video of what could have been.
please share the doc/video. I would like to read about it!
I stood next to one of the Saturn V rockets. It is HUGE! It boggles my mind to see something that big was controlled by the equivalent to one of todays calculators.
Calculators are not guidance systems. Period.
Guys! Watch this clip: /watch?v=D_75Rs7JhLA
Great documantary about the guidance computer!
vaultsuit Thank You I will watch it.
Cheers! I'm yet to watch it. Saturn V episod was great! Check the whole series!
rAdiant Jet They used a lot of discrete parts and "LOL Memory" - which is really just an array of ferrite donuts that are threaded different ways to represent bits... woven one at a time by little ol' ladies.
I'm surprised the solar panels aren't shown out of their CSM equivalent. Super movie, really enjoyed this!
Where are the communications from?
I like to think that the N1 was uncompleted rather than failed, the Russians admired the vast numbers of people at control room in Houston each monitoring the systems of the rocket, the Russians applied that towards the end of the N1 program, The last rocket 7L carried a lot of telemetry, which told them what was wrong with the rocket, the last rocket N1-8l sat at the launch pad for days and was actually fueled, the Russians were confident that this was it, but the program was cancelled.
Soviet N-1 Moon Rocket Documentry. It's in four parts and well worth watching
Wonderful, a thumbs up for a great animation. Might be better if you replaced the current music with a stirring piece of Russian classical music like "Slavic March" by Tchaikhovsky.
great animation!
Very nice, thank you - I was waiting for someone to do such a video. Very well done.
good across the universe theme i love the beatles :) that make me cry
Nice video. I particularly liked the return segment. I think they should have gone anyway. We beat them for men on the Moon, but don't forget they beat us on a few important firsts. Competition is good- stirs the blood and boosts the economy.
+Bill Seidel They decided to concentrate on their space stations instead of a moon landing, which was probably the right move. We were the best at _exploring_ space, but the Russians were the best at _living_ there.
CountArtha If it wasn't for the Soviet space program, the modern ISS, which was originally meant to be a MIR replacement, wouldn't exist. They also currently have the space industry by the balls by having the only way (other than China) to get people to space currently
Matt Bowen No, the ISS was not meant to be the next MIR station. It has *one* module on it that would have been part of MIR 2. Virtually everything else is American, except for the European and Japanese laboratory modules.
CAG Hotshot That was the second attempt. It took them two years to rebuild, but they did and tried two more times.
That was informative. Thanks.
Thank you for the upload. It was educational to watch the Mission Profile.
This was another great film by Kubrick.
This video is excellent! I often wondered what the actual Soviet moon mission would have been like had it happened. In the 1969 movie 'Moon Zero Two' the animated title sequence shows both US and Soviet moon landings very close together (and the astronaut and cosmonaut arguing once they ran into each other), so at least the producers of the movie believed that moon landings by the USSR were inevitable.
Considering that it's been over 43 years since the U.S. first landed men on the moon and the Russia still hasn't, I'd have to conclude the the race to the moon in the 60s turned out to be a rout for the U.S.
Brilliant film.
What a historical treasure!
Nice chat sound affects
No tears here! I'm an American space fan who believes in celebrating the pioneering concepts and accomplishments of ALL nations, including concepts that 'might have been'. Pry open your mind a little bit, and don't be so bitter. Yes, Russia cancelled it's moon program, which is why it's such a sad irony that the nation who put man on the moon now has to hitch rides into space on 'commie' rockets.
By the way, 1956 called and they want the expressions 'Ivan', 'ruskie' and 'commie' back.
Nice work, Timm. :)
I must say the N1 was a very elegant rocket, too bad it didn't work, I would have liked to see an Apollo/Soyuz in moon orbit, or even two astronauts and one cosmonaut working together on the surface of the moon. Could you imagine that?
Wasn't the LK supposed to dock with the LOK after taking off from the Moon? But otherwise epic video :D
No, it wasn't. Surface mission planned to be short and simple, merely demonstrative, and materials can be held in one's hands. So no need in some hundred kilos wasting for docking mechanism.
It can be said, the whole Н-1(N-1) rocket project was almoust avantouristic than Apollo, designed on the very edge of possibilities, forced by propaganda.
So, vonBraun and Armstrong save Alexey Leonov's life...
Thank you, guys)))
Эммет Браун
Alexey Leonov, what a great cosmonaut and a great man. I remember back to the the Days of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project when some scatter brained US news man tried to maneuver Leonov into saying that the Apollo was a better safer spacecraft than the Soyuz. Leonov laughed and said "Apollo is a good Space Craft and Soyuz is a good space craft" Then Astronaut Tom Stafford laughed at the reporter and leaned in and said "If there were safety questions about Soyuz or Apollo we wouldn't be flying this mission but there are none so lets move on. The Reporter looked like he had been slapped in the face. Then Leonov and Stafford laughed the reporter out of the room.
1138thz I'd say the 47 year operational history of the Soyuz speaks for itself.
FosterZygote Yes, just four men died in two crashes in early 70's. And no more.
Эммет Браун And how many died in the great and glorious American shuttle?
Very nice animation - only issue I have is that the space suit is not krechet-94 but something like orlan which was introduced in 1977. While both Apollo and Saturn V were expensive pieces of gargantuan proportions for one-time use, Soyuz capsules and carriers are still used. Pity that soviets didn't use two Proton carriers to mount the lander and capsule on orbit, instead of trying to copy american single-launch mission. But for 1/5th of the budget US had is is still impressive.
What version was this?
Orbiter 1876? Are you running this on Windows -102?
very cool film thanks
What is still unclear to me, is *how* the Cosmonuat was expected to spacewalk between craft, before EMUs?
Thats one small Step for Man, one Giant Leap for Badassness!
Really good! kinda sucks they didn't carry on with their manned landings, would've kept up the competition to do more than just make 6 moon landings.
Although, i would like to see another What If kinda orbiter film, like a ASTP in lunar orbit, or maybe a Apollo rescue of trapped cosmonauts in lunarorbit.
great work!
Nice thing to watch, love alternative history:)
I believe soviets were doing some translunar flights with live payload (zond series).
@HoustonApollo
Thanks for the info. It is quite challenging to do this mission in Orbiter, but that's what I like about it :-) I am glad you made a video of it so that people can see how it would look like (more or less). If the N1 had worked, the Soviets *might* have had a chance to pull it off.
Too bad the space race ended with the moon. Exciting times!
I thought that it ended in 1975?
Marc Ivan Magmanlac July 1975.
If you can't take a simple point like that you must be one seriously captious and argumentative character.
Soviets should've followed USA's footsteps; make the finish goal longer, don't just give up when your enemy passes you in the race, they Should have extended the race to Mars
+Matt Bowen Are you quite sure, because the N1 was barely--if at all--adequate for a manned Moon landing mission? The Saturn V could send more than twice the mass to the Moon as the N1, and it definitely was not designed with Mars in mind--that's what the much larger Nova rockets (never built) were supposed to be for.
The reason this configuration was so sketchy was because it entirely hinged on beating the Americans to the moon. It wasn't their best effort at landing there and doing it right. It was entirely about putting a single person's boots on the ground and then getting back for a political point. Once that point disappeared, so did the motivation for this method of moon landing.
If they'd have gone afterwards, it would not only have been second, but much less impressively done. A bit of a tin can effort while the Americans were getting more adventurous in spending longer amounts of time there and using rovers.
The Soviet Moon landing project was entirely about being technically first and leaving it at that, with no further scope for development.
@@rbrtck Actually, earlier N-1 design was for Mars-Venus dual flyby, free return configuration, not Lunar landing. Such flyby require only 1 escape burn and few correction burns, result in lower net delta v than a landing (TLI, LOI, landing and rendezvous back with orbital spacecraft, TEI).
@@rbrtck Any manned nterplanetary mission other than flybys require either a gargantua tons of fuel, or nuclear engine (NERVA)
Think those N1 near-nuclear yield CATOs ended it .
I enjoyed this you did a wonderful job! It is interesting that they would use the same engine to descend and ascend the moon. WOW is all I can say, what a risk..
"russian machine never brea... oh, shit.."
@@Patachu666 it never breaks ..that's why we still depends on them to send our austronauts to ISS.
@@danielrafreddy Yep, the Soyuz ships are an excellent example of " if something works, keep it"
let's not even mention the engines they manufacture, RD180s which still are used by the NASA.
America: "this Saturn V launcher is perfect, and the Space Shuttle was great but muh taxpayer... nah we must give it up. ELON!!!"
Correct me? I recall reading that Korolev's original vision for a Lunar flyby involved a Soyuz "tanker" module that was to hook up with the original assembly to fuel it up for the trans-lunar injection burn.
There were several different proposals for Lunar mission architectures. This is the one that came closest to actually being flown. They built all the hardware. they just couldn't get it to work.
Thank You very much!
Since all 4 N1 launches blew up at one point or another, I was hoping to see an explosion! This was such a complex rocket that the Soviets had no chance to make it actually work.
Not true, the N1 might of worked eventually. All four blew up because it was a complex design, and they didn't have the infrastructure to have a comprehensive test campaign. Failure was inevitable & they knew it going in. Every launch was trial by fire as insane as that sounds. Granted, because NASA got there first. There wasn't the $$$ to work out the kinks, especially with the competing space station program.
One thing is wrong in the simulation. The LK lander ascent portion actually was to dock with the Soyuz return craft. The lunar walker was then to transfer back via spacewalk.
I also read several speculations on why the EVA transfer was required. The actual answer is that all docking was to be automatic. The Soviets did not think they had enough accuracy with the automatic docking to use the American-style probe/drogue, so a docking tunnel was not feasible.
The NK-33 Engine however, was.
Even until the 1980s, American rocket engineers didn't believe a practical closed combustion cycle kerosene rocket was even physically possible, yet the OKB had been building them since 1967.
very nice video, timm. thanks for posting.
do you know is it possible to add a ship to orbiter from blender, & how?
nice work.
Cool vid!.. thanks 👍🇳🇿
Best detail I've seen about the proposed Soviet moon landing. Although I too would have thought there should be solar panels. Thanks.
K Camera The Soyuz variant that would have been used for a moon mission was powered by fuel cells, like Apollo.
I really enjoyed that. Thanks.
Soviet anthem playing as a cosmonaut walks on the moon. Absolutely glorious.
On the other hand, the later Lunokhod and sample return missions qualified as soft landing from head to toe. They made three-axis stabilised, completely controllable descent till the last second and touchdown with their retractable landing gears, at less than 2.5m/s. While marginally higher than the surveyor probe and Apollo LM, I don’t see any difficulties technically to fire the retro rockets for 1-2 seconds longer to make an even gentler touchdown if needed (i.e., in a manned mission).
Well Done.
Going down to the moon alone seems risky as does needing to perform a complex EVA to get a cosmonaut into the lander and another one to get the lander pilot back into the command module.
Thanks for doing this project. Very interesting to watch and see a different approach to the problem. Not to many moon rocks would return via the spacewalk huh?
At what point in the video is 160 km altitude?
As my friends over at the Kerbal Space Program forums would say, "that's so Kerbal!"
Please explain how it would any different than the CMP doing an EVA to retrieve the DCE tapes from the SM on an Apollo Mission? It can be argued that the russian design utilizing an EVA transfer was "safer",
How can that be argued?
Nice video. It's interesting to get a glimpse of what a Soviet moon landing might have looked like. And if anyone can tell me what is the name of the song that starts around 4:25.
I would like to see a similar presentation of the Soyuz 7K-L1 (Zond Mission) that would have used the amazing Proton to do a manned lunar Flyby mission before Apollo 8. It was a fascinating time period
link for download? this is awesome
Usually a hard landing refers to a surface impactor, but depends on how you define a ‘soft’ landing, Lunar 9 and 13 might be ‘hard’ landings of some sort as their landing speed is relatively high and protect themselves by cushioning, not unlike the MRE and Mars pathfinder.
I think the major advantage is that you don't have to add an rcs (reaction control system) to eater the LK lander of the command ship. and they already needed space suites for the moonwalk and in case the cabin depressurized.
Agreed, there are lots and lots of engineering feats to be celebrated all over the world. It's kinda sad that death took Korolyov so early, but his designs live on in the Soyuz rockets.
It's quite an amusing thing to consider: a rocket designed and built in the 1960s is still flying today. With quite a few tweaks, but it still flies.
Few nitpicks: The lunar Soyuz would actually dock with the LK, there just wasn't a tunnel, they'd have do an EVA. But the two craft would be solidly connected to each other via the docking 'grid' shown on the LK.
Also the LK's descent stage had upward-facing landing 'settling' rockets mounted to each leg. The Russians were afraid of it tipping over on an uneven surface (their LK probably wasn't as maneuverable or reliable is our LM)...
+HailAnts There is one more small mistake. Soyuz 7K-LOK also was supposed to leave orbital module (the round one) on the Moon orbit along with lunar module to reduce the fuel needed for return.
The main problem of LK was extremely low amount of fuel due to insufficient N1 capability. It could hover only about 20 seconds to choose the landing spot so the landing on the slope was quite probable. But unlike LM it had reserve ascent engine so it was sort of more fail-proof in terms of return to the Moon orbit.
This is just a part of the proposed Soviet Lunar mission. At first on the Moon should have landed a version of Lunokhod designed to be manually steerable and uquipped with a seat for a cosmonaut. After that there should land another empty lunar module as a backup. And only when those landings were successful the manned mission would start.
Also, can I ask which add-ons specifically you used, or provide a link, rather?
Well said. Sad indeed that Americans are hitching rides on Soyuz craft, but what a testament to the Soviet/Russian design. Almost forty years in flight and still going.
Casi lloro al escuchar el himno
It was a question of size. There wasn't enough room in the L3 design for a tunnel between the orbiter and lander.
The music sounds like Cosmonaut are getting it on inside.
BTW the only similarity between the LR-87 on Titan II and RD-180 is probably that they both have two combustion chambers and use regenerative cooling.
LR-87 is an open gas-generator cycle engine burning either cryogenic or hypergolic fuel while RD-180 is a close cycle, oxygen-rich stage combustion kerolox engine with much higher performance.
Great.thanks
Are these renditions of the Soviet Command and Lunar modules just notional, or were these to be the actual flight configurations?
Yes. The Soviets tested the lunar lander in Earth orbit. Here are three links with more info:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_manned_lunar_programs#Moon_landing_N1.2FL3_program
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LK_(spacecraft)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_7K-LOK
Hope that helps!
Was the spinning of the spacecraft to and from the moon supposed to induce artificial gravity?
On the way to the moon, the Apollo spacecraft were put into a slow roll so the spacecraft would heat evenly on the journey. I assume the soviets would have done something similar. It had nothing to do with simulating artificial gravity.
Thanks for the response. I had supposed that it had nothing to do with simulating gravity but I knew it served some purpose. Makes sense.
Timm Humphreys way soviet did't walk on the moon if they has likethis spacecraft, as i know in 1968 five week befor lunch apollo 11 the N1-L3 was destroyed in air
It was their plan to do a lunar orbit transfer EVA to the lunar module? Holy shit that was a ballsy plan.
Sorry for my ignorance, I prefer the apollo program, and someone said me to me that YES, but, had this test flights... a crew inside? I would like to be sure.
***** There was a test flight of this rocket. However, it blew up. There was nobody on board
Sammy Feldman Thanks god, but that, even now, don't means that a lot of brave people died, in the U.R.S.S space program, and thanks to them other people made more safety the next travels. Thanks for answer.
YDDES Yeah I knew it was something like that
Excellent job on the video. I really liked the concept of this soviet spacecraft, it has a nice 60's Sci-fi-movie touch to it. Too bad they never sorted out their rocket problems on this one.
One question: Where did you find the soundfiles for the Soviet radio chatter you used in this video? I am making a Soviet space exploration video of my own and would love to use the same radiocomm-chatter in it as you did. Cheers!
Very good!
Just little remark:
In film sound the "new" Soviet State Anthem (1977 y.) whereas russian lunar expedition was arranged for 1970-1974 yy. :-)
Another advantage the US had was the availability of barges for transporting large engine components by water, which greatly reduced damage during transport. USSR's Baikonur cosmodrome was literally in the middle of nowhere, and the components of rocket engines etc. were transported over rugged roads or by rail. Damage done to thousands of parts in the engine was substantial, and engineers could never find all of it. That's a big reason for continual USSR booster failure.
Before Apollo 11, the Soviets have successfully landed two lunar landers (Lunar 9 and 13) in 1966, around the same time of the Surveyor probes. Later they have successfully landed two Lunokhod rovers, four robotic sample return probes, plus one landing on Mars and numerous landings on Venus.
Am I alone as an American in feeling really bad that this never happened? Like I really wish the Soviets had gone to the moon
Matt Bowen no your not alone. I am happy we got there first but they deserved to get there to. A lot of there best guys had died before they had a chance at the moon
Not American and not Russian. But the competition would have been beautiful
nothing was said about promoting the evil soviet/communist/socialist regime. these are indeed purely evil.
but the point here was had the US gotten some balls-busting from other competitors, that would have pushed the space race further
In the words of a Soviet Spokesman "It would have been the most expensive 2nd place trophy in history with little benefit to the state"
After at least Apollo 11.
Lovely film, thank you! I sure wish the Soviets had made this trip.
I agree with Nathbfreak about the pragmatic nature of the Russians. We developed a "space pen" costing millions because gravity isn't there to cause proper ink flow.
Russia: Fuck it. Use a pencil.
Problem solved!
But, it has to be said: the US missions were brilliant. Docked craft greatly improved conditions for astronauts, and provided the lifeboat that saved three men.
Apollo was an astounding set of great decisions.
Your point is well but. While the locotives are pulling it out to the launch pad you would make plans on getting on one heading in the opposite direction of Siberia.
Shouldn't Soyuz-like spacecraft use solar panels?
kosiak10851 not all soyuz variants used the solar panel configuration. The original design of the soyuz command ship for the lunar missions didn't have the solar panel config everyone is familiar with.
*****
oh, don't bullshit me, ok?! Soyuz spacecraft always used solar panels since the first flight.
+kosiak10851 Nop.
+kosiak10851 dude CALM DOWN he was just trying to give u info lol.😆
+kosiak10851 and I think what he said was true anyways...
The rendevouz orbit after lunar liftoff look a little high to me...
Nice effort
sounds pretty sad yet seems to ring true, anyway have a nice day