Yet Another Whimsical What If thread I was wondering what space exploration would look like if Korolyov hadn't died in early '66, but had lived on for a couple decades? Would his leadership have led the N-1 to success eventually? Would he have been able to persuade the Soviet leadership that there was a need for the Soviets to establish a moon base?
Quote from: Nickolai on 03/26/2013 04:52 pmYet Another Whimsical What If thread I was wondering what space exploration would look like if Korolyov hadn't died in early '66, but had lived on for a couple decades? Would his leadership have led the N-1 to success eventually? Would he have been able to persuade the Soviet leadership that there was a need for the Soviets to establish a moon base?I think however that it'd have been much harder for Korolev to save the N-1 from its design flaws. To do that he really needed more money, and the Soviet economy was slowly beginning to stall out by the early 1970s.
Chelomey was apparently Khrushchev's son in law, so the political deck was stacked against Korolyov.
Asif Siddiqi wrote about this a few years ago. Korolev's health was bad. He would have died a few years later, probably by 1968 or so. Not much would have changed. They had other problems.
For.All.Mankind.
Quote from: Blackstar on 07/10/2022 01:36 pmAsif Siddiqi wrote about this a few years ago. Korolev's health was bad. He would have died a few years later, probably by 1968 or so. Not much would have changed. They had other problems.And just because tab was open in my browser, here's the issue of Quest, with your own piece among others: https://spacehistory101.com/downloads/quest-vol-26-2/
Voskhod-3 would have flown, The SU probably would have made a manned fly-by and Moon landing circa 1970-1972, but probably not much will to make a large series of flights as the "parity" would have been demonstrated. The hardware testing for the LOK/L3 as well as training still had a long way to go in addition the the N1 problems. The "QC" on Soyuz-1 been better, but very iffy whether the parachute compartment problem would have been caught - and as a result two crews could have been lost. In general, the Space Race would have been a race a few years longer.I would guess a crewed 7K-L1 on a Proton (UR-500) could have beat Apollo 8 by a couple months. It would have been a logical for Koroloev to push forward his most developed project for a turtle gain. (Pun intended!)
By around 20:00 on November 17, based on the available telemetry, it was established that soon after the separation of the descent and instrument modules, the pressure inside cabin had suddenly dropped from 380 to 180 millimeters and the very last measurements showed that the pressure was just 25 millimeters or near vacuum. It now became clear that the Descent Module had almost completely depressurized, which would most certainly lead to the failure of all transmitters, which had not been designed to function in vacuum. The same problem could affect the operation of the parachute system.[...]The recovery specialists knew that the crashed Zond-6 capsule contained a black box with information which would be critical for the investigation into the failure. Also inside was supposed to be a film with photos of the Earth and the Moon taken during the flight. However, at the same time, the capsule contained a self-destruct mechanism with 10 kilograms of explosive. The state of the device after the impact was unknown, besides that it had not been triggered. Therefore, any recovery operations at the crash site had to start with the de-mining of the wreckage. (52)The team of specialists had the task of inspecting the surviving hardware and preparing a scenario to deactivate the self-destruct mechanism. The next day, Konstantin Bushuev, Deputy to Designer General Vasily Mishin, also arrived at the site at the insistence of the State Commission. (52)[...]After careful inspection of the wreckage, specialists began a very slow, piece-by-piece dismantling of the debris of the exterior, followed by internal components, aiming to access the location of the self-destruct mechanism. Eventually, they located the dangerous device, and after another inspection, removed it without accident. Engineers then transferred the mechanism to the officers of the operational technical team of the Air Force, who safely detonated it far in the steppe. (52)[...]The probe into the accident showed that at a height of 7.5 kilometers above the Earth's surface when the capsule was hurtling down with a speed of 200 meters per second, the parachute had successfully opened. (50) However, the near-vacuum internal conditions apparently led to the formation of a "coronal charge" in the avionics, as soon as the SUS descent system was powered up. It triggered the onboard gamma-ray altimeter, GLV, to generate a faulty two-step command to jettison the lines of the parachute system, when the capsule was still at an altitude of 5,300 meters. Soft-landing engines, which were supposed to fire at touchdown, were also activated high in the air. (466, 774) As a result, the spacecraft crashed in Tyuratam just 16 kilometers from the site where it had lifted off just a week earlier. (52)Bushuev also reported the following problems during the Zond-6 mission: The failure of the ONA antenna to deploy; A lower-than-normal temperature of chemical 0-30 in the PGSA hydraulic system; During the return flight, the temperature of the hydrogen peroxide in the tanks of the SUS descent control system had fallen to -5 degrees and during the attempt to warm up the tank with sunlight, the Descent Module began loosing pressure; During reentry, the Descent Module completely lost pressure, which led to the failure of all radio transmitters; Due to the low temperature of the peroxide, SUS thrusters fired unevenly, which caused out-of-limit shaking of the vehicle reaching up to 45 degrees, while the allowable motion was not supposed to exceed 18 degrees;Bushuev also reported that the depressurization was caused by inadequate sealing on the edges of the hatch and coincided with the cooling of the peroxide tanks.Obviously, there was no word in the Soviet press about the serious failures aboard Zond-6. In fact, the post-landing TASS announcement hinted at the upcoming piloted circumlunar mission: "The aim of launching the Zond-6 probe, as well as the Zond-4 and Zond-5 probes, was to perfect the flight and design of an automated variation of the piloted spacecraft for flying to the Moon, as well as to check the functioning of onboard systems under actual conditions of flight on the Earth-Moon-Earth route..." (50)However, given all the technical problems uncovered by Zond-6, the flight of a crew aboard L1 spacecraft was out of the question at the time.
Hell yes, I remember that one. First among an entire serie of "whatif" comics that followed, the series are continuing to this day (must be 25 of them so far - and counting - well, twice as much !) https://www.amazon.fr/s?k=jour+j+bd+p%C3%A9cau&__mk_fr_FR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=1IZ1UHVIXQK3E&sprefix=jour+j+bd+p%C3%A9cau%2Caps%2C55&ref=nb_sb_nossOverall the series is entertaining but very (very !) unequal in quality. Some PODs are half-baked or quite tortured. That one was average at best, although the plot twist at the end was pretty original and unexpected.
