Trying to follow America and not doing their own thing.Soyuz was one of their right things they did on a positive note.
I would say that the worst decision was to go forward with both proton and n1; .. With proton out of the picture all resources could be thrown behind n1 related technology
Proton still could have done a moon mission using four launches plus one Souyz launch for the crew.
Quote from: Quindar Beep on 02/25/2013 11:21 pmBuran (and that specifically in contrast to Energia/Buran). It ate up a large part of the Soviet space budget and had no purpose as they were also continuing to use expendable launchers. Those were cheaper to use than the US Shuttle and so probably would have been cheaper than the Soviet one.Energia was an inspired bit of following the letter of the law while breaking the spirit on the part of Glushko, but if it hadn't had to lift an orbiter the USSR would have had a super-heavy launcher several years before they did.Energia was a super heavy lifter who's capacity was similar to the Saturn INT-21.The fully developed inline version would have been the most powerful LV to fly.Without Buran Energia may have never been built as a payload is needed to create the need for the LV.The program did not die of natural causes but instead was killed by larger economic and political events ie the breakup of the Soviet Union.The cost of the space program was a minor contributor in light of other issues the cost of the arms race agianst the US, a loosing war in Afghanistan,the cost of maintaining puppet governments inside the iron curtain, and general corruption within the Soviet government.The Soviet Afghan war was esp costly for them and is often referred to as the Soviet's Vietnam or the Bear Trap.
Buran (and that specifically in contrast to Energia/Buran). It ate up a large part of the Soviet space budget and had no purpose as they were also continuing to use expendable launchers. Those were cheaper to use than the US Shuttle and so probably would have been cheaper than the Soviet one.Energia was an inspired bit of following the letter of the law while breaking the spirit on the part of Glushko, but if it hadn't had to lift an orbiter the USSR would have had a super-heavy launcher several years before they did.
Quote from: malenfant on 09/02/2013 01:39 pmI would say that the worst decision was to go forward with both proton and n1; .. With proton out of the picture all resources could be thrown behind n1 related technologyA version of Proton remains the workhorse launcher to this date, and even brings in commercial revenue. I dont think building it can be considered a mistake.
N-1 engines where the NK-15 family. Not only was it worse performing than the NK-33, but they were built under military procurement rules. Thus, they couldn't be acceptance tested. They built batches of 8, tested 3, and if all three worked fine, the other five were sent for integration. The marvelous NK-33 was an attempt to solve the inherent unreliability and lack of performance of the original design, which was made simply too week for the mission (originally just 75tonnes to LEO).Their mission was to beat the Americans to the Moon. You don't go making the most astounding advance in engine technology when you are short on time and budget. Even with infinite budget, Von Braun went with the simplest and gentlest cycle he could get away with, and with an engine that had lots of margin (F-1A gave 20% extra performance just changing the turbopump). When asked about the margin for the LM, he told the module designers they had 25% of margin, but asked the LV designers to put 50%. That's how you finish a mission, starting from the mission payload and going backwards putting more margin than what the engineers tell you. Exactly opposite of what Mishin did. Yes, Korolev did made the mistake, but a lot of those mistakes were done holding Mishin's hand.
(snip) A nation stuck in Afghanistan with a bloated, nearly-aimless heavy-lift based program that it cannot afford does stand a risk of losing it all, in terms of their manned spaceflight capability.
This isn't the worst decision ever made, but the decision to build and fly TKS but never use it for crew transport was not too great.