The end of manned space exploration
It makes no sense to list all the vicissitudes of the space race, they have long been known and are still a kind of symbol of their states. Space has long become the face of the powers that have implemented their programs; it is difficult to imagine Russia without Gagarin and the United States without Armstrong. Space is a symbol of power, industrial and intellectual, space is prestige, and in general, the space race is an accident.
More precisely, it is not even an accident, but a by-product of the arms race. Both they and we are trying to construct the absolute weapon created powerful missiles, the USSR here seriously overtook the United States, because the United States had a fleet of heavy bombers and a base in Europe, but we do not. And, in addition to the task of carrying a nuclear charge, the missiles could also carry another payload, which it was a sin not to use in an ideological war.
Both sides began to prepare.
Moreover, we had a brilliant designer Korolev, who was so delirious with space that during Stalin's times he received a prison term for misappropriating funds, and he spent them not on himself, but on researching rockets capable of entering orbit.
And the United States had Wernher von Braun, a German and a Nazi, but the person is also sick with astronautics and the desire to get to where nothing alive can exist.
And it was they who pushed forward, emphasizing the prestige, manned astronautics. It was on them that the programs were largely held, and it was that generation that realized the dream, almost useless, but beautiful.
Indeed, from the point of view of states, everything is determined by efficiency - military and economic. In this sense, the orbit is very promising, but even there manned flights are not very necessary - satellites can be launched without it. But "The moon is a harsh mistress" or Aelita with apple trees on Mars is fantastic. And fiction is bad and expensive.
Well, would a Soviet cosmonaut set foot on Mars, and what military advantages would the USSR receive? And the economic ones?
But the cost of the program would be truly cosmic.
But I got ahead of myself.
In the meantime, 1961 is an unconditional victory for the USSR. The first man in space is undoubtedly an event that has no analogues in the human stories, and the triumph of the USSR and the Queen. The dream of science fiction writers and enthusiastic youths became reality one day, and the dreams of millions became even more daring: the 50s – 60s was the peak of popularity of science fiction books about space and the conquest of the Universe. Moreover, both in our country and in the West: in our country they explored the Andromeda Nebula, they studied Dune, and they built communism and capitalism, but these are details, just the main thing is the general impulse of mankind into space.
Dreams are good, but here and now in the media, the United States needed a powerful response to the Soviet successes, and in the same 1961 they adopted the Apollo program, a project of manned flights to the moon.
The Americans did not have much choice, the answer had to be as loud as the first flight into space, and besides the Moon, there are no other suitable objects nearby.
Landing on another astronomical object is equal in importance to a spacewalk, and in complexity - higher. The only thing is that the price is $ 25,4 billion in 1969, which is approximately all of the current $ 200 billion. Well, and the technical difficulties that seemed hardly surmountable.
But when did this stop the superpowers?
The development of super-heavy rockets "Saturn" starts, and we have our own carriers of manned spacecraft to the Moon - N-1. In addition, there was a study of lunar modules, protection, nutrition, hygiene of astronauts and a whole bunch of other issues.
As a result, the USSR dropped out of the race, and the USA reached the end.
Why we fell down is understandable - the main engine of our manned space exploration Korolyov died, Khrushchev, a fanatic of missiles and the spread of ideas of communism through successes in space, left, or rather, he left, and a tough struggle for funding began between the departments. Seven nannies had a child without an eye, and the project was quietly turned off. Moreover, Brezhnev, being an economic manager and a pragmatist, simply did not understand - why all this at such a price and with such a risk?
As it turned out, from the point of view of prestige, we, of course, lost, but from the point of view of pragmatism - quite the opposite, we saved a lot of money, resources and time.
The United States landed on the moon six times, brought a bunch of stones from there, said a bunch of beautiful words:
This is one small step for man, but a giant leap for all mankind.
We planned three more flights ... and stopped.
Apollo numbered 18, 19 and 20 were canceled, the Martian programs were curtailed by both countries, and no further orbits have been flown since then.
Moreover, the very technology for the production of super-heavy missiles was lost. This happened because no one needs it. It is one thing to rivet piece hand-assembled products, with the involvement of hundreds of enterprises, costing some kind of SSBN "Ohio" or "Borey", and to implement, in fact, piece number, another is constant research and development.
And in this sense, everything is sad on the moon: neither the atmosphere, nor the available minerals, nor the military prospects, and even with science - unmanned vehicles can deliver stones, much smaller, but scientists do not need tons.
Similarly, Venus and Mars - for 40-50 years it is quite possible to send manned missions there, but why?
It will not be possible to land on Venus, the conditions are not the same, and unmanned aerial vehicles can also be viewed from orbit. Mars is a lifeless desert with an unsuitable atmosphere, in theory it is possible to build a base there, but again, what's the point?
In Antarctica, scientists are sitting, because the weather forecasts, and on Mars?
Enough for curiosity and prestige and robots, which are regularly launched, and to the Moon, and to Mars, and to Venus, and even to the stars ("Voyagers").
No, if, say, the USSR rushed to Mars in the year 1980, then the United States would rush to Venus, or Europe, or somewhere else, prestige is primary. But Moscow withdrew from the race, after which the competition moved to the orbital plane, fortunately, from a military point of view, from an economic point of view, this is much more interesting.
And all that remains of the lunar program is the lunar conspiracy theory, in which a significant part of our fellow citizens believe, and no evidence convinces them. Although the United States has its own clowns, both those who believe in the lunar conspiracy and those who believe that Gagarin did not fly into space either.
However, against the background of the current level of effective consumers, this is not surprising, because a fool understands that you cannot fly into space, you will crash against the firmament, or you will be eaten by a turtle, the very one on which our planet lies. Which, in general, is flat, there is also such a sect.
But seriously, practice has simply killed the dream.
A person is so constructed that he is capable of doing something for the sake of a result, while the results of manned flights cannot yet be. The meaning will appear - flights will also be reborn.
In the meantime, research by robots, the dream of stars, and a topic for conspiracy theorists who cannot understand why the modern United States does not spend hundreds of billions on flights to the Moon, and modern Russia flies to Mars and the Moon only in the words of Rogozin?
But it is worth asking a single simple question - "why", and all the rest will disappear by themselves.
We do not have breakthroughs of the level of the 50s, and while there are no breakthroughs, expensive single flights will remain unprofitable.
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