the NASA manned space flight program adopted in 1961 to carry out the first manned landing on the Moon and completed in 1975. President John F. Kennedy formulated this problem in his speech on September 12, 1961, and it was solved on July 20, 1969 during the Apollo mission The 11th landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Also, under the Apollo program, 5 more successful landings of astronauts on the moon were made, the last in 1972. These six flights under the Apollo program are currently the only ones in the history of mankind when people landed on another astronomical object. The Apollo program and the moon landings are often cited as some of the greatest achievements in human history.
The Apollo program was the third human spaceflight program adopted by NASA, the US space agency. This program used the Apollo spacecraft and the Saturn series of launch vehicles, which were later used for the Skylab program and participated in the Soviet-American Soyuz-Apollo program. These later programs are considered part of the full Apollo program.
During the program, there were two major accidents. The first is a fire during ground tests at the launch complex, which killed 3 astronauts V. Grissom, E. White and R. Chaffee. The second occurred during the flight of Apollo 13, as a result of the explosion of an oxygen tank and the failure of two of the three fuel cell batteries. The landing on the moon was thwarted, the astronauts managed to return to Earth at the risk of their lives.
The program has made a great contribution to the history of manned astronautics. It remains the only space program to have carried out manned flights beyond low Earth orbit. Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit another astronomical object, and Apollo 17 is the last manned moon landing to date.
background
The Apollo program was conceived in early 1960, under the Eisenhower administration, as a continuation of the American Mercury space program. The Mercury spacecraft could only carry one astronaut into low Earth orbit. The new Apollo spacecraft was designed to put three astronauts on a trajectory to the moon and possibly even land on it. The program was named after Apollo, the Greek god of light and archery, by NASA manager Avram Silverstein. Although funding was well below what was needed due to Eisenhower's negative attitude towards manned spaceflight, NASA continued to develop the program. In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president after a campaign in which he promised the Americans to dominate the Soviet Union in space exploration and rocketry.
On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, furthering American fears that the United States was technologically behind the Soviet Union.
Spaceship
The Apollo spacecraft consisted of two main parts - the command and service compartments, in which the crew spent most of the flight, and the lunar module, designed to land and take off from the moon for two astronauts.
Command and service compartments
Apollo command and service compartments in lunar orbit.
The command compartment was designed by North American Rockwell and has the shape of a cone with a spherical base, base diameter 3920 mm, cone height 3430 mm, apex angle 60°, nominal weight 5500 kg.
The command compartment is the mission control center. All crew members during the flight are in the command compartment, with the exception of the landing on the moon. The command compartment, in which the crew returns to Earth, is all that remains of the Saturn V-Apollo system after the flight to the Moon. The service compartment carries the main propulsion system and support systems for the Apollo spacecraft.
The command compartment has a pressurized cabin with a crew life support system, a control and navigation system, a radio communication system, an emergency rescue system and a heat shield.
Lunar module
The Apollo Lunar Module on the surface of the moon.
The Apollo lunar module was developed by Grumman and has two stages: landing and takeoff. The landing stage, equipped with an independent propulsion system and landing legs, is used to lower the lunar spacecraft from the Moon's orbit and soft landing on the lunar surface, and also serves as a launch pad for the takeoff stage. The takeoff stage, with a pressurized crew cabin and its own propulsion system, after completion of research, starts from the surface of the Moon and docks with the command compartment in orbit. The separation of steps is carried out using pyrotechnic devices.
Launch vehicles
When a team of engineers led by Wernher von Braun began to develop the Apollo program, it was not yet clear which flight scheme would be chosen, and, accordingly, the mass of the payload that the launch vehicle would have to put on a trajectory to the Moon is unknown. The flight to the Moon, in which one ship landed on the Moon, took off and returned to Earth, required a significantly greater carrying capacity from the launch vehicle than existing rockets were capable of launching into space. Initially, it was planned to create a Nova launch vehicle. But soon they chose a solution in which the main ship remains in lunar orbit, and only the lunar module separated from the main ship lands on the moon and takes off from the moon. To accomplish this task, the Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles were created. Despite the fact that the Saturn V had significantly less power than the Nova.
Saturn V
Diagram of Saturn V
The Saturn V launch vehicle consisted of three stages. The first stage, S-IC, was powered by five F-1 oxygen-kerosene engines, with a total thrust of 33,400 kN. The first stage worked for 2.5 minutes and accelerated the spacecraft to a speed of 2.68? with. The second stage, the S-II, used five J-2 oxygen-hydrogen engines with a total thrust of 5115 kN. The second stage worked for approximately 6 minutes, accelerating the spacecraft to a speed of 6.84? s and bringing it to a height of 185 km. On the third stage, S-IVB, one J-2 engine with a thrust of 1000 kN was installed. The third stage was turned on twice, after the separation of the second stage, it worked for 2.5 minutes and put the spacecraft into Earth's orbit. After entering orbit, the third stage turned on again and in 6 minutes brought the ship to the flight path to the Moon. The third stage was brought to the trajectory of a collision with the Moon to study the geology of the Moon, when the stage collided with the Moon, due to the kinetic energy of its movement, an explosion occurred, the effect of which on the Moon was recorded by the equipment left by the previous crews.
The Saturn V launch vehicle was capable of delivering a total mass of about 145 tons to low Earth orbit, and about 65 tons to the trajectory to the Moon. A total of 13 rocket launches were made, 9 of them to the Moon.
Saturn IB
The Saturn IB is a two-stage booster, an upgraded version of the Saturn I booster. The first stage, SI-B, was powered by 8 H-1 oxygen-kerosene engines with a total thrust of 6,700 kN. The stage worked for 2.5 minutes and turned off at an altitude of 68 kilometers. The second stage of the Saturn IB, S-IVB, the third stage of the Saturn V, operated for about 7 minutes and put the payload into orbit.
Saturn IB put 15.3 tons into low earth orbit. It was used in test launches under the Apollo program and in the Skylab and Soyuz-Apollo programs.
Space flights under the Apollo program
Unmanned launches
Manned flights
The first photograph taken by Neil Armstrong after his walk on the lunar surface.
Apollo 7, launched on October 11, 1968, was the first manned spacecraft of the Apollo program. It was an eleven-day flight in Earth orbit, the purpose of which was complex testing of the command module and the command and measurement complex.
Initially, the next manned flight under the Apollo program was supposed to be the maximum possible simulation of the operating modes and conditions of flight to the Moon in Earth orbit, and the next launch was supposed to conduct similar tests in lunar orbit, making the first manned flight around the Moon. But at the same time, the USSR was testing the Zond, a two-seat manned spacecraft Soyuz 7K-L1, which was supposed to be used for a manned flight around the moon. The threat that the USSR would overtake the United States in a manned lunar flyby forced the project leaders to reshuffle the flights, despite the fact that the lunar module was not yet ready for testing.
On December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 was launched, and on December 24, it entered the orbit of the Moon, making the first manned flight around the Moon in the history of mankind.
On March 3, 1969, the launch of Apollo 9 took place, during this flight an imitation of a flight to the moon in earth orbit was made.
On May 18, 1969, Apollo 10 was sent into space, in this flight a “dress rehearsal” was held for landing on the moon. The ship's flight program provided for all the operations that were to be carried out during the landing, with the exception of the actual landing on the moon, stay on the moon and launch from the moon. Some NASA experts, after the successful flights of Apollo 8 and Apollo 9, recommended using Apollo 10 for the first landing of people on the moon. NASA management deemed it necessary to preliminarily conduct another test flight.
A video camera mounted on Apollo 11 captured Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon.
Pictured is Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin saluting the American flag. The illusion of wind is caused by a horizontal rod that is inserted to hold the flag's top edge in place.
On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 launched. On July 20, at 20 hours 17 minutes 42 seconds GMT, the lunar module landed in the Sea of Tranquility. Neil Armstrong descended to the lunar surface on July 21, 1969 at 02:56:20 GMT, making the first lunar landing in human history. Stepping on the surface of the moon, he said:
On November 14, 1969, Apollo 12 was launched, and on November 19, the second landing on the moon took place. The lunar module landed about two hundred meters from the Surveyor-3 spacecraft, the astronauts photographed the landing site and dismantled some parts of the spacecraft, which were then brought to Earth. Collected 34.4 kg of lunar rocks. The astronauts returned to earth on November 24.
On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 was launched. On April 14, at a distance of 330,000 kilometers from Earth, an oxygen cylinder exploded and two of the three fuel cell batteries that provided power to the command module crew compartment failed. As a result, the astronauts could not use the main engine and life support systems of the service module. Only the undamaged lunar module remained at the disposal of the astronauts. Using its engine, the trajectory was corrected so that after flying around the moon, the ship returned to Earth, thanks to which the astronauts managed to escape. The astronauts returned to earth on April 17.
On January 31, 1971, Apollo 14 launched. On February 5, 1971, the lunar module landed. The astronauts returned to Earth on February 9, 1971. During the flight, a much larger scientific program was carried out than in the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 expeditions. Collected 42.9 kg of lunar rocks.
Apollo 15 Expedition. Lunar car.
On July 26, 1971, Apollo 15 took off. On July 30, the Lunar Module landed. During this expedition, the lunar vehicle was used for the first time, which was also used in the flights of Apollo 16 and Apollo 17. Collected 76.8 kg of lunar rocks. The astronauts returned to Earth on August 7, 1971.
On April 16, 1972, Apollo 16 was launched. On April 21, the lunar module landed. Collected 94.7 kg of lunar rocks. The astronauts returned to Earth on April 27, 1972.
December 7, 1972 - Launch of Apollo 17. On December 11, the lunar module landed. Collected 110.5 kg of lunar rocks. During this expedition, the last landing on the moon took place today. The astronauts returned to Earth on December 19, 1972.
| № | Astronauts | Date and time of launch and return to Earth, time in flight, h:m:s | Tasks and results of the flight | Date and time of landing and takeoff from the moon | Time spent on the Moon / total time of exits to the lunar surface | Mass of delivered lunar soil, kg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apollo 7 | Walter Schirra, Donn Eisel, Walter Cunningham | 11.10.1968 15:02:45 - 22.10.1968 11:11:48 / 260:09:03 | The first tests of the Apollo spacecraft in low Earth orbit | - | - | - |
| Apollo 8 | Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Anders | 21.12.1968 12:51:00 - 27.12.1968 15:51:42 / 147:00:42 | First manned flyby of the Moon, entry into the atmosphere with the second cosmic velocity | - | - | - |
| Apollo 9 | James McDivitt, David Scott, Russell Schweikart | 03.03.1969 16:00:00 - 13.03.1969 17:00:54 / 241:00:54 | Tests of the main and lunar spacecraft in near-Earth orbit, testing of compartment rebuilding | - | - | - |
| Apollo 10 | Thomas Stafford, Eugene Cernan, John Young | 18.05.1969 16:49:00 - 26.05.1969 16:52:23 / 192:03:23 | Tests of the main and lunar spacecraft in lunar orbit, development of rebuilding compartments and maneuvers in lunar orbit | - | - | - |
| Apollo 11 | Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Michael Collins | 16.07.1969 13:32:00 - 24.07.1969 16:50:35 / 195:18:35 | First landing on the moon | 20.07.1969 20:17:40 - 21.07.1969 17:54:01 | 21 h 36 min / 2 h 32 min | 21.7 |
| Apollo 12 | Charles Conrad, Alan Bean, Richard Gordon | 14.11.1969 16:22:00 - 24.11.1969 20:58:24 / 244:36:24 | Second landing on the moon. | 19.11.1969 06:54:35 - 20.11.1969 14:25:47 |
31 h 31 min / 7 h 45 min |
34.4 |
| Apollo 13 | James Lovell, John Swigert, Fred Hayes | 11.04.1970 19:13:00 - 17.04.1970 18:07:41 / 142:54:41 | The landing on the moon did not take place due to the accident of the ship. Flyby of the Moon and return to Earth. | - | - | - |
| Apollo 14 | Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, Stuart Rusa | 01.02.1971 21:03:02 - 10.02.1971 21:05:00 / 216:01:58 | Third landing on the moon. | 05.02.1971 09:18:11 - 06.02.1971 18:48:42 | 33 h 31 min / 9 h 23 min | 42.9 |
| Apollo 15 | David Scott, James Irvine, Alfred Worden | 26.07.1971 13:34:00 - 07.08.1971 20:45:53 / 295:11:53 | Fourth moon landing | 30.07.1971 22:16:29 - 02.08.1971 17:11:22 | 66 h 55 min / 18 h 35 min | 76.8 |
| Apollo 16 | John Young, Charles Duke, Thomas Mattingly | 16.04.1972 17:54:00 - 27.04.1972 19:45:05 / 265:51:05 | Fifth moon landing | 21.04.1972 02:23:35 - 24.04.1972 01:25:48 | 71 h 2 min / 20 h 14 min | 94.7 |
| Apollo 17 | Eugene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, Ronald Evans | 07.12.1972 05:33:00 - 19.12.1972 19:24:59 / 301:51:59 | Sixth moon landing | 11.12.1972 19:54:57 - 14.12.1972 22:54:37 | 75 h 00 min / 22 h 04 min | 110.5 |
Program cost
In March 1966, NASA told Congress that the cost of the thirteen-year Apollo program, which would include six moon landings between July 1969 and December 1972, would be approximately $22.718 billion.
According to Steve Garber, curator of the NASA history site, the final cost of the Apollo program was between $20 billion and $25.4 billion in 1969, or approximately $135 billion in 2005 dollars.
Canceled flights
Initially, 3 more lunar expeditions were planned - Apollo 18, -19 and -20, but NASA cut the budget to redirect funds to the development of the Space Shuttle. The remaining unused Saturn V launch vehicles and Apollo spacecraft were decided to be used for the Skylab and Soyuz-Apollo programs. Of the three Saturn Vs, only one was used to launch the Skylab station, the remaining two became museum pieces. The Apollo spacecraft, which participated in the Soyuz-Apollo program, was launched by a Saturn-1B launch vehicle.
Program emblem
The Apollo program is a manned space flight program of the US space agency NASA, adopted in 1961 with the aim of carrying out the first manned landing on, and completed in 1975. President John F. Kennedy articulated this challenge in a speech on September 12, 1961, and it was accomplished on July 20, 1969, by the landing flight of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. In total, under the Apollo program, 6 successful landings of astronauts on the moon were made (the last in 1972). These six flights under the Apollo program are currently the only ones in the history of mankind when people have landed on another astronomical object. The Apollo program and the moon landings are often cited as some of the greatest achievements in human history.
The Apollo program was the third human spaceflight program adopted by NASA. This program used the Apollo and the Saturn series, which were later used for and participated in the Soviet-American Soyuz-Apollo program. These later programs are considered part of the full Apollo program.
During the program, two major accidents occurred. The first is a fire during ground tests at the launch complex (after the fire, the burned-out ship was named Apollo 1), which resulted in the death of three astronauts -B. Grissom, E. White and R. Chaffee. The second occurred during the flight of the Apollo 13 spacecraft: as a result of the explosion of the liquid oxygen tank and the failure of two of the three fuel cell batteries, the landing on the moon was thwarted, the astronauts managed to return to the risk of their lives.
The program has made a great contribution to the history of manned astronautics. It remains the only space program to have carried out manned flights beyond low Earth orbit. was the first manned spacecraft to orbit another astronomical object, and is the last manned landing on the moon to date.
background
The Apollo program was conceived in early 1960, under the Eisenhower administration, as a continuation of the American Mercury space program. The Mercury spacecraft could only carry one astronaut into low Earth orbit. The new Apollo spacecraft was designed to put three astronauts on a trajectory to the moon and possibly even land on it. The program was named after Apollo, the Greek god of light and archery, by NASA manager Abraham Silverstein. Although funding was well below what was needed due to Eisenhower's negative attitude towards manned spaceflight, NASA continued to develop the program. In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president after an election campaign in which he promised Americans superiority over the Soviet Union in space exploration and rocket science.
On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, furthering American fears that the United States was technologically behind the Soviet Union.
In May 1961, US President D. Kennedy spoke to Congress with a presentation of the Apollo program. It was planned to spend 9 billion dollars on it during the first five years. The ultimate goal of the program was to land a man on the moon no later than 1970.
Spaceship
The Apollo spacecraft consisted of two main parts - the connected command and service compartments, in which the crew spent most of the flight, and the lunar module, designed to land and take off from the moon for two astronauts.
Command and service compartments
The command and service compartments of the Apollo in lunar orbit.
The command compartment was developed by the American company North American Rockwell and has the shape of a cone with a spherical base. Base diameter - 3920 mm, cone height - 3430 mm, apex angle - 60°, nominal weight - 5500 kg.
The command compartment is the mission control center. All members of the crew of three during the flight are in the command compartment, with the exception of the landing on the moon. The command compartment, in which the crew returns to Earth, is all that remains of the Saturn V-Apollo system after the flight to the Moon. The service compartment carries the main propulsion system and support systems for the Apollo spacecraft.
The command compartment has a pressurized cabin with a crew life support system, a control and navigation system, a computer for calculating the flight path with 4 kilobytes of RAM, a radio communication system, an emergency rescue system and a heat shield.
Lunar module
The Apollo Lunar Module on the surface of the moon.
The lunar module of the Apollo spacecraft was developed by the American company Grumman and has two stages: landing and takeoff. The landing stage, equipped with an independent propulsion system and landing legs, is used to lower the lunar spacecraft from the Moon's orbit and soft landing on the lunar surface, and also serves as a launch pad for the takeoff stage. The takeoff stage, with a pressurized crew cabin and its own propulsion system, after completion of research, starts from the surface of the Moon and docks with the command compartment in orbit. The separation of steps is carried out using pyrotechnic devices. To train astronauts to control the lunar module, a simulator was created that makes it possible to simulate being on Earth in the gravitational field of the Moon.
Launch vehicles
When the team of engineers led by Wernher von Braun began work on the Apollo program, it was not yet clear which flight pattern would be chosen, and, accordingly, the mass of the payload that the launch vehicle would have to put on a trajectory to the Moon was unknown. The so-called "direct scheme", according to which one ship landed on the moon, took off and returned to Earth, required a very large carrying capacity from the launch vehicle. Under this flight scheme, it was planned to create the Nova launch vehicle. But it was soon decided that the main ship (which includes the compartment returned to Earth, as well as the fuel and propulsion system necessary for the return) remains in lunar orbit, and only the lunar module, separated from the main ship, lands on the moon and takes off from the moon. For the phased implementation of this task, the Saturn-1B launch vehicles were created (for flights to near-Earth orbits) and (for flights to the Moon). Despite the fact that Saturn-5 had a significantly lower power than Nova (Saturn-5 put about 47 tons of payload on a trajectory to the Moon, and Nova was designed for 68 tons), with a new flight scheme this turned out to be enough.
"Saturn-5"
The Saturn-5 launch vehicle consisted of three stages. The first stage, S-IC, was powered by five F-1 oxygen-kerosene engines, with a total thrust of 33,400 kN. The first stage worked for 2.5 minutes and accelerated the spacecraft to a speed of 2.68 km/s (inertial reference frame). The second stage, the S-II, used five J-2 oxygen-hydrogen engines with a total thrust of 5115 kN. The second stage worked for approximately 6 minutes, accelerating the spacecraft to a speed of 6.84 km / s and bringing it to an altitude of 185 km. The third stage, S-IVB, was equipped with a single 1000 kN J-2 engine. The third stage was turned on twice: after the separation of the second stage, it worked for 2.5 minutes and put the spacecraft into orbit of the Earth, and soon after entering the orbit it turned on again and in 6 minutes put the spacecraft on a flight path to the Moon. The third stage was brought to the trajectory of a collision with the Moon (starting from the flight; in previous flights to the Moon, the stage went into a circumsolar orbit) to study the geology of the Moon: when the stage fell onto the Moon, due to its kinetic energy, an explosion occurred, seismic waves from which were recorded by the equipment left previous crews.
The Saturn-5 launch vehicle could launch a cargo weighing about 145 tons into low Earth orbit, and about 65 tons onto the trajectory to the Moon (46.8 - the Apollo spacecraft, 18.7 - the third stage with the remaining fuel). A total of 13 rocket launches were made, 9 of them to the Moon, all of them were successful.
"Saturn-1B"
Saturn-1B is a two-stage launch vehicle, an upgraded version of the Saturn-1 launch vehicle. The first stage, SI-B, was equipped with 8 H-1 oxygen-kerosene engines, with a total thrust of 6700 kN. The stage worked for 2.5 minutes and turned off at an altitude of 68 km. The second stage of Saturn-1B, S-IVB (it is also the third stage of Saturn-5), worked for about 7 minutes and put a payload of up to 15.3 tons into low Earth orbit.
Saturn-1B was used in test launches under the Apollo program and in the Skylab and Soyuz-Apollo programs.
Space flights under the Apollo program
1961-1963
Testing of the Saturn-1 launch vehicle at different stages of rocket readiness.
| № | Launch name | Launch date | Deorbit date | NSSDC_ID | NORAD_ID | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| № 1 | SA-1 | October 27, 1961 | October 27, 1961 | SATURNSA1 | ||
| № 2 | SA-2 | April 25, 1962 | April 25, 1962 | SATURNSA2 | Suborbital flight, 2 min 40 sec. | |
| № 3 | SA-3 | November 16, 1962 | November 16, 1962 | SATURNSA3 | Suborbital flight, 4 min 52 sec. | |
| № 4 | SA-4 | March 28, 1963 | March 28, 1963 | SATURNSA4 | Suborbital flight, 15 min 00 sec. | |
| № 5 | SA-5 | January 29, 1964 | April 30, 1966 | 1964-005A | 744 | 1st orbital flight, 791 days. |
1964-1965
Testing models of the Apollo spacecraft.
| № | Satellite | Launch date | Deorbit date | RN | NSSDC ID | NORAD ID | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| № 1 | "Apollo QTV-1" | August 28, 1963 | August 28, 1963 | Little Joe-2 | - | - | Suborbital flight, altitude 7.32 km. |
| № 2 | "Apollo PA-1" | November 7, 1963 | November 7, 1963 | SAS "Apollo" | - | - | |
| № 3 | "Apollo 001" | May 13, 1964 | May 13, 1964 | Little Joe-2 | - | - | |
| № 4 | "Apollo" model 1 | May 28, 1964 | June 1, 1964 | Saturn-1 | 1964-025A | 800 | |
| № 5 | "Apollo" model 2 | September 18, 1964 | September 22, 1964 | Saturn-1 | 1964-057A | 883 | |
| № 6 | "Apollo 002" | December 8, 1964 | December 8, 1964 | Little Joe-2 | - | - | Suborbital flight, altitude 5 km. |
| № 7 | Apollo Model 3 | February 16, 1965 | July 10, 1985 | Saturn-1 | 1965-009B | 1088 | With "Pegasus-1" |
| № 8 | "Apollo" 003 | May 19, 1965 | May 19, 1965 | Little Joe-2 | - | - | Emergency launch, height 6 km. |
| № 9 | Apollo Model 4 | May 25, 1965 | July 8, 1989 | Saturn-1 | 1965-039B | 1385 | With the Pegasus-2 satellite |
| № 10 | "Apollo PA-2" | June 26, 1965 | June 26, 1965 | SAS "Apollo" | - | - | Suborbital flight, altitude 2 km. |
| № 11 | Apollo Model 5 | July 30, 1965 | November 22, 1975 | Saturn-1 | 1965-060B | 1468 | With the Pegasus-3 satellite |
| № 12 | "Apollo 004" | January 20, 1966 | January 20, 1966 | Little Joe-2 | - | - | Suborbital flight, altitude 23 km. |
During launches Nos. 7, 9, and 11, the Pegasus satellite was located inside the model of the main unit (crew compartment + engine compartment) of the Apollo spacecraft (in the folded position). In orbit, the model of the Apollo spacecraft was dropped, and the Pegasus satellite performed its tasks.
1966-1967
Testing of the S-IVB stage and test specimens of the Apollo spacecraft.
| № | Launch name | Launch date | Deorbit date | NSSDC_ID | NORAD_ID | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| № 1 | AS-201 | February 26, 1966 | February 26, 1966 | suborbital flight | model of "Apollo", flight 37 min. | |
| № 2 | AS-203 | July 5, 1966 | July 5, 1966 | 1966-059A | 2289 | there was no layout, only a nose cone, 4 turns |
| № 3 | AS-202 | August 25, 1966 | August 25, 1966 | suborbital flight | model of the Apollo, flight 93 minutes to an altitude of 1136 km. | |
| № 4 | Apollo 1 (AS-204) | February 21, 1967 | January 27, 1967 - training tragedy |
The launch of AS-203 took place earlier than AS-202 due to the unavailability of the latter. When starting AS-203, the following actions were performed. The last stage of the S-IVB of the Saturn-1B experimental launch vehicle SA-203 was launched into orbit with incompletely used fuel. The main tasks of the launch are to study the behavior of liquid hydrogen in a state of weightlessness and test the system that ensures the re-start of the main engine of the stage. After carrying out the planned experiments, the valves in the system for removing hydrogen vapor from the tank were closed, and as a result of the increase in pressure, the stage exploded on the fourth orbit.
Failed mission - tragedy in training
(Apollo-1) - the name that the failed mission (scheduled for late February - mid-March 1967) of the Apollo spacecraft (AS-204) received after the fact. A copy of the ship, numbered CSM-012, was docked to an unfilled Saturn-1B launch vehicle, numbered SA-204.
On January 27, 1967, during preparations for the first manned flight under the Apollo program, a severe fire broke out on board the ship. The entire crew - Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee - died.
NASA took unprecedented steps in this situation. The day of the tragedy was declared the day of the failed launch of AS-204, and the entire crew was declared as astronauts (Chaffee had not flown into space before), which equalized the status of the dead and their families with other astronauts (which, among other things, influenced state assistance).
Before the tragedy, the launches with mock-ups AS-201 and AS-202, which took place in 1966, unofficially bore the names "Apollo 1" and "Apollo 2" (the official name was not assigned); the launch without the AS-203 layout didn't even have an unofficial name. After the tragedy, the failed AS-204 flight was retroactively named Apollo 1, and the next launch under the Apollo program was officially named .
Unmanned launches
After the tragedy with the Apollo 1 spacecraft, NASA launched a series of three unmanned vehicles to test the ship's systems in space flight.
On November 9, 1967, Apollo 4 launched with an overall weight model of the lunar module. This was the first flight test of the Saturn V launch vehicle. The task of the flight is to test when entering at a speed of 11.14 km / s, close to the second space one.
January 22, 1968 launched with a mock-up of the lunar module. The task of the flight is to test the ship's propulsion system, to study the dynamic loads on the lunar module under space flight conditions.
April 4, 1968 launched with the layout of the lunar module. Descent vehicle test - entry into the atmosphere at a speed of 10.07 km / s, close to the second space one. The task of the flight is to work out the control systems of the spacecraft and the lunar module.
Manned flights
The first photograph taken by Neil Armstrong after his walk on the lunar surface.
Launched on October 11, 1968, it was the first manned spacecraft launched under the Apollo program. It was an eleven-day flight in Earth orbit, the purpose of which was complex testing of the command module and the command and measurement complex.
Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon with Neil Armstrong.
Initially, the next manned flight under the Apollo program was supposed to be the maximum possible simulation of the operating modes and conditions of flight to the Moon in Earth orbit, and the next launch was supposed to conduct similar tests in lunar orbit, making the first manned flight around the Moon. But at the same time, the USSR was testing the Zond, a two-seat manned spacecraft, which was supposed to be used for a manned flight around the moon. The threat that the USSR would overtake the United States in a manned lunar flyby forced the project leaders to reshuffle the flights, despite the fact that the lunar module was not yet ready for testing.
On December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 was launched, and on December 24 it entered the orbit of the Moon, making the first manned flight around the Moon in the history of mankind.
On March 3, 1969, the launch of Apollo 9 took place, during this flight an imitation of a flight to the moon in earth orbit was made. Some NASA experts, after the successful flights of the Apollo 8 spacecraft, recommended using it for the first landing of people on the moon. NASA management deemed it necessary to preliminarily conduct another test flight.
On May 18, 1969, Apollo 10 was sent into space; in this flight to the Moon, a “dress rehearsal” for landing on the Moon was held. The ship's flight program provided for all the operations that were to be carried out during the landing, with the exception of the actual landing on the moon, stay on the moon and launch from the moon.
A video camera mounted on Apollo 11 captured Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon.
On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 launched. On July 20, at 20 hours 17 minutes 42 seconds GMT, the lunar module landed in the Sea of Tranquility. Neil Armstrong descended to the lunar surface on July 21, 1969 at 02:56:20 GMT, making the first lunar landing in human history. Stepping on the surface of the moon, he said:
On November 14, 1969, the launch took place, and on November 19, the second landing on the moon was carried out. The lunar module landed about two hundred meters from the Surveyor-3, the astronauts photographed the landing site and dismantled some parts of the spacecraft, which were then brought to Earth. Collected 34.4 kg of lunar rocks. The astronauts returned to Earth on November 24.
Pictured is Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin saluting the American flag. The illusion of wind is caused by a horizontal rod that is inserted to hold the flag's top edge in place.
On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 was launched. On April 13, at a distance of 330,000 kilometers from Earth, an explosion of a liquid oxygen tank occurred and the failure of two of the three fuel cell batteries that provided power to the crew compartment of the command module. As a result, the astronauts could not use the main engine and life support systems of the service module. Only the undamaged lunar module remained at the disposal of the astronauts. Using its engine, the trajectory was corrected so that after flying around the moon, the ship returned to Earth, thanks to which the astronauts managed to escape. The astronauts returned to Earth on April 17.
January 31, 1971 launched. On February 5, 1971, the lunar module landed. The astronauts returned to Earth on February 9, 1971. During the flight, a much larger scientific program was carried out than in the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 expeditions. Collected 42.9 kg of lunar rocks.
Expedition "Apollo 15". Lunar car.
On July 26, 1971, Apollo 15 took off. On July 30, the lunar module landed. During this expedition, a lunar vehicle was used for the first time, which was also used in the flights of Apollo 17. Collected 76.8 kg of lunar rocks. The astronauts returned to Earth on August 7, 1971.
On April 16, 1972, Apollo 16 was launched. On April 21, the lunar module landed. Collected 94.7 kg of lunar rocks. The astronauts returned to Earth on April 27, 1972.
December 7, 1972 - the launch of Apollo 17. On December 11, the lunar module landed. Collected 110.5 kg of lunar rocks. During this expedition, the last landing on the moon took place today. The astronauts returned to Earth on December 19, 1972.
| № | Astronauts | Date and time of launch and return to Earth, time in flight, HH:MM:SS | Tasks and results of the flight | Date and time of landing and takeoff from the moon | Time spent on the Moon / total time of exits to the lunar surface | Delivered weight lunar soil, kg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |
Walter Schirra, Donn Eisel, Walter Cunningham | 11.10.1968 15:02:45 - 22.10.1968 11:11:48 / 260:09:03 | The first tests of the Apollo spacecraft in low Earth orbit | – | – | – |
| |
Frank Borman, James Lovell, William Anders | 21.12.1968 12:51:00 - 27.12.1968 15:51:42 / 147:00:42 | First manned flyby of the Moon, entry into the atmosphere with the second cosmic velocity | – | – | – |
| |
James McDivitt, David Scott, Russell Schweikart | 03.03.1969 16:00:00 - 13.03.1969 17:00:54 / 241:00:54 | Tests of the main and lunar spacecraft in near-Earth orbit, testing of compartment rebuilding | – | – | – |
| |
Thomas Stafford,Eugene Cernan, John Young | 18.05.1969 16:49:00 - 26.05.1969 16:52:23 / 192:03:23 | Tests of the main and lunar spacecraft in lunar orbit, development of rebuilding compartments and maneuvers in lunar orbit. | – | – | – |
| |
Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, Michael Collins | 16.07.1969 13:32:00 - 24.07.1969 16:50:35 / 195:18:35 | First landing on the moon. | 20.07.1969 20:17:40 - 21.07.1969 17:54:01 | 21 h 36 min / 2 h 32 min | 21,7 |
| |
Charles Conrad, Alan Bean, Richard Gordon | 14.11.1969 16:22:00 - 24.11.1969 20:58:24 / 244:36:24 | Second landing on the moon. | 19.11.1969 06:54:35 – 20.11.1969 14:25:47 |
31 h 31 min / 7 h 45 min |
34,4 |
| , Ronald Evans | 07.12.1972 05:33:00 - 19.12.1972 19:24:59 / 301:51:59 | Sixth moon landing. | 11.12.1972 19:54:57 - 14.12.1972 22:54:37 | 75 h 00 min / 22 h 04 min | 110,5 |
Program cost
In March 1966, NASA told Congress that the cost of the thirteen-year Apollo program, which would include six moon landings between July 1969 and December 1972, would be approximately $22.718 billion.
According to Steve Garber, curator of the NASA history site, the final cost of the Apollo program was between $20 billion and $25.4 billion in 1969, or approximately $136 billion in 2005 dollars.
Canceled flights
Initially, 3 more lunar expeditions were planned for 1974 - Apollo 18 (crew - Richard Gordon, Vance Brand, Harrison Schmitt; the latter was transferred to the crew of Apollo 17 instead of the originally appointed Joseph Angle), Apollo 19 ( crew - Fred Hayes, William Pogue, Gerald Carr) and Apollo 20 (crew - Charles Conrad, Paul Weitz, Jack Lausma). However, NASA cut the program budget and canceled first (in January 1970) the flight of Apollo 20, and then (in September 1970) both Apollo 18 and Apollo 19. Officially, the reason for the cancellation was the lack of new scientific value at the expense of the state budget and taxpayers. The Apollo Applications Program (AAP) was also limited in scope.
Realized AAP flights of Apollo spacecraft after 1972
The remaining unused three Saturn-5 launch vehicles were used in AAP flights as follows: one launched the first American Skylab into orbit, the remaining two became museum exhibits. Three Apollo spacecraft flew into space as Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Another built "Apollo" (the canceled flight "Skylab-5") went into space as part of the Soyuz-Apollo project. These 4 Apollos were launched into orbit by the Saturn-1B launch vehicle.
| № | Astronauts | Date of launch and return to Earth | Time in flight, DD:HH:MM | Tasks and results of the flight | Date and time of connection | Date and time of undocking | Joint flight time |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| № 18 "Skylab-2" |
Charles Conrad, Paul Weitz, Joseph Kerwin | May 25, 1973 - June 22, 1973 | 28 d. 00 h. 49 min. | 1st expedition to orbital station "Skylab" |
May 25 | June, 22 | – |
| № 19 "Skylab-3" |
Alan Bean, Jack Lausma, Owen Garriott | July 28, 1973 - September 25, 1973 | 59 d. 11 h. 09 min. | 2nd expedition to orbital station "Skylab" |
July 28th | September 25 | – |
| № 20 "Skylab-4"  |
Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson, William Pogue | November 16, 1973 - February 8, 1974 | 84 d. 01 h. 15 min. | 3rd expedition to orbital station "Skylab" |
November 16 | February 8 | – |
| № 21 | Thomas Stafford, Donald Slayton, Vance Brand | July 15, 1975 - July 25, 1975 | 09 d. 01 h. 28 min. | Project "Soyuz - Apollo": Apollo docking with Soyuz-19 |
July 17th | July 19 | 46 hours |
A small flag of the USSR that has been on the moon, and just above it is a container with lunar soil in the exposition of the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics at VDNKh in Moscow
During the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, small flags from more than 130 nations were taken on board. Among them was the flag of the USSR.
On June 2, 1970, Neil Armstrong, who arrived on a visit to the USSR as part of a delegation of 32 NASA executives and scientists and took part in the XIII annual conference of COSPAR, met with Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers Alexei Kosygin. At the meeting, Armstrong presented him with a small container with samples of lunar soil and the flag of the USSR, which, together with astronauts on July 20-21, 1969, visited the surface of the moon. Kosygin said that he would always cherish this gift as a symbol of great achievement.
US LUNAR PROGRAM
The history of our N1-L3 lunar program must be compared with the American Saturn-Apollo program. Subsequently, the American program began to be called, like the lunar ship, simply "Apollo". Comparison of the technology and organization of work on the lunar programs in the USA and the USSR makes it possible to pay tribute to the efforts of the two great powers in the implementation of one of the greatest engineering projects of the 20th century.
So, briefly, what happened in the USA.
In the period 1957 - 1959, the Army Ballistic Projectile Agency (ABMA) was engaged in the creation of long-range ballistic missiles. The agency included the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, which was a center for practical rocket development. One of the leaders of the Arsenal was Wernher von Braun, who united a team of German specialists who were taken to the USA from Germany in 1945. In 1945, 127 German prisoners of war from Peenemünde began working in Huntsville under the direction of von Braun. In 1955, having received American citizenship, 765 German specialists were already working in the United States. Most of them were invited to work in the US from West Germany voluntarily on a contract basis.
The first Soviet satellites shocked the US and made the Americans ask themselves if they really are the leaders in the development of Mankind. Soviet satellites indirectly contributed to strengthening the prestige of German specialists in America. Von Braun convinced the American military leadership that the only way to surpass the level of the Soviet Union was to develop significantly more powerful launch vehicles than the one that launched the first Soviet satellites and the first lunar satellites.
Back in December 1957, AVMA proposed a heavy rocket project, the first stage of which used a combination of engines with a total thrust near the Earth of 680 tf (I remind you that the R-7 had a combination of five engines with a thrust of 400 tf).
In August 1958, inspired by the resounding success of our third satellite, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DOA) agreed to fund the development of the Saturn heavy launch vehicle project. Subsequently, the name "Saturn" with various numerical and alphabetic indices was assigned to carriers of various power and configuration. All of them were built according to a common program with a single ultimate goal - the creation of a heavy launch vehicle, leapfrogging ahead of the achievements of the Soviet Union.
Rocketdyne received an order to develop the N-1 (H-1) engine for a heavy rocket in September 1958, when the American lagging behind became apparent. To speed up the work, it was decided to make a relatively simple engine, achieving, above all, high reliability, and not record specific performance. The N-1 engine was created in record time. On October 27, 1961, the first launch of the Saturn-1 rocket took place with a bunch of eight N-1 engines with a thrust of 85 tf each.
The initial proposals for the creation of heavy rockets in the United States found support by no means for the implementation of a peaceful lunar program.
General Power, commander of US strategic aviation, in 1958, supporting appropriations for space programs, said: “Whoever first establishes his place in outer space will be its master. And we just can't afford to lose the competition for space dominance."
Other military leaders of the United States spoke out quite frankly, declaring that whoever owns space will own the Earth. Despite President Eisenhower's apparent reluctance to sustain the hysterical hype over the "Russian threat" from space, there was growing public demand for action to overtake the USSR. Congressmen and senators demanded decisive action, trying to prove that the United States was in danger of complete annihilation by the USSR.
Under these conditions, one should be surprised at the firmness of Eisenhower, who insisted on the formulation that outer space should under no circumstances be used for military purposes.
On July 29, 1958, President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Policy Act, authored by Senator L. Johnson. The Decree determined the main programs and structure of space research management. The resolution was called the "National Act on Aeronautics and Space Exploration." A professional military man, General Eisenhower clearly defined the civilian focus of work in space. The "act" said that space research should be developed "in the name of peace for the benefit of all mankind." Subsequently, these words were engraved on a metal plate that the crew of Apollo 11 left on the moon.
The main event was the transformation of the National Aviation Advisory Committee (NACA) into the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This allowed the US government to create a new powerful state organization in a short time. Subsequent events also showed that the appointment of Wernher von Braun as director of the Huntsville Design and Test Facility and the responsibility for the development of heavy launch vehicles was crucial to the success of the lunar program.
In November 1959, the American administration transferred the Redstone Arsenal to NASA. It is being transformed into the Space Flight Center. J. Marshall. Wernher von Braun is appointed technical director of the center. For von Braun personally, this was an event of great significance. He, who had stained himself in the eyes of the American democratic society by belonging to the National Socialist Party of Hitler, was given high confidence. Finally, he got the opportunity to realize the dream of interplanetary human flight, discussed back in Peenemünde! Just for talking about interplanetary flights, distracting from work on the V-2, in 1942 Wernher von Braun and Helmut Gröttrup were briefly arrested by the Gestapo.
The continuing successes of the Soviet cosmonautics did not give the Americans a respite for a calm organizational restructuring, a gradual staffing. Research organizations from NACA, the army and navy were hastily transferred to NASA. As of December 1962, the number of this state organization was 25,667 people, of which 9,240 people were certified scientists and engineers.
Five research centers transferred from the military department, five flight test centers, a jet propulsion laboratory, large test complexes and specialized production, as well as several new centers, were directly subordinated to NASA.
In Houston, Texas, a state center for the development of manned spacecraft with a crew was being created. Here was the main headquarters for the development and launch of the Gemini and future Apollos.
NASA was led by a group of three people appointed by the President of the United States. These three served, in our view, the roles of the general designer and general director of the entire NASA. Before NASA, the US administration was given the task of achieving superiority over the USSR in all the most important areas of space use in the coming years. Organizations united in NASA received the right to attract other government organizations, universities and private industrial corporations.
President Roosevelt during the war created a powerful state organization for the development of atomic weapons. This experience was now used by the young President Kennedy, who in every possible way strengthened NASA and controlled its work in order to fulfill the national task of overtaking the USSR at all costs.
American politicians and historians have made no secret of the fact that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was created in response to the challenge posed by Soviet satellites. Unfortunately, neither we, the Soviet rocket scientists, nor the top political leadership of the Soviet Union appreciated the decisive importance of the organizational measures carried out in those years by the American administration.
The main task for the entire cooperation, united by NASA, was the implementation of a nationwide program to land an expedition to the moon until the end of the sixties. The cost of solving this problem already in the first years of activity accounted for three-quarters of the entire NASA budget.
On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy, in a message to Congress and all the American people, said: “Now is the time to take a big step, the time for a greater new America, the time for American science to take the lead in cosmic advances that may hold the key to our future on Earth... I believe that this nation will commit itself to achieving the great goal of landing a man on the moon and safely returning him to Earth as early as this decade.”
Soon Keldysh came to Korolev at OKB-1 to discuss our adequate program. He said that Khrushchev had asked him how serious President Kennedy's claim to landing a man on the moon was.
I answered Nikita Sergeevich, - said Keldysh, - that the task is technically feasible, but it will require very large funds. They must be sought through other programs. Nikita Sergeevich was clearly concerned and said that we would return to this issue in the near future.
At that time, we were the undisputed leaders in the world astronautics. However, in the lunar program, the United States was already ahead of us by immediately declaring it a national one: "Every American should contribute to the successful implementation of this flight." "Space dollars" began to penetrate almost every area of the American economy. Thus, the preparation of landing on the moon was under the control of the entire American society.
In 1941, Hitler gave von Braun the top secret national task of building the V-2 ballistic missile, a secret "weapon of retaliation" for the mass destruction of the British.
In 1961, President Kennedy publicly entrusted the same von Braun to the world with the nationwide task of building the world's most powerful manned lunar launch vehicle.
Von Braun proposed for a new multi-stage rocket at the first stage to use already well-developed components - oxygen and kerosene - for the rocket engine, and at the second and third stages - a new pair - oxygen and hydrogen. Two factors are noteworthy: firstly, the absence of proposals for the use of high-boiling components (such as nitrogen tetroxide and dimethylhydrazine) for a new heavy rocket, despite the fact that at that time the heavy intercontinental rocket Titan-2 was being created on such high-boiling components; and, secondly, the use of hydrogen is proposed for the next steps immediately, and not in the future. Von Braun, proposing the use of hydrogen as a fuel, appreciated the prophetic ideas of Tsiolkovsky and Oberth. In addition, for one of the options for the Atlas rocket, the second stage of the Centaur with a liquid-propellant rocket engine operating on oxygen and hydrogen was already being developed. The Centaur was subsequently successfully used by the Americans as the third stage of the Titan-3 rocket.
The RL-10 hydrogen engine for the Centaur, developed by Pratt and Whitney, had a thrust of only 6.8 tf. But it was the first rocket engine in the world with a record-breaking specific thrust of 420 units at that time. In 1985, the encyclopedia "Cosmonautics" was published, the editor-in-chief of which was Academician Glushko. In this edition, Glushko pays tribute to the hydrogen rocket engines and the work of the Americans.
In the article “Liquid-propellant rocket engine” it is written: “With an equal launch mass of the launch vehicle, they (oxygen-hydrogen LREs) are capable of delivering three times more payload into near-Earth orbit than oxygen-kerosene LREs.”
However, it is known that at the beginning of his work on the development of liquid-propellant rocket engines, Glushko had a negative attitude towards the idea of using liquid hydrogen as a fuel. In the book "Rockets, Their Design and Application" Glushko gives a comparative assessment of rocket fuels for the case of movement in outer space, using the Tsiolkovsky formula. In conclusion of calculations, the analysis of which is not part of my task, the 27-year-old engineer of the RNII wrote in 1935: “Thus, a rocket with hydrogen fuel will have a greater speed than a rocket of the same weight with gasoline, only if the weight fuel will exceed the rest of the rocket's weight by more than 430 times ... From here we see that the idea of using liquid hydrogen as a fuel should be discarded.
Glushko realized the mistake of his youth no later than 1958, judging by the fact that he endorsed the decree, which, among other measures, also provides for the development of a hydrogen-powered liquid-propellant rocket engine. Unfortunately, in the practical development of hydrogen rocket engines, the USSR lagged behind the United States at the very beginning of the lunar race. This time lag increased and eventually turned out to be one of the factors that determined the significant advantage of the American lunar program.
Glushko's negative attitude towards oxygen-hydrogen steam as a fuel for liquid-propellant rocket engines was one of the reasons for the sharp criticism from Korolev and especially Mishin. Among rocket fuels, oxygen-hydrogen pair is in second place in terms of efficiency after fluorine-hydrogen fuel. Particular indignation was caused by the message that Glushko was creating a special branch on the coast of the Gulf of Finland for testing fluorine engines. “He can poison Leningrad with his fluorine,” Mishin raged.
In fairness, it must be said that, having become the general designer of NPO Energia, when developing the Energia - Buran rocket and space complex, Glushko came to the decision to create a second stage on an oxygen-hydrogen engine.
Using hydrogen as an example for heavy-carrier engines, it can be shown that neither the US nor the USSR governments have defined such issues. This was entirely the responsibility of development managers.
In 1960, NASA leadership approved three forced phases of the Saturn program:
"Saturn S-1" - two-stage rocket with the first launch in 1961, the second stage on hydrogen;
"Saturn S-2" - a three-stage rocket launched in 1963;
"Saturn S-3" - a five-stage promising rocket.
For all three options, a single first stage was designed with an LRE on oxygen-kerosene fuel. For the second and third stages, Rocketdyne ordered J-2 oxygen-hydrogen engines with a thrust of 90.7 tf. For the fourth and fifth stages, Pratt & Whitney ordered LR-115 engines with a thrust of 9 tf or the already mentioned Centaur with a thrust of up to 7 tf.
After discussions and experiments, three types of Saturn-type launch vehicles finally went into development, production and flight tests:
"Saturn-1", intended for experimental flights with the aim of testing the models of the Apollo spacecraft in orbit. This two-stage rocket with a launch weight of 500 tons carried a payload of up to 10.2 tons into the satellite orbit;
"Saturn-1B", developed as a modification of the "Saturn-1". It was intended for manned orbital flights with the aim of testing the modules of the Apollo spacecraft and rendezvous and docking operations. The launch weight of the Saturn-1B was 600 tons, and the payload weight was 18 tons. The second stage of the Saturn-1B on oxygen and hydrogen was tested in order to use its analogue as the third stage of the next final modification of the Saturns;
"Saturn-5" - the final version of the three-stage launch vehicle for the lunar expedition, replacing the five-stage "Saturn S-3".
Returning once again to the problem of hydrogen engines, I want to draw attention to the fact that the J-2 rocket engine began to be developed by Rocketdine under a contract with NASA in September 1960. At the end of 1962, this powerful high-altitude hydrogen engine was already undergoing fire bench tests, developing a thrust corresponding to 90 tf in empty space.
The company founded in Voronezh by Kosberg managed to surpass these achievements of the Rocketdine company in terms of the parameters of the oxygen-hydrogen rocket engine. The chief designer Alexander Konopatov created in 1980 for the second stage of the Energia rocket the RD-0120 liquid-propellant rocket engine with a thrust in the void of 200 tf and a specific impulse of 440 units. But this happened after 25 years!
The Americans also envisaged the prospects of using instead of a rocket engine in the second or third stage of a nuclear engine. The work on this engine in the program under the code "Rover", in contrast to the work on the rocket engine, was strictly classified even for the employees of the Center. J. Marshall.
According to NASA's plans, it was proposed to carry out Saturn launches, gradually complicating the program in such a way that in 1963-1964 they would have a fully developed heavy carrier.
In July 1961, a special committee on launch vehicles was created in the United States. The committee included the heads of NASA, the Department of Defense, the Air Force and some corporations. The committee proposed to develop the Saturn S-3 launch vehicle in a three-stage version. Significantly new was the committee's decision to develop the F-1 LRE by Rocketdyne with a thrust of 680 tf for the first stage.
"Saturn S-3" according to calculations was able to take 45-50 tons into the orbit of the satellite and only 13.5 tons to the Moon. This was not enough, and NASA, encouraged by the position of the president, is boldly expanding the scope of work on the lunar program.
NASA's two powerful scientific teams are the Houston Manned Spacecraft Center (later the Johnson Space Center) and the NASA Center. J. Marshall, who developed the carriers, offered different options for the expedition.
The Houston engineers proposed the simplest direct flight option: three astronauts in a spaceship launch to the moon with a very powerful rocket and fly the shortest route. According to this scheme, the spacecraft must have enough fuel to make a direct landing, then take off and return to Earth without any intermediate docking.
According to calculations, the "direct" version required 23 tons of launch mass on the surface of the Moon to return to Earth. To obtain such a launch mass on the Moon, it was required to put 180 tons into the satellite orbit, and 68 tons onto the trajectory to the Moon. Such a mass in one launch could be launched by the Nova launch vehicle, the project of which was considered at the Center. J. Marshall. This monster, according to preliminary calculations, had a starting mass of over 6000 tons. The creation of such a rocket, according to optimists, went far beyond 1970 and was rejected by the committee.
Center them. J. Marshall, in which German specialists worked, initially proposed a two-launch near-Earth orbital version. An unmanned booster rocket stage is launched into the Earth's orbit. In the Earth's orbit, it was supposed to dock with the third manned stage, which had the supply of hydrogen necessary for acceleration to the Moon. In Earth orbit, the booster rocket oxygen is pumped into the empty third-stage oxidizer tank, and such an oxygen-hydrogen rocket accelerates the spacecraft to the Moon. Further, there may be two options: a direct landing on the moon or a preliminary entry into orbit of an artificial satellite of the moon (ASL). The second option was proposed by Yuri Kondratyuk and independently by Hermann Oberth in the twenties.
Engineers at the Houston center proposed a natural development of the rocket pioneers' idea, which consisted in the fact that the spacecraft was proposed from two modules: a command module and a lunar cabin - a "lunar taxi".
The spacecraft, consisting of two modules, was named "Apollo". With the help of the engines of the third stage of the launch vehicle and the command module, it was launched into the orbit of an artificial moon satellite. Two astronauts must move from the command module to the lunar cabin, which then separates from the command module and lands on the moon. The third astronaut remains in the command module in ISL orbit. After completing the mission on the Moon, the lunar cabin with the astronauts takes off, docks with the vehicle waiting in orbit, the "lunar taxi" separates and falls to the Moon, and the orbital module with three astronauts returns to Earth.
This lunar-orbital version was more carefully developed and supported by the third NASA scientific center, which had not previously participated in disputes - them. Langley.
Each of the options proposed the use of at least two carriers of the three-stage Saturn-5C type with a launch weight of 2500 tons for each lunar expedition.
Each Saturn 5C was valued at $120 million. This seemed expensive, and two-launch options were not supported. The most realistic was a single-launch lunar-orbital version proposed by Jack S. Howbolt, an engineer at the Center. Langley. The most tempting in this variant was the use of only one carrier of the Saturn-5C type (later simply Saturn-5), while increasing the launch weight to 2900 tons. This option made it possible to increase the mass of the Apollo by 5 tons. The unrealistic Nova project was finally buried.
While there were disputes, research and calculations, the Center. J. Marshall began flight tests of Saturn-1 in October 1961.
A total of nine Saturn 1s have been launched since October 1961, most with real hydrogen second stages.
NASA, meanwhile, has set up another committee to study US needs for large space launch vehicles over the next decade.
This committee confirmed that the previously proposed direct variant using the Nova rocket was unrealistic and again recommended a two-launch terrestrial orbital variant with a direct landing on the Moon using the Saturn V. Violent debate over alternatives continued despite the committee's decision.
Only on July 5, 1962, NASA makes an official decision: the lunar-orbital single-launch option is declared the only safe and economical way to reach the Moon before 1970. Preliminary calculations showed that Saturn-5 could put 120 tons into Earth orbit and deliver 45 tons into the Moon's orbit. Howbolt's group was jubilant - their ideas were taking over the minds of NASA officials. Joint work of the centers began to connect the Saturn-1 projects with proposals for Saturn-5 and the lunar orbital version. The second, hydrogen, stage of Saturn-1 was made the third stage of Saturn-5.
However, even scientific consultants close to Kennedy were not yet sure of the optimality of the proposed scheme.
On September 11, 1962, a month before the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy visited the J. Marshall. He was accompanied by Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Secretary of Defense McNamara, the British Secretary of Defense, leading scientists, scientific advisers and NASA leaders. At the gathering of a large number of officials and journalists, Kennedy listened to von Braun's explanations about the new large liquid rocket "Saturn-5" and the scheme of flight to the Moon. Von Braun supported the single-launch option proposed by the Center. Langley.
However, the final decision on the single-launch version was made only in 1963, when fire tests of the engines and Saturn-1 launches gave confidence in a sufficient margin of energy reliability and encouraging data were obtained on the mass characteristics of the Apollo spacecraft. By this time, a large backlog of experimental work, calculations when choosing various flight patterns, in the end, led three centers - them. Langley, im. J. Marshall in Huntsville and Houston - to a single concept.
For a manned flight to the Moon, the three-stage Saturn-5 launch vehicle was finally chosen.
The launch mass of the entire system - the rocket together with the Apollo spacecraft - reached 2900 tons. On the first stage of the Saturn-5 rocket, five F-1 engines were installed, each with a thrust of 695 tf, running on liquid oxygen and kerosene. Thus, the total thrust at the Earth was almost 3500 tf. Five J-2 engines were installed in the second stage, each of which developed 102-104 tf thrust in vacuum - a total thrust of about 520 tf. These engines ran on liquid oxygen and hydrogen. The engine of the third stage J-2 - multiple launch, which worked, like the engine of the second stage, on hydrogen, developed a thrust of 92-104 tf. During the first launch, the third stage was intended to launch the Apollo into satellite orbit. The mass of the payload, launched into a circular orbit of a satellite with a height of 185 kilometers and an inclination of 28.5 degrees, was 139 tons. Then, during the second launch, the payload accelerated to the speed necessary for flying to the Moon along a given trajectory. The mass accelerated to the Moon reached 65 tons. Thus, the Saturn-5 accelerated to the Moon a payload of almost the same mass, which was previously supposed to be launched by the Nova rocket.
I run the risk of tiring readers with an abundance of numbers. But without attention to them, it will be difficult to imagine where exactly and why we lost to the Americans.
Reliability and safety were very strict requirements for all stages of the American lunar program. The principle of ensuring reliability through careful ground testing was adopted, so that only those tests could be carried out in flight that, with the current state of the art, could not be carried out on the ground.
High reliability was achieved thanks to the creation of a powerful experimental base for ground tests of each stage of the rocket and all modules of the lunar ship. During ground tests, measurements are greatly facilitated, their accuracy is increased, and there is the possibility of a thorough study after testing. The principle of maximum ground testing was also dictated by the very high cost of flight tests. The Americans set the task of minimizing developmental flight tests.
Our ground mining cost savings confirmed the old adage that the miser pays twice. The Americans did not skimp on ground mining and carried it out on an unprecedented scale before.
Numerous stands were created for fire testing not only single engines, but all full-size rocket stages. Each serial engine regularly passed fire tests before flight at least three times: two times before delivery and the third - as part of the corresponding rocket stage.
Thus, the disposable engines according to the flight program were actually reusable. It must be borne in mind that in order to obtain reliability, both we and the Americans had two main categories of tests: those that are carried out on a single prototype of the product (or on a small number of samples) to demonstrate how reliably the design will perform its functions in all flight conditions, including determining the actual life of the product; and those tests that are carried out on each flight prototype to ensure that they are free from accidental manufacturing defects or errors in mass production technology. The first category of tests includes development tests at the design stage. These are the so-called design and development development (according to American terminology - qualification) tests carried out on test samples. Here, the Americans and I, testing single engines, acted more or less identically. In the second category, relating to acceptance testing of engines, rocket stages and a number of other products, we were able to catch up with the Americans in terms of methodology only 20 years later when creating the Energia rocket.
The sheer depth and breadth of the testing spectrum, which cannot be shortened by any deadline, was the main factor leading to the highest degree of reliability of the Saturn V rocket and the Apollo spacecraft.
Shortly after the assassination of President Kennedy, at one of our regular lunar schedule meetings, Korolev announced what he said our senior political leadership had. Allegedly, the new president, Lyndon Johnson, does not intend to support the lunar program at such a pace and on such a scale that NASA proposed. Johnson is inclined to spend more on combat intercontinental missiles and save on space.
Our hopes for the reduction of space programs did not come true. The new President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson, addressed a message to Congress, reporting on the work in the field of aviation and space, carried out in the United States in 1963. This message said: “1963 was the year of our further success in the exploration of outer space. It was also the year of a thorough review of our space program from the point of view of national security interests, as a result of which the course towards achieving and maintaining in the future our superiority in space exploration was widely approved ...
Achieving success in space exploration is very important for our nation if we want to maintain primacy in the development of technology and effectively contribute to strengthening peace throughout the world. However, to accomplish this task, significant material resources will be required.
Even Johnson admitted that the United States lagged behind the USSR "as a result of the relatively late start of work and the lack of enthusiasm for space exploration at first." He noted: “During this period, our main rival did not stand still and actually continued to lead in some areas ... However, our remarkable success in the development of large rockets and complex spacecraft is convincing evidence that the United States is on the way to new successes in the development of space and eliminate any lag in this area ... If we have set ourselves the goal of achieving and maintaining superiority, then we must not weaken efforts, reduce enthusiasm.
In listing the achievements of 1963, Johnson felt it necessary to mention: “... the successful launch of the Centaur rocket, the first rocket with high-energy fuel, was successfully carried out, one of a series of tests of the first stage of the Saturn rocket with a thrust of 680,000 kg - the largest of the first tested so far launch vehicle stages. At the end of 1963, the United States developed more powerful missiles than currently available in the USSR.
Turning directly to the lunar program, Johnson noted that in 1963 nine models of the Apollo spacecraft had already been made, the propulsion systems of the spacecraft were being developed, numerous test benches were being developed, and a rescue system in case of an explosion at the start was being tested.
A detailed report on the work on the Saturn rockets confirmed the fragmentary information we had about the successful implementation of this program. In particular, it was said that the J-2 hydrogen engine, designed for the second stage of the Saturn-5 launch vehicle, had successfully passed factory tests, and the first deliveries of these engines began. All doubts about the choice of the type of rocket for the lunar expedition were finally removed: “Currently, the most powerful Saturn-5 launch vehicle is under development, designed to deliver two people to the surface of the Moon.”
Further, the members of Congress were told in detail about the design and parameters of Saturn-5, the flight scheme to the Moon, the progress in the production of test stands, launch facilities and the development of means of transporting the giant rocket.
A comparison of the state of work on the lunar program "with us and with them" by the beginning of 1964 shows that we are at least two years behind on the project as a whole. As for engines, oxygen-kerosene engines with a thrust of about 600 tf and powerful oxygen-hydrogen rocket engines were not developed at all at that time.
The information that came to us through open channels during 1964 showed that work on the lunar program did not prevent the Americans from developing combat missiles. More detailed information was delivered by our foreign intelligence. The scope of the work on the construction of new assembly shops for Saturn V and Apollo, test beds, launch facilities at Cape Canaveral (later the J. Kennedy Center), launch and flight control centers made a strong impression on us.
The most pessimistic thoughts about this information were frankly expressed to me by Voskresensky after several difficult conversations with Korolev, and then with Tyulin and Keldysh. He sought to convince them to more forcefully demand an increase in funds, primarily for the creation of a stand for firing tests of the full-size first stage of the future rocket. He did not receive support from the Queen. Voskresensky told me: “If we ignore the American experience and continue to build a rocket in the hope that maybe it will fly not the first, but the second time, then we all will have a pipe. We burned the R-7 at the booth in Zagorsk in full, and even then it flew only the fourth time. If Sergey continues such a game of chance, I will get out of it. ” Voskresensky's pessimism could also be explained by the sharp deterioration in his health. However, the intuition of the tester, inherent in him and more than once surprising his friends, turned out to be prophetic.
In 1965, the "Americans", as Korolev usually said, had already worked out reusable engines for all stages of the Saturn-5 and switched to their serial production. This was critical to the reliability of the launch vehicle.
The production of the Saturn-5 launch vehicle design alone turned out to be beyond the power of even the most powerful US aviation corporations. Therefore, the design development and manufacture of the launch vehicle was distributed among the leading aviation corporations. The first stage was manufactured by Boeing, the second by North American Rockwell, the third by McDonnell-Douglas, the instrument compartment, together with its filling, by IBM, the world's largest electronic computer company. A gyro-stabilized three-stage platform was located in the instrument compartment, which served as the carrier of the coordinate system, which provided control of the spatial position of the rocket and (with the help of a digital computer) navigation measurements.
The launch complex was located at the Space Center at Cape Canaveral. An impressive building for assembling a rocket was built there. This structural steel-framed building, still in use today, is 160 meters high, 160 meters wide and 220 meters long. Near the assembly building, five kilometers from the launch site, there is a four-story launch control center, in which, in addition to all the necessary services, there is also a cafeteria, and even a gallery for visitors and guests of honor.
The launch was made from the launch pad. But this launch pad was not like ours. It housed the computers for testing, the computers for the refueling system, the air conditioning and ventilation system, and the water supply systems. In preparation for the launch, mobile service towers 114 meters high with two high-speed elevators were used.
The rocket was transported from the assembly building to the starting position in a vertical position by a caterpillar conveyor, which had its own diesel generator sets.
The launch control center had a control room that could accommodate more than 100 people behind electronic screens.
All subcontractors were subject to the most stringent requirements for reliability and safety, which covered all stages of the program from the design stage to the launch of the spacecraft on the flight path to the Moon.
The first developmental flights of the Apollo lunar spacecraft began in an unmanned version. On the carrier rockets "Saturn-1" and "Saturn-1B" experimental models of "Apollo" were tested in unmanned mode. For these purposes, in the period from May 1964 to January 1968, five Saturn-1 and three Saturn-1B launch vehicles were launched. Two uncrewed Apollo launches using Saturn V launch vehicles were made on November 9, 1967 and April 4, 1968. The first launch of the Saturn-5 launch vehicle with the Apollo 4 unmanned spacecraft was carried out on November 9, 1967, while the ship was accelerated to the Earth at a speed of more than 11 kilometers per second from a height of 18,317 kilometers! This completed the stage of unmanned testing of the launch vehicle and the ship,
Crewed ship launches began much later than originally planned. On January 27, 1967, during ground training, a fire broke out in the flight deck of the Apollo spacecraft. The tragedy of the situation was aggravated by the fact that neither the crew nor the ground personnel were able to quickly open the escape hatch. Three astronauts were burned alive or suffocated. The cause of the fire was an atmosphere of pure oxygen, which was used in the Apollo life system. In oxygen, as the fire department explained to us, everything burns, even metal. Therefore, a spark in electrical equipment was enough, which is harmless in a normal atmosphere. The fire-fighting refinement of Apollo required 20 months!
Starting with the Vostoks, our manned ships used filling that did not differ in composition from the usual atmosphere. Nevertheless, after what happened in America, we launched research in relation to the Soyuz and L3, which ended in the development of standards for materials and structures that ensure fire safety.
The first manned flight was carried out by the crew in the Apollo 7 command and service module, launched into orbit by the Saturn 5 satellite in October 1968. The spacecraft without a lunar cockpit was carefully tested on an eleven-day flight.
In December 1968, Saturn 5 put Apollo 8 on a flight path to the Moon. It was the world's first manned spacecraft mission to the Moon. The navigation and control system on the Earth-Moon track, orbit around the Moon, Moon-Earth track, the entry of the command module with the crew into the Earth's atmosphere with the second space velocity and the accuracy of splashdown in the ocean were tested.
In March 1969, on Apollo 9, the lunar cabin and the command and service module were tested together in orbit of a satellite. The methods of controlling the entire space lunar complex “assembly”, communication between ships and the Earth, rendezvous and docking were tested. The Americans made a very risky experiment. Two astronauts in the lunar cabin undocked from the service module, moved away from it, and then tested the rendezvous and docking systems. In case of failure in these systems, the two astronauts in the lunar cabin were doomed. But everything went well.
It seemed that now everything was ready for landing on the moon. But there were still untested lunar descent, takeoff, rendezvous navigation in orbit around the moon. The Americans use another complete Saturn complex - Apollo. On Apollo 10, in May 1969, a “dress rehearsal” was held, at which all stages and operations were tested, except for the landing on the lunar surface itself.
In a series of flights, step by step, the volume of procedures tested in real conditions, leading to the possibility of a reliable lunar landing, gradually increased. In seven months, with the help of the Saturn-5 carrier, four manned flights were made, which made it possible to check all the materiel, eliminate the detected shortcomings, train all ground personnel, and instill confidence in the crew, which was entrusted with the accomplishment of a great task.
By the summer of 1969, everything was checked in flight, with the exception of the actual landing and operations on the lunar surface. The Apollo 11 team focused their time and attention on these remaining tasks. On July 16, 1969, N. Armstrong, M. Collins and E. Aldrin will start on Apollo 11 to forever enter the history of astronautics. Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours 36 minutes 21 seconds on the moon.
In July 1969, all of America was jubilant, just as the Soviet Union was in April 1961.
Following the first lunar expedition, America sent six more! Only one of the seven lunar expeditions was unsuccessful. The Apollo 13 expedition, due to an accident on the Earth-Moon route, was forced to abandon the landing on the Moon and return to Earth. This crash flight has inspired our engineering admiration more than the successful moon landings. Formally, it was a failure. But it demonstrated reliability and safety margins that our project did not have at that time.
Why? Let's go back to the Soviet Union to find an answer.
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On October 11, 1968, the first American three-seat manned spacecraft, Apollo 7, was launched into orbit by a Saturn-1B rocket. The crew included astronauts: Walter Schirra (ship commander), Don Eizel and Walter Cunningham. In a flight that lasted 10.7 days (163 orbits), the spacecraft without a lunar cabin was carefully checked. On October 22, 1968, the ship landed safely in the Atlantic Ocean.
On December 21, 1968, the Saturn 5 launch vehicle launched Apollo 8 with astronauts Frank Borman (ship commander), James Lovell and William Anders on a flight path to the Moon. It was the world's first manned spacecraft mission to the moon. On December 24, the ship was launched into the orbit of an artificial satellite of the Moon, made 10 revolutions on it, after which it launched to the Earth and on December 27, 1968 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. During the flight, the navigation and control system on the Earth-Moon track, the orbit around the Moon, the Moon-Earth track, the entry of the command module with the crew into the Earth's atmosphere with the second space velocity and the accuracy of splashdown in the ocean were tested. The astronauts conducted lunar photography and navigational experiments, as well as a television session.
During the flight of the Apollo 9 spacecraft, which took place on March 3-13, 1969, the lunar module and the command and service module were tested together in orbit of an artificial Earth satellite. Methods for controlling the entire space lunar complex "assembly", communication between ships and the Earth, rendezvous and docking were tested. The two astronauts in the lunar module undocked from the command module, moved away from it, and then tested the rendezvous and docking systems.
During the flight of the Apollo 10 spacecraft, which took place on May 18-26, 1969, all stages and operations of the lunar program were checked, except for the landing on the lunar surface itself. The lunar module descended to a height of 15 kilometers above the surface of the moon.
August 15th, 2012
In this topic, I can not bring anything new, except for the ability to analyze and the ability to see the situation from a certain angle. Perhaps you will consider it worthy of your attention.
Background of the Moon Race
The first space satellite of the Earth, the first station that reached the surface of the Moon in September 1959, the first orbit around the Moon of the Luna-3 station in the spring of 1960 and photographs of the reverse side taken by it, finally, the first manned flight into space - all of these steps belonged to Soviet cosmonautics and proceeded against the backdrop of a series of setbacks that have plagued the American space program.
Falling behind in the space race dealt a severe blow to America's image as the undisputed world leader and undermined the carefully cultivated notion of the socialist system as devoid of evolutionary meaning and perspective. Only a mega-breakthrough could correct the shattered authority.
That is why, shortly after Yuri Gagarin's flight into space, Kennedy's famous speech, risky in public commitments, appeared, promising the nation that an American lunar expedition would land on the moon before the end of the 60s.
“If we want to win the battle that is unfolding around the world between the two systems, if we want to win the battle for the minds of people, then we cannot afford to allow the Soviet Union to take the lead in space.”
“We must be leaders [in space exploration] because the eyes of the world are now fixed on space, on the moon and more distant planets, and we swore that we would not have to see an enemy invader flag on the moon, there would be a banner of freedom and peace.”
Plot inconsistencies
When you begin to get more closely acquainted with the American lunar program, its results, the events that accompanied it and the events that followed later, there is a feeling of breaks in a number of storylines, which naturally gives rise to questions. Unlike, for example, the Soviet lunar program, which looks harmonious and logical, without such gaps.
To make the material visible, let's focus on three storylines:
- organizational and technological
- geopolitical
- detective humorous.
The latter is solely generated by NASA's approach to presenting evidence of their astronauts being on the Moon.
Organizational and technological gaps
Let us list the moments that can be attributed to the breaks in the organizational and technological plots.
- As part of the full-scale test program of the Saturn-5 launch vehicle, only two unmanned test launches were carried out. The second final test on April 4, 1968 was unsuccessful - the main part of his program in terms of preparing the flight to the Moon was failed. There was a premature shutdown of two of the five engines of the second stage, which did not allow the command module to be put into orbit with a planned apogee of 517,000 km. Instead, Apollo 6's own engines propelled the module into orbit with an apogee of 22,235 km. As a result, it was not possible to check the quality of long-range radio communications, to work out the return to Earth from the second space velocity, and most importantly, the reliability of the propulsion system of the Saturn-5 spacecraft remained unconfirmed. No more unmanned tests were carried out, the next flight immediately became the first manned flight around the moon in December 1968 with a crew of three, mind you - not turtles. The level of risk for manned flights is unacceptable. Basically, they don't. In Soviet cosmonautics, there was a rule: before a manned flight, two fully successful launches of an automatic analogue of a spacecraft must take place. And this rule was not only fulfilled, but also overfulfilled. Americans, in general, are also reasonable people.
- Skip the testing stage with an unmanned lunar landing and return of the lunar module to the lunar orbit. A completely independent stage of full-scale testing of the most complex unique apparatus, critical in terms of weight and strength characteristics, is mandatory for such a program. Instead, the Americans got off with undocking, maneuvering and docking of the return module in lunar orbit - tests that are in themselves a separate stage that develops the technology of docking and orbital maneuvering, which does not cancel the need for unmanned lunar landing and lunar launch. Desperate boys.
- The Americans never got the experience of landing spacecraft on the Earth from the second space velocity because of the mentioned problems with the final test launch of Saturn V, an experience that they quite prudently planned to get. A difficult flight stage that requires the same practice as landing and takeoff of the lunar module from the surface of the Moon, as well as the stage of docking with the mother ship.
- Lack of redundancy at the stage of the return of the lunar module. If within the framework of the first flight such an approach can still be explained by competition, then for subsequent mass and already “non-priority” flights, such a neglect of safety is inexplicable and absolutely meaningless. As a comparison, we note that in the framework of the Soviet lunar program, to ensure the reliability of the return, it was originally supposed to use a backup lunar rover and a backup lunar module. The reserve module guaranteed a return from the Moon in the event of a failure of the regular lunar ship, and the reserve lunar rover, supplied with an oxygen supply, was intended to deliver the astronaut to the reserve module. The approach is quite reasonable, keeping the plot coherent.
- In 1970, at the height of the lunar program, the chief designer of the Saturn-5 rocket, Wernher von Braun, was relieved of his post as director of the Space Research Center. Marshall and was actually removed from the leadership of rocket development. A person was removed from the program, who, being the coordinator of all parts of a huge complex project, was obliged, in case of emergency situations, to carry out operational duty at the MCC throughout the entire duration of each of the expeditions, while remaining loyal to the program. In addition, from a moral point of view, the winner was deprived of the moment of universal recognition and the highest triumph of life among his associates. Imagine, as an example, that S.P. Korolev in 1963. or in 1964. would be transferred to deputy ministers.
- The technological failure in the creation of launch vehicles and powerful rocket engines is the actual loss by the Americans of advanced technologies developed under the Saturn-5 project. The Soviet Union was able to repeat the success of the Americans in terms of creating a rocket with approximately the same carrying capacity as the Saturn-5, only 20 years later in 1988 with Energia. Unfortunately, the program collapsed along with the Soviet Union. But the technologies remained: on the basis of the Energiya RD-170 engine, the RD-171 engine was created, which is used for Zenit launch vehicles, and the RD-180 engine, which is supplied to the USA for Atlas-5 heavy launch vehicles. This is despite the fact that the technologies implemented in the F-1 engines to Saturn-5 are more advanced than those implemented in the RD-170. At close power, the F-1 engine is single-chamber, and the RD-170 is four-chamber. Weight characteristics, all other things being equal, for single-chamber engines are better, moreover, they are more compact. However, the larger the combustion chamber, the more difficult it is to ensure stable combustion in it - this is an extremely difficult task. Soviet, and then Russian engine builders were never able to create a single-chamber engine similar to the F-1. At the very least, it is surprising that the Americans, who have such advanced technology and have passed the stage of its successful serial replication and use, have been ignoring it for many years and buying less advanced engines based on Soviet technology.
Summarizing the features of the organizational and technological plot of the American lunar program, we can say the following: a fantastic technological breakthrough, an inexplicable subsequent rollback from the achieved technological level, a fantastic, incomprehensible depth of preliminary engineering study of the problem, fantastic recklessness and fantastic luck. Since December 1968, the organizational and technological plot of the American lunar program has undergone a series of breaks from the "real" category to the "fantastic" category. Some of the "rules of the game" generally accepted in space programs were violated in the most flagrant way without any consequences.
Breaks in the geopolitical plot
However, the main miracles took place in the geopolitical arena.
Starting from 1969, the coherent, clear and understandable geopolitical plot of the uncompromising confrontation between irreconcilable opponents breaks in an incomprehensible and radical way: America began, as it were, playing along with the Soviet Union, and this playing along continued for several years.
It all started with a gas pipeline to Germany (link):
On the cold morning of February 1, 1970, at 12:02 pm, champagne glasses clinked in the conference room of the Kaiserhof Hotel in Essen. German Economy Minister Professor Karl Schiller and Soviet Foreign Trade Minister Nikolai Patolichev signed an unprecedented agreement on the start of natural gas supplies from the USSR to West Germany.
But just about a year ago, when Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko unexpectedly proposed this project at a fair in Hannover, official Bonn then considered it another bluff of the Soviets.
Here is how the direct participants in the process comment on the event.
Andreas Mayer-Landrut, German Ambassador to the USSR in the 80s:
“This deal was, of course, very important for the development of East-West relations. Germany for the first time acted not as a "tail" of the Americans, but as an independent political player. US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did not want the Germans to play a special role in the policy of rapprochement between the West and the East, he wanted to keep it under his control. But we, with our eastern policy, got ahead of him.”
This comment is clearly intended for German mass consumption - so that the tail, which suffered a lot of humiliation after the 1st and 2nd World Wars, would think that it was wagging the dog.
Nikolai Komarov, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade in the 70s:
“There was no need to break through this idea, there were no political problems, everyone was interested, “at the top” they agreed quite quickly. There were no political problems."
In this comment, attention is drawn to the remark about the absence of political problems at the top, while all previous attempts to build pipelines from the USSR to the West were resolutely suppressed. For example, under the pretext that in the event of hostilities they could supply the advancing Soviet army with fuel. Let us add that this is a time of fierce geopolitical confrontation against the backdrop of a bright event in the world liberal media cult - the Prague Spring of 1968. and indirect clashes between the Soviet Union and America in the Vietnam War (1965-1973).
In North Vietnam, there were Soviet military advisers and specialists who helped create an air defense system that did not actually exist at the beginning of the war. The USSR also provided assistance with weapons and fuel. For the Americans, the result was catastrophic: during the war, according to various sources, from 3,500 to 5,000 US Air Force aircraft were shot down. In 1966, the Pentagon, with the approval of the President of the United States and Congress, authorized the commanders of aircraft carrier strike groups to destroy Soviet submarines found within a radius of one hundred miles from the group. And this is in "peaceful" time. In 1968, the Soviet nuclear submarine K-10 in the South China Sea off the coast of Vietnam for 13 hours imperceptibly at a depth of fifty meters followed under the bottom of the aircraft carrier "Enterprise" and practiced conditional attacks on it with torpedoes and cruise missiles, being at risk of destruction (or maybe maybe the Americans wisely decided not to notice it). The Enterprise was the largest aircraft carrier in the US Navy and flew the most bombing missions against North Vietnam. Such is the American-Soviet friendship.
In September 1967 in Moscow, the next agreements were signed on the provision of assistance by the USSR to North Vietnam, and in 1968. The Soviet Union continued to supply aircraft, anti-aircraft missile and anti-aircraft artillery weapons, small arms, ammunition, and other military equipment free of charge.
In such a situation, quite unexpectedly for everyone, America blesses its "younger European brothers" on a deal that is extremely beneficial for the Soviet Union, having stepped over the Vietnamese offense, trampling Czech democracy and the instinctive panic attitude of the Anglo-Saxons to strengthen infrastructure and trade ties between continental Western Europe and Russia, as undermining the foundations of their world domination. Compare the Soviet gas blitzkrieg with the colossal multi-year efforts of the Russian leadership to lay the Streams, the purpose of which is to get Russian exports out of control by America, which has the ability to manipulate vassal transit countries. And this is in the absence of direct geopolitical confrontation and indirect military clashes between the parties.
Practice does not know and does not tolerate such wonderful and kind breaks in geopolitical plots, like the one that happened in 1968, especially on the part of the most cruel pragmatists who lead the world project. Events like this always have a hidden agenda.
For the first time, information about the possibility of a gas contract was publicly announced by Andrei Gromyko six months before the Americans landed on the moon. Naturally, having learned from the bitter experience of previous bans, the Germans were skeptical about it, realizing that decisions on the implementation of such projects are made overseas. However, quite unexpectedly for the Germans, the contract did not meet with any resistance from the Americans, as if they did not notice it.
Any events from the category of "not noticing" are in fact thought out, pre-prepared and made decisions, and belong to the category of geopolitical exchanges. Since one part of it lies on the surface, and the other is carefully disguised from us, let's try to make a reconstruction.
By allowing anything, the Americans certainly had to get something no less significant in return. Realizing that the chances of losing the lunar race are far from zero, the Americans could decide to hedge against an unacceptable development of events for them and start working on an option with an illusory landing on the moon. The main risk of this scenario was that the Soviet Union had the technological ability to disavow the event. Therefore, the wise Americans decided to prepare an option for an exchange - about a year before the planned date of a real or illusory landing, as it goes, they hinted through unofficial channels to the leadership of the Union that they would not object to an extremely beneficial deal with a gas pipeline to Germany. Now, if the Soviet Union had doubts about the authenticity of the event, the Americans had a serious bargaining item at their disposal - a large and tasty carrot that could be taken away.
The added prize that the Soviet Union negotiated for itself in the exchange process was an unprecedented relief from pressure in a grueling arms race.
May 26, 1972 US President Richard Nixon visited Moscow. The event is extraordinary in itself, since it was the first visit of an American President to the USSR after the end of the Second World War. Before that, only in June 1961. On neutral territory in Vienna, a short working meeting of the Soviet and American leaders Khrushchev and Kennedy took place.
The visit resulted in the signing of an indefinite treaty on limiting missile defense systems. A delayed consequence of the visit was the conclusion of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty - SALT-1, which regulated the maximum number of stationary launchers of ICBMs and launchers of ballistic missiles on submarines. The treaty legally established the principle equal security in the field of offensive strategic weapons. Let us note that the principle of "equal security" is unacceptable in Anglo-Saxon, and then in American geopolitics - for a player implementing the world geopolitical project, to follow this principle is simply nonsense.
After Nixon's visit to the USSR, the only and last flight was made in the framework of the American lunar program, which closed it in December 1972. Apparently, the visit fixed the final terms of the exchange, and the Americans finally managed to bring lunar soil, to which we will return a little later.
There is another version of the reconstruction of the part of the plot veiled from us with the exchange. Since in that strange period everything looked as if the Americans recognized the USSR as equal in strength and status, there is an opinion that the Soviet leadership then outplayed the Americans, that the Soviet Union seemed to have deceived everyone. Nevertheless, such a variant of reconstruction looks at least naive - the level of mastering the technologies of manipulating an opponent, the level of skill, the availability of resources and, finally, the traditions of the two sides in the conduct of the geopolitical game are incomparable.
Therefore, only the assumption that the USSR has implicit weighty arguments for a geopolitical exchange can translate the miracle that happened into the category of reality. Those interested can try to look for others.
One small nuance can be added to what has been said. In 1967 China has quarreled with the USSR already defiantly and since 1968. began to make active curtsies towards the United States. The American leadership has been slow to respond for several years, despite the consistently professed principle: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Only after a secret visit in July 1971. Kissinger to China was followed by Nixon's visit in 1972, which gave the green light to mutual cooperation. Its main condition was a guarantee on the part of China that it would completely refuse to cooperate with the Soviet bloc. Most likely, the American elite, realizing the non-equivalence of the exchange with the USSR, decided to delay the start of rapprochement with China, so as not to irritate the Soviet leadership once again in a difficult situation for themselves and to guarantee that the Chinese “gift” would be taken out of the framework of the ongoing bargaining, despite the danger of losing it (change the Chinese leader, his moods or the activation of the USSR).
The inconsistencies of the detective-humorous plot
As already mentioned, such a story appeared solely due to the very peculiar attitude of NASA towards the issue of confirming the reality of the landing of American astronauts on the moon. For NASA, it is beneficial and convenient to transfer the discussion to such a plane. Indeed, the positions of the parties are marked, then why seriously frown, let's have fun and laugh.
It is pointless to discuss perspective, scenery, light and shadow inconsistencies in photo and video materials - it is like playing as amateurs on the field of professionals, i.e. close to giveaways. Any submission will be parried or defiantly skipped with clown antics. Therefore, it is better to limit ourselves to the same plot inconsistencies:
- traces of astronauts in the lunar dust under the landed module
- circus with moonstones.
The presence of traces of astronauts in the lunar dust under the module looks more than strange for someone who has read K.E. Tsiolkovsky (first picture). For those who are familiar with his works, natural considerations arise that, given the range of fall of the jet in the absence of an atmosphere, such a picture is possible only after landing on the moon with the engine turned off from a height of tens of meters. Otherwise, all the dust within a radius of many meters should have simply been blown away. After all, the thrust of the landing stage engines at the time of landing is about two and a half tons, and the speed of the jet stream relative to the module is 4700 m / s (link). In this place of logical reasoning, a legitimate fear for the life and health of astronauts creeps in, it even takes your breath away. But familiarity with the transcript of negotiations with the command module relieves anxiety and allows you to breathe calmly. In their audio conversations, the astronauts prudently report the dust mass raised by the engine, which prevents the lunar landing until the completion of above-surface maneuvering. So well done - the engines still did not turn off. But before you have time to recover, the insidious question about the origin of dust under the lunar module again pops up.
The dust could not settle, because in the absence of an atmosphere it does not swirl, but scatters along parabolic trajectories or flies into space, since the first cosmic velocity for the Moon is only 1700 m / s. It remains to admit the incredible - that one of Murphy's laws, unknown to us, operates on the Moon, according to which particles of lunar dust have some unthinkable property of mutual attraction and, not wanting to scatter, mutually attracted and settled in the same place where they were blown away. Then it is surprising that they remained pristine from the lunar dust stubbornly settling on their rightful place of the cushion of supports, which is especially clearly seen in the second picture. It remains to put forward one more hypothesis in addition to the constantly evolving model of the world within the framework of Murphy's laws: particles of lunar dust are fundamentally not deposited on physical objects of alien origin. One pleasant consequence immediately follows from this law: post-lunar quarantine is not needed, because it is meaningless, there seems to be no contact with the Moon.
In pursuit, an alternative hypothesis can be put forward: particles of lunar dust have high intelligence, and it was just interesting for them to look at aliens from other worlds, so they did not fly apart. But they didn’t want to fly away into the unknown on the supports of someone else’s ship. If this is so, then it is urgent to create a "Lunar Soil Defenders Society", the program goal of which should be to return back to the Moon smart lunar particles that are imprisoned on Earth. The fulfillment of this condition is the key to the success of the future Contact.
The main evidence of a successful manned flight to the moon was to be large moon rocks. Unlike lunar rubble (regolith), they could not be delivered to Earth by an automatic station. At that time, they could only be assembled by human hands.
The circus began with stones. The Americans classified all their stones.
It would seem that in the conditions of the unfolding persecution, present them, and all the questions of the spiteful critics will disappear. But no, gentlemen are taken at their word. And from photographs.
According to the Associated Press, Dutch experts have analyzed the "moon rock" - an object officially, through the State Department, donated to the Prime Minister of the Netherlands Willem Dries by the then US Ambassador to the Netherlands William Middendorf during a "goodwill" visit to the country by astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin Aldrin after they completed the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
The date of delivery of the precious gift is known - October 9, 1969. After the death of Mr. Dries, the most valuable relic, insured for $500,000, became an exhibit at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
And only now, studies of the "moonstone" have shown that the US gift, officially exhibited next to Rembrandt's paintings, turned out to be a simple fake - a piece of petrified wood.
The employees of the Rijksmuseum plan to keep it in the museum further - however, of course, in a different capacity.
The still living William Middendorf, apparently, became an unwitting accomplice in embarrassment - the most precious relic, symbolizing both the technological power of the United States and the openness of its space program, was handed to him by the US State Department.
Recall that the first automatic delivery of lunar soil (regolith) by the Soviet station Luna-16 took place on September 24, 1970, i.e. one year after the original American "gift" was presented. The situation looks as if the Americans did not expect such a dirty trick from the Soviet lunar program they killed and imprudently presented the stone.
Again, the easiest way would be to minimize the moral costs and remove the suspicion of global fraud by offering a real stone instead of a fake gift. Think about how you would crawl away if you thought of giving your woman jewelry under the guise of a multi-carat diamond, and later the forgery would surface? Ah, no, the NASA lunar program considers the standard plot twists banal and unworthy of themselves. Americans choose their favorite path of indirect illusory arguments. A piano in the bushes turned up under the arm - the Indian lunar satellite Chandrayan-1. It turned out that just a few days after the embarrassment, the satellite on September 3, 2009. without any advance announcements accepted in such cases, quite unexpectedly for everyone, photographed the traces of the American landing on the moon (if you happen to have trouble with jewelry, show footage of a street photographer who accidentally captured the moment when you entered a prestigious jewelry store). As they say, accidentally flying by:
The Indian lunar probe Chandrayaan-1 photographed traces of the US Apollo 15 landing on the moon on Thursday, the Times of India newspaper, citing Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) specialist Prakash Chohan.
Pictures of the landing site and wheel tracks of the lunar vehicle were obtained by the HySI spectrometer installed on the Chandrayan, operating in a wide range of electromagnetic radiation.(Link)
Apparently, in order to avoid surprises, the photos were promised to be published in a few months, after their additional processing. The result of a long pause was indistinct pictures, in which the arrows indicate blackouts and are accompanied by inscriptions: the place of the lunar landing of the lunar module, traces of the lunar rover.
However, it is pointless to find fault with the content of the footage from the Indian satellite. To confirm the authenticity of the lunar program, photographs of the chains of traces left by the astronauts are needed, since there is no doubt that the American return module visited the Moon - NASA was still able to confirm the presence of regolith. The main question - whether the module was with astronauts or whether it landed on the moon in unmanned mode - habitually remained open.
Added to this is the disappearance of the original moon landing footage from the NASA archives.
NASA has recreated footage of the moon landing, reports the Associated Press. It is reported that the tape of the original recording of the landing was lost many years ago. According to NASA officials, the priceless recording was stored in the NASA Film Storage along with thousands of other films. In the 1970s, the US Aerospace Agency experienced a shortage of film stock and periodically removed some of the films from the archive, washed off the old image from them and made them ready for new shooting. As a result of a three-year search for the original, NASA experts came to the conclusion that, most likely, the film with the landing of a man on the moon suffered this fate.
NASA teamed up with a professional film restoration company to recreate the old film. For these purposes, they used the original footage preserved in the National Archives of the United States, the archives of Australia and the archives of the CBS television company, as well as modern means of restoration.Experts say that the image quality on modern film is much better than it was on the original.
Well, poverty has tormented NASA and now claims to the authenticity of one of the main materials are not accepted - it is really not genuine.
Thousands of magnetic tapes with original recordings of expedition materials have also been lost. NASA is not yet able to determine what materials are lost. Translated into the language of communications, this means that “exactly the materials that you now need are lost,” i. in terms of protection against suspicion - everything.
Each of the parties concerned can only sympathize with each other and once again marvel at the originality of the plot.
Lunar soil
A small plot with the exchange of lunar soil requires special attention.
After their first flights, the Americans categorically refused to provide the USSR with samples of lunar soil, even as confirmation of the reality of their lunar mission, arguing that they had nothing to offer in exchange for the most valuable samples.
September 24, 1970 Luna-16 automatic station returned to Earth with samples of lunar soil. This put NASA in a difficult position - further refusal looked unmotivated. Finally, in January 1971. an exchange agreement is signed (why an agreement?), after which the exchange was postponed for another year and a half.
Apparently, NASA planned to be able to deliver soil samples in early 1971, based on which the agreement was signed. But something went wrong with the delivery, and the Americans began to "pull the rubber" with the most elementary operation.
In July 1971 The USSR, in good faith, unilaterally transfers to the United States 3 g of soil out of its 100 g, without receiving anything in return, although officially 96 kg of lunar soil is already in NASA's storerooms. The Americans continue to "pull the rubber" for another nine months.
Finally, April 13, 1972. an exchange of samples took place, which were delivered to earth by Luna-16 and Apollo-15, although eight months have passed since the return to Earth of the latter. Of its 173 kg of moon rocks delivered by that time, NASA presented 29 g of regolith for exchange. Of course, there was no question of making sure they had moonstones, with their subsequent return.
If we consider the plot with the exchange of lunar soil from the standpoint of the reality of the landing of Americans on the moon, then for some unknown reason it is clearly torn. If we accept the event with the landing on the moon as illusory, then the plot with the soil becomes consistent and logical.
Why is this possible
The development of events shows that there are serious reasons to consider the final stage of the American lunar program, namely, the landing of a man on the moon, an illusory megaproject.
Real successes in the Soviet lunar program and the unpleasant consequences of a possible loss in the lunar race in terms of substantiating their geopolitical leadership could have prompted such a step.
Kennedy's speech showed that the American elite perceived the lunar race as not a competition, but a battle, and made a promise to win this war without fail. And in war, as you know, all means are good, which led to the admissibility of using tactics to achieve an illusory victory in a "war" that cannot be lost.
Having a unique industry, having a highly qualified apparatus and vast experience in creating virtual images, it is quite logical to use them in geopolitical battles, success in which largely depends on the player's ability to mold his virtual image in the eyes of the world and the enemy. Therefore, it was difficult to refrain from achieving a guaranteed win.
All confirmations and denials of the lunar mission are indirect. Although taken together, the refuting evidence looks depressing.
So far, the situation has been suspended both by the lack of direct evidence and the absence of direct rebuttals. And the abilities and capabilities of the American elite to control and put pressure on other people's lunar programs preserve the current status quo.
