Soviet Moon Race

Soviet Moon Race.

Covered in secrecy for more than 30 years, details about the Soviet Moon program have become available for the Western public only after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The program to send a Soviet man to the Moon was a failure despite billions of rubles expended and tens of thousands engineers involved. Consequently, in 1972 the Soviet government ordered the destruction of all remaining components. How could a country that launched the Earth's first satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, and send a first man, Youri Gagarin, in space in 1961, loose the Moon race? Most experts agree that under financing, lack of government priority, mismanagement and technical backwardness determined the projects' negative outcome.

First, with the purge of Nikita Khrushchev in 1964, the Soviet manned space program lost its major proponent. Khrushchev, both the First Secretary of the CPSU and the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, was the major force behind the Soviet manned space program. He personally oversaw the program and assigned resources and personnel needed. After his forced retirement, no one of the Soviet leaders was personally interested in the manned space exploration. As a result, only 35% of necessary funds, material and personnel were allocated. Moreover, in 1965 the tragic death of Sergey Korolev, the chief designer of the Soviet space program, left the program without a leader. Only Korolev, charismatic man and both brilliant manager and engineer, could bring together hundreds of research laboratories from different industries to work together. Thus, in 1965 the Soviet moon program lost not only its support in the government, but also its general manager.

Second, the program to send a Soviet man on the Moon was mismanaged. After Korolev's death, Vasili Mishin, Korolev's first deputy, was put in charge of the project. Although he had been Korolev's deputy for more than 10 years and was involved in all technical aspects, Mishin's arrogant and prone to conflict personality combined with his drinking problem made him a poor choice. Mishin's ignorant attitude not only alienated potential collaborators, such as Yangel's research laboratory that already had developed an alternative booster rocket, but also made work on the Moon program very difficult. In fact, engineers often resolved to the finer pointing and blaming each other instead of troubleshooting the problems.

Finally, the technological backwardness of the USSR was a deceive factor in the failure of the program. Lagging behind the US, the Soviet jet engine industry could not build powerful engines needed for the first stage. The first stage of American Saturn-5 booster, the Moon rocket, had five 25 feet tall kerosene-liquid oxygen F-1 engines with the trust of 250,000 pounds each. Although Soviet technical intelligence delivered the blueprints of F-1 engines, the technologists behind the iron curtain could not replicate them. Consequently, to compensate for less powerful engines in his rocket,