Soviet N 1 works and Space Race continues?

[uk 75]

Influenced by other threads and the excellent French language Jour J comic book about a Soviet moonlanding I found myself wondering what would have happened in the 70s if the Soviet Union had managed to gets its N 1 booster to work and had landed Cosmonauts on the moon in the same timeframe as the US.

The Soviets were keen to establish a presence on the moon and if their booster had worked might have been able to do so. Would that have allowed Werner Von Braun to reinstate the Apollo applications programme, keep the Saturn V boosters in production and start a lunar station programme.

 

[Michel Van]

1986 manned Mars mission...




can some one move this in Speculation and Alternate History part ?

 

[Archibald]

It's not that complicated. In 1969 for every Space Task Group / NASA / Saturn V option there was a Soviet equivalent that used the N-1 and the improved N-1F.
Mars in 1986 ? Aelita, a nuclear electric ship.
What about a Moon base ? L3M and DLB.
Or perhaps a massive space station in Earth orbit ? there was the MKBS, complete with a nuclear reactor and an artificial gravity treadmill.
Quite paradoxically there was no Soviet space shuttle until 1976. The Soviets were just baffled by NASA economic studies of the shuttle and they had zero interest in building a copy... unless, of course, the shuttle proved to have a military value. Which Keldysh believed it had. But that's another story.

As for a new Moon race, I wrote a little alt-history on the subject. It can be found there. I have a much improved variant in the jigs.
http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=147321&page=2

 

[uk 75]

Archibald
Michel

Thanks for coming back on this one. I put it in the Bar because I thought the subject was a bit off the wall, but obviously others have been there before me. There used to be a good site by Michael Wade called Encyclopaedia Astronautica that had a lot of material on it.

The N1 seemed doomed to failure because of underresourcing and in particular its complex propulsion method. However, if it had been closer to Saturn V in performance and reliability the 70s would have looked very different.

 

[Michel Van]

Mith functional N1 this would be the launch manifest:

first N1-L3 lunar missions
then L3M long term lunar mission (first lunar "base")
same time first test of Salut in orbit
N1 launch of Mars 5M lander mission to beat NASA Viking in 1976
large space station MKBS launch with N1.
Orbital test for Mars mission on that Station and the Aelita a Mars ship with ion engine.
1986 the Aelita mission to Mars with 4 cosmonauts

and US ?
Nixon will be angry it he hear who much the reactivation of Saturn V production line gonna cost.
Apollo goes to mission 20
then AAP : Skylab A & B and long time dual mission to Moon.
assembly of bigger space station then the MKBS and first flight of Shuttle to it (not the OTL monster)
Orbital test for Mars mission on that Station and the ARES Mars ship with NERVA engine.
1986-1988 mission with 6 astronauts

 

[uk 75]

Michel

Thank you for the summary. I think we agree that it would have been an exciting time.

The initiative that led to the Apollo Soyuz mission might have been done on a larger scale on the Moon.

It would also have been interesting to see what Europe would have done. A capability based on Ariane might have been developed to go to the Moon if the Russians and US had bases there.

All the best

(looking forward to the next Jour J about the French monarchy with a nice balloon artwork on the front)