Moon Race: Played Enough Story Finale
Judging by the situation, Roskosmos once again, if not disgraced (in fact, disgraced), then caused surprise. I just want to ask: what was it?
And it was this: the general director of the Samara Rocket and Space Center "Progress" Dmitry Baranov said that work on the design of a super-heavy lunar rocket codenamed "Yenisei" had been stopped.
More precisely, they were discontinued at the technical design stage. Of course, as Baranov said, the center will be able to continue what it has begun, provided the will of Roskosmos.
But, apparently, it won't. Played enough.
One and a half billion rubles and 4 years of work - that's all. In October-November of this year, the technical design was supposed to be completed, and here is such an unexpected (in fact, not very) final. Thanks to everybody, you're free. One and a half billion will evaporate somewhere.
One month before the end of the work period.
It is very difficult to say what was worked out there and whether it was worked out at all, but already last year it became clear that something went wrong.
This is when in December last year our unfading general director of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin on his Facebook page (we have no other platforms for serious things) began to speculate that the oxygen-kerosene pair was not right anymore, we had to switch to methane. Why, the Americans fly, which means that we also need to stay “in the air”.
That is, all developments in oxygen and kerosene should be put aside in an amicable way and switched to methane-oxygen.
Nothing at all.
On the one hand, the fact that they left “heptyl” is, as it were, an achievement. A pair of asymmetric dimethylhydrazine (aka "heptyl") and nitrogen tetroxide had some advantages, but the fact that it is dangerous not only for the environment, but also for the operating personnel is a fact.
So the use of a pair of "oxygen-kerosene" is already an achievement. And now - methane ... And incomprehensible shuffling began.
In January 2021, the Space Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences recommended postponing the creation of a super-heavy rocket. In February, Baranov said that work was suspended, as some kind of correction of the missile's appearance was required. There was talk about the need to lengthen the rocket body.
Well, here is, in fact, the finale. Work on the creation of a super-heavy launch vehicle has been completely discontinued. According to some, the switch to methane is Rogozin's personal initiative.
Decent and logical result.
Of course, Baranov said optimistically that he could create a methane-fueled rocket in the center he runs. Or they may not. The launch of Luna-25 has also been postponed to the middle of next year. Rogozin, telling Putin the tale that the Oryol spacecraft is being tested, for some reason showed not the ship and the tests, but a mock-up.
In general, everything is as usual.
Meanwhile, many of our state-patriotic media recently shed bitter tears of sympathy over the fact that the flight to the moon will not take place in 2024. Most likely 2025. Spacesuits are not ready. They calculated how much money the Americans spent on the development of a new lunar spacesuit, criticized it.
The problem is that the Americans are really working on their lunar return. And they will have a spacesuit. They will have a ship. They will have a booster rocket. After several years of talking about trampolines, several years of outright mockery, Musk's ships did not just fly, they broke the market. And they will, apparently, fly further. Including the moon.
But what will happen in Russia, except for the next round of "budget development", I cannot say yet.
But unlike the United States, we do not have a super-heavy rocket. And at such a pace, even a layout is not expected for the next 10 years. There is no lunar ship. No moonsuit. Yes, criticizing Americans is easy. Let's see how it will turn out (if necessary) to improve the Soviet lunar spacesuit "Krechet".
Actually, there is nothing. There is only an irrepressible desire to criticize the American program. Literally, actually, starting from the fact that half a century ago we were the first.
The key word is "were". And where tomorrow or the day after tomorrow Russia can once again be the first, it is difficult to imagine.
But today, as soon as possible, the topic of the fact that the Americans have not been on the moon is being exaggerated. That all this is a staging, filmed in the pavilions of Hollywood. Well, everyone has read all this conspiracy theories on a given topic more than once. The Americans were not on the moon, because they could not be there a priori ahead of the Russians. And so on, ad infinitum.
Here I would like to quote the opinion of a very interesting person. Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov, pilot-cosmonaut of the USSR, Hero of the Soviet Union. He made his only flight on the multi-seat ship "Voskhod", in the creation of which he was directly involved.
Unfortunately, Konstantin Petrovich left us in 2009, but in 2000 left his work “The Trajectory of Life. between yesterday and tomorrow. " Calm and confident story about the events of those years.
Naturally, in his book, Konstantin Petrovich also touched on the issue of hoaxes. Even then, 20 years ago, this question excited many. So were the Americans really on the moon, or is it a fiction and a beautiful shoot?
“As for publications about the possibility of staging expeditions to the moon, this is a well-known literary and political device that has been used many times before. And after Gagarin's flight, some American journalists expressed an opinion about a possible hoax.
But official circles (government, NASA) did not make such statements. And it's clear why. They always had good intelligence, they probably knew that we were intensively working on spacecraft, that in February 1961 three ships were sent to the Tyura-Tama test site. And most importantly, they listened to conversations on Earth's radiotelephone with Gagarin, could record signals transmitted to the ship, telemetric information transmitted from the ship to Earth, and, possibly, even a television image of Gagarin transmitted to ground points. So the Americans knew that Gagarin had actually made the flight, and behaved quite correctly.
And when Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins flew to the moon, our receiving radio equipment received signals from the Apollo 11 board, conversations, a television picture about the exit to the lunar surface.
Arranging such a hoax is probably no less difficult than a real expedition. To do this, it would be necessary to land a television transponder on the lunar surface in advance and check its operation (with transmission to Earth), again in advance.
And on the days of the imitation of the expedition, it was necessary to send a radio relay to the Moon to simulate the Apollo's radio communication with the Earth on the flight path to the Moon. And they did not hide the scale of work on "Apollo".
And what they showed me in Houston in 1969 (Control Center, stands, laboratories), factories in Los Angeles for the manufacture of Apollo ships and the descent vehicles that returned to Earth, according to this logic, should have been an imitation ?! Too complicated and too funny. "
The opinion of a great man. A direct participant in the events of those years. By the way, he also gives an answer to the question why they did not fly to the moon for so long afterwards.
There was no sense.
The lunar program itself was premature. As well as Gagarin's flight. Some had to prove the superiority of the socialist system, others - the capitalist. On the lunar expeditions, the Americans proved theirs and calmed down. Expeditions lost their meaning, because everything, they left prints, brought the soil. It was simply technically impossible to get more from the Moon at that time.
Today, when the main participants in the space program have no reason to fly “ahead of the rest of the planet,” work is not progressing so rapidly. And the Americans' delays are also understandable. They no longer need to fly and "mark" the moon. They need to come back. And to do this tomorrow will be much more difficult than yesterday, precisely because they have already been on the moon.
And ours, too, can not be in a hurry. Especially in terms of the conquest of the Moon, Mars, Venus, Saturn, asteroids. We were already ahead of us there. Therefore, speed is not so important. It is more important, perhaps, not to make empty promises that no one is obviously going to keep.
In general, what are space flights? First of all, it is research and progress. Development of scientific and technical thought.
Let's see what the Americans got as a result of their lunar program?
1. Used the hydrogen-oxygen engine of the second stage of the Saturn-5 launch vehicle. It turned out that the hydrogen-oxygen pair is almost one and a half times more effective than the kerosene-oxygen pair. True, and more dangerous in terms of an explosion.
2. The descent vehicle in which the astronauts returned to Earth. More precisely, its thermal protection. After all, the lunar vehicles returned back with a second space speed, greater than the orbital speed, 11 km / s. Accordingly, the impacts from the atmosphere were higher temperature. The developments in lunar spacecraft became the basis for the defense of the Space Shuttle program.
3. System of landing on the moon. Vertical landing using rocket engines in the absence of atmosphere for a module with a particularly fragile cargo - a person.
4. Control system for lunar vehicles. The lander was supposed to take off, approach the orbital module, dock and return to Earth. Given the distance, it was a very decent job.
5. Hydrogen-oxygen generators for electricity generation.
The following points can be questioned.
6. A set of instruments that brought information about what is happening on the surface of the Moon and below it. It is possible that this information was very important, but automatic stations could also cope with the task of delivering instruments.
7. The experience of movement by a person on foot and in a vehicle has been gained. In general, the value of these experiments can also be questioned.
In general, political games. In the sense that the result was more political than materialized, you must agree.
Now, 50 years later, everything can be started almost from scratch, because in reality, everything that was done by the Americans in the framework of the lunar program was done for political purposes.
What is the point here for Russia to be included, having nothing, is not entirely clear. It is clear that we will not be able to "catch up and overtake" the United States and China. The recent torment around the Science module has shown this. But with the space film set for the first channel, it is generally a separate conversation.
In fact, apart from the unfounded (as usual, however) Rogozin's statements about what we will have, we have nothing today. And the Russian lunar program is nothing more than a fairy tale for those who fervently wish to believe in it.
There will be no gardens on the moon until Russia has a launch vehicle, an interplanetary ship and a lunar spacesuit. And while these three components really do not exist, there is no point in talking about flights to the moon.
First, these components of a real lunar program must be created not in words, but in deeds.
In the meantime, you can entertain yourself with theories that everything we know about flights to the moon is a Hollywood fake. It is very exciting and exciting. This flatters the pride a little, especially for those who are stuck in the 60s of the last century, when two great countries came together in a space race.
By the way, it's a pretty good way to compete. Much better than a race to improve the quality and increase the quantity of nuclear charges.
But those were two really great countries.
Today, of course, one can support conspiracy theorists who believe that there was nothing on the moon. That all this is shooting in pavilions and photomontages. This very well supports the pride of those who understand that Russia's success in space exploration is approaching zero.
Orbital transport in ancient spaceships is not a success.
But what to do with the images, which fixed reflectors, cameras, seismographs, the lower part of the Apollo 11 lunar module?
It is clear that all American photographs are montage, drawings, and fake. But I'm generally talking about Indian people. On the automatic interplanetary station "Chandrayaan-2" the Indians have the longest-range camera around the moon. And the Indians, in order to check the operation of the camera, “walked” it through already known places, filmed by the Americans. It's okay to have something to compare with.
Of course, you can also accuse the Indians of counterfeiting to please the Americans. No problem. But then, in general, it already turns out some kind of world conspiracy.
In general, it is sad to observe and once again criticize the "successes" of Russian cosmonautics. Precisely because there are many words, but few successes. More precisely, not at all.
Sometimes there is such a strange feeling that some kind of confusion is going on in Roskosmos. Nobody really understands what needs to be done, but all together imitate a sort of Brownian motion. So that others can see that "the process has begun."
Projects are voiced, huge amounts of money are spent on frankly incomprehensible goals. But in reality - nothing. Orbital taxi. Well, at least we are still displaying satellites.
In general, the final stories may not be entirely optimistic even for the most inveterate optimists. Russia will shoot some kind of "film" in orbit for the first channel, sacrificing its last space module for this, and that's it. A curtain. The final.
Apple trees on Mars and plums on the Moon will of course bloom. But I'm afraid not in the Russian version. And all that will remain for us is once a year, around April 12, to pompously blurt out the theme that "we were the first."
But who will care about this in twenty years? Certainly not the Americans and the Chinese, who will plow with might and main in the lunar mines, enriching their countries.
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