Post by Czero 101 on Feb 4, 2011 12:37:19 GMT -4
Not sure if this is the right forum but I found this Space.com article about the N-1:
www.space.com/10764-soviet-moon-rocket-secrets-revealed.html
Research that digs back over the decades is providing an illuminating look at the former Soviet Union’s failed bid to send cosmonauts to the moon.
Between February 1969 and November 1972, Soviet space engineers repeatedly saw any dream of landing a cosmonaut on the moon literally go up in flames.
A succession of four failures of the Soviet-built N-1 mega-booster led to the project’s cancellation by decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
A fifth launch of the super-booster was slated in the fourth quarter of 1974, one that gleaned lessons learned from the earlier unsuccessful flights.
Up in smoke and millions of rubles spent, the terminated N-1-L3 space project was to be topped by a lunar system to support a two-cosmonaut crew on a maximum flight time of 13 days to the moon and back to Earth, with one crew member setting foot upon the lunar surface.
For years, Charles Vick, senior technical and policy analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, has been doggedly poring over on declassified files, talking with Soviet space program pioneers and culling through their memoirs and diaries.
Declassified intelligence
In Vick’s latest unmasking of the N-1-L3 studies, he’s added new insight to his take on the Soviet manned lunar programs. He’s looking at it from both American and Russian perspectives, using satellite reconnaissance imagery — albeit purposely downgraded in clarity — and data from open sources.
“I would suggest that the race was far closer than publically perceived, based on declassified intelligence all the way back before Sputnik,” Vick said. “It was the Soviet system that ultimately defeated itself in the lunar race,” Vick told SPACE.com.
A host of U.S. intelligence gathering groups, from the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, the Office of Naval Intelligence and others, still hold tight what was gleaned by various satellites — as well as on-the-ground spies.
“That is an amazing story to be told … that hasn’t been told,” Vick said. Factory floor spies, even intelligence-gathering, down-range moles, he said.
In relation to N-1 launches, the U.S. also tapped into seismic sensors and atmospheric capabilities, even listening in on countdown demonstrations and in-flight telemetry streams transmitted during booster flights.
“It was intelligence in one form or another,” Vick said. “We could really feel for what was going on. We were able to do it a lot more than most people realized…it creates one huge picture.”
Continued in the article linked above.
Cz
www.space.com/10764-soviet-moon-rocket-secrets-revealed.html
Research that digs back over the decades is providing an illuminating look at the former Soviet Union’s failed bid to send cosmonauts to the moon.
Between February 1969 and November 1972, Soviet space engineers repeatedly saw any dream of landing a cosmonaut on the moon literally go up in flames.
A succession of four failures of the Soviet-built N-1 mega-booster led to the project’s cancellation by decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
A fifth launch of the super-booster was slated in the fourth quarter of 1974, one that gleaned lessons learned from the earlier unsuccessful flights.
Up in smoke and millions of rubles spent, the terminated N-1-L3 space project was to be topped by a lunar system to support a two-cosmonaut crew on a maximum flight time of 13 days to the moon and back to Earth, with one crew member setting foot upon the lunar surface.
For years, Charles Vick, senior technical and policy analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, has been doggedly poring over on declassified files, talking with Soviet space program pioneers and culling through their memoirs and diaries.
Declassified intelligence
In Vick’s latest unmasking of the N-1-L3 studies, he’s added new insight to his take on the Soviet manned lunar programs. He’s looking at it from both American and Russian perspectives, using satellite reconnaissance imagery — albeit purposely downgraded in clarity — and data from open sources.
“I would suggest that the race was far closer than publically perceived, based on declassified intelligence all the way back before Sputnik,” Vick said. “It was the Soviet system that ultimately defeated itself in the lunar race,” Vick told SPACE.com.
A host of U.S. intelligence gathering groups, from the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, the Office of Naval Intelligence and others, still hold tight what was gleaned by various satellites — as well as on-the-ground spies.
“That is an amazing story to be told … that hasn’t been told,” Vick said. Factory floor spies, even intelligence-gathering, down-range moles, he said.
In relation to N-1 launches, the U.S. also tapped into seismic sensors and atmospheric capabilities, even listening in on countdown demonstrations and in-flight telemetry streams transmitted during booster flights.
“It was intelligence in one form or another,” Vick said. “We could really feel for what was going on. We were able to do it a lot more than most people realized…it creates one huge picture.”
Continued in the article linked above.
Cz
