> inexact quote: "You know, we're throwing towns into the sky" related to the early mishaps of R-7 program development

I have not looked at the source (in Russian) for several years; now that I am curious I will check at home tonight. But as far as I remember "we are shooting towns into the sky" remark was not in reference to the R-7, but in reference to N1-L3, a hellishly expensive competitor to the Apollo manned Moon mission rocket. The meaning of the phrase was that each and every test should be taken extremely seriously as the cost of each flight is comparable to the cost of building a new city.

R-7 was developed much earlier when Korolev and his team at OKB-1 were iterating rapidly on much cheaper models that were primarily funded as rockets for strategic thermonuclear strike warheads. The civilian (Sputnik and later Gagarin) flights were an offshoot of that and were small enough that it happened as a side project. R-7 was a comparatively simple and cheap design, which may be why that family became a workhorse from the late 50s to carrying crews to the ISS. And the super expensive N1-L3 was a stillborn.

That's my recollection, need to recheck the sources.

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ghaff 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"For all Mankind" is a great alternate history show that imagines the N1 succeeding.

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lstodd 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I read it last some years ago too but I think it was in relation to many early moonshot failures - first half of Luna program and also early attempts at Mars and Venus.

Have to reread it too.

Still, while R-7 was initially funded as ballistic missile system, that was abandoned quite early, since it was very unwieldy, basically unusable.

Ballistic program in OKB-1 continued separately resulting in superchilled-LOX R-9.

N1 failure is attributed mostly to Korolev - Glushko rivalry that resulted in N1 lacking engines in time. It is widely belived that Kuznetsov bureau delivered just a bit too late - Korolev died, Moon race was lost and N1 project was literally buried.

EDIT: Mishin (OKB-1 head after Korolev) had no administrative push, and Glushko ended up heading it and building Energia-Buran. It's all a sad story of unchecked emotions leading to monumental waste.

	▲	ptero an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> N1 failure is attributed mostly to Korolev - Glushko rivalry that resulted in N1 lacking engines in time. That is a viable version. But I think this was one of the problems and there were plenty of others. While Chertok does point to the engines as a major problem, he also admits that the whole system became way too complex to succeed. His description of electrical components (for which IIRC he was the chief engineer) and checkouts is telling. He also describes the feeling of "good envy" as the Russian engineers were listening in on comms between the Earth and the Apollo 13 during its mission. Which drove home the point of how much advantage US had, at least in electronic, and how powerful it was for its successful lunar program. > It's all a sad story of unchecked emotions leading to monumental waste. I have a softer view. Both Korolev and Glushko wanted their own leadership, which is normal. Korolev ran his shop in a dictatorial fashion, as that was the only way he could operate efficiently. Which is also fine and can produce spectacular results (and it did early on). But it comes with its own risks, including motivating strong leaders to branch out. I would not call it unchecked emotions that Glushko, after many years at OKB-1 went to run his own projects. Living in a someone's shadow while under his dictatorial control is not for everyone. I can see the arguments for both sides. My 2c.