The Russians never duplicated Apollo 8

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

If the Zond-5 mission were safe for human spaceflight (late 1968) then this proves that the Russians had the equipment : Soyuz 7K capsule, Proton-K launcher to perform the lunar fly-by mission which.. they.. never.. attempted.. (for reasons that we will obviously disagree on.)

do the russians dispute NASA's claim for gemini 11 and apollo 8?

a reply to: deloprator20000

They also had problems getting the Proton to work properly.

The Proton was just powerful enough to get a Zond probe around the moon, but it was extremely unreliable. It would not have been powerful enough to get a manned surface mission there.

The Zonds themselves also suffered technical issues in a number of areas that would have caused potentially fatal problems for the crews.

There's the Soviet problem: when it worked it was good, but they couldn't get it to work every time. The Americans could.

OK, the thread is about radiation. Radiation = no Apollo.

Show us your data about the deadly radiation and we'll show you ours...for the millionth time.

originally posted by: mrwiffler
OK, the thread is about radiation. Radiation = no Apollo.

Show us your data about the deadly radiation and we'll show you ours...for the millionth time.

For all those that are trying to say we didn't go to the moon due to radiation should read the following: -

APOLLO EXPERIENCE REPORT - PROTECTION AGAINST RADIATION

Abstract

Radiation protection problems on earth and in space are discussed. Flight through the Van Allen belts and into space beyond the geomagnetic shielding was recognized as hazardous before the advent of manned space flight.

Specialized dosimetry systems were developed for use on the Apollo spacecraft, and systems for solar-particle-event warning and dose rojection were de-vised. Radiation sources of manmade origin on board the Apollo spacecraft present additional problems. Methods applied to evaluate and control or avoid the various Apollo radiation hazards are discussed.

Peace,

Korg.

15 pages and people are still arguing?

Fact....The Russian had a Luna rover (Lunokhod 1) on the moon at the same time as the USA had astronauts on the moon.

Fact....Russia had ALREADY Won the space race...they did that with Sputnik, a Dog, Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova (first woman in space 1963).

Fact....USA landed the first Human on the moon....In the name of Planet Earth.

Nasa scientists and engineers, even now, rightly give homage to the Russian scientists and their Luna rover missions, and have stated that Nasa's rover programs have direct links to those Russian engineers ideas.

Just imagine if the Russians, Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese etc, Space Agencies actually pooled their resources and worked together, what could be achieved, as a Earth Planetary exercise.
Arguing is futile.....maybe if the public actually made their thoughts known...like on these forums etc.

The moon would be a 3 hour Sunday drive and Mars would be a week or less away.

And yes, I firmly believe, we DO have the technology........Not just giant fireworks on a stick either. .

originally posted by: mrwiffler
OK, the thread is about radiation. Radiation = no Apollo.

Show us your data about the deadly radiation and we'll show you ours...for the millionth time.

And... for the millionth time .... this is not an Apollo hoax thread, it is a general space history thread. What I have been doing is offering some historical facts from which I developed a few deeper lines of questioning about those facts.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't post in the thread. But if you do decide to post could you please just stick with the facts & interpretations? Ask questions, Sure! Post links or images related to the thread title, Yes! Just don't bring that Defender attitude because you will get sent back to page 1 to re-read the whole assignment. There are some other posters who are up to the task, are you?

Although there is some room for radiation talk in this thread in terms of space altitude records and the decisions that were made to break those records or stay below them... keep in mind historical focus " The Russians never duplicated Apollo 8."

Those paying attention to the thread will undoubtedly be aware that the Russians test plan for the N-1 included 12 unmanned test flights, they only performed 4 tests, all of them failures.

Those paying more attention will realize that the Russians didn't truly need an N-1 rocket to perform the lunar orbit mission. The Zond 5 September 1966 mission proved the Russians were safe for manned exploration beyond 475km altitude. Pete Conrad suggested (and this was news to me when I found it) that NASA had considered a TitanII/Gemini lunar orbit mission.

Conrad and Anders used their influence at the astronaut office to reprogram the Gemini XI orbit plans to obtain the space altitude record on 1/of/44 orbits in September 1966. They were aware of the propaganda value for obtaining that record.

1965-03-18 - Voskhod 2 - Belyayev, Leonov - 475 km apogee orbit
1966-07-18 - Gemini 10 - Collins, Young - 763 km apogee orbit
1966-09-14 - Gemini 11 - Conrad, Gordon - 1,372 km apogee orbit
1966-09-18 - Zond 5 - turtles, flies, worms, plants and seeds - Lunar orbit Apogee: 385,000 km

The root question of the thread, in case you missed it Mr. Wiffler, is why did the Russians stop going further 50 years ago? Why did the Russians stop going at 475km?? Further questions proceeded. Frank Borman's Russian trip to secret meetings during the first week of July 1969 coincided with the second (and still secret) N-1 launch failure...

However, the Russians had other options for obtaining space altitude records, plus, they had a dual track to the moon using Zond. Meanwhile the Americans considered a Gemini capsule to be sturdy enough for lunar orbit. All these considerations must be addressed fully and completely in the final analysis. All readers are free to draw their own conclusions.

I guess the ultimate question for this thread is - would the Soviets place such importance on altitude records (for their own sake) and the isolated achievement of flying a human around the Moon (again for its own sake) so as to build dedicated rockets and capsule for that, and centering their space program around that, rather than aiming to land men on the Moon? SJ certainly seems to be convinced so. Me, not so much so.

Why didn't the Soviets continue to get manned spacecraft higher and higher? I'm sure it's because it's not a valid goal for a space program, and doesn't really achieve anything useful. Space flight isn't like the competition of high jumping. After conquering the low earth orbit, the next stop was the Moon (ultimately, landing people there and getting them safely back). That's why Apollo 8 flew the heavy Saturn V rocket, and why the Soviets were testing the N1.

The reason I think this thread fails, is because SJ seems to be more interested in establishing motivations rather than cold hard scientific facts. We are talking about something subjective rather than objective.

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

Those paying more attention will realize that the Russians didn't truly need an N-1 rocket to perform the lunar orbit mission. The Zond 5 September 1966 mission proved the Russians were safe for manned exploration beyond 475km altitude.

very misleading..

you take one mission and put your own speculation in to fit your agenda..

when was it when the soviets finally worked out their re-entry procedures to be safe enough for manned flights??

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter
Pete Conrad suggested (and this was news to me when I found it) that NASA had considered a TitanII/Gemini lunar orbit mission.

A citation for that would be nice.

Ultimately however it doesn't really prove anything. The goal was to land on the moon, not orbit around it. A Titan rocket may well have had enough grunt to get a circumlunar mission done, but it would have done nothing for testing landing procedures, for which they needed a bigger rocket to carry the larger payload. This is where the N-1 came in, the one that needed 12 tests before getting man-rated and that failed on all 4 of those first attempts.

Getting ever higher orbits may seem like a stunt, but again you need to place it into a proper context. Trans-lunar injection is actually a process of launching a rocket into a very large elliptical orbit around Earth that happens to intersect where the moon will be when you get there. Decelerating when you get there turns it into lunar orbit.

Conrad may have wanted a record, but getting the practise time in to show that you can get into highly elliptical orbits was invaluable for the programme.

There is absolutely no value in such an elliptical orbit if you aren't planning on going somewhere else.

originally posted by: choos

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

Those paying more attention will realize that the Russians didn't truly need an N-1 rocket to perform the lunar orbit mission. The Zond 5 September 1966 mission proved the Russians were safe for manned exploration beyond 475km altitude.

very misleading..

you take one mission and put your own speculation in to fit your agenda..

when was it when the soviets finally worked out their re-entry procedures to be safe enough for manned flights??

The Zond 5 landed successfully. The turtles pulled 20g's and survived. Even the western media mainstream outlets like Discovery.com agrees that,

"The flight was survivable, and a manned followup mission was clearly in Zonds future." Source news.discovery.com...

Is the Discovery Channel an acceptable source to you? They say that the Soviets had a dual track to the moon and they did not need the N-1 rocket to orbit the moon.

you take one mission and put your own speculation in to fit your agenda..

What's your agenda choos?

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

The Zond 5 landed successfully. The turtles pulled 20g's and survived. Even the western media mainstream outlets like Discovery.com agrees that,

do you think man can survive a 20g re-entry?

Is the Discovery Channel an acceptable source to you? They say that the Soviets had a dual track to the moon and they did not need the N-1 rocket to orbit the moon.

survivable yes, but survivable for man?? 20g re-entry.. man can survive 20g's but only for a split second or so.. 20g re-entry would be a sustained 20g over a few minutes.. do you think that is survivable??

What's your agenda choos?

whats yours?? apparently you think 20g re-entry is survivable...

p.s. im guessing the discovery channel is also good enough source for you since you linked to it right? discovery channel has no problem with radiation if they believed manned missions were possible for zond missions.. so obviously radiation is not the "glass ceiling" that you talked about earlier..

so we are back to what?? reliable rockets?? hasnt that already been stated??

and why did it pull 20 Gs SJ?

Was it planned to do that or did it go wrong somehow?

originally posted by: choos
whats yours?? apparently you think 20g re-entry is survivable...

Russia and USA knew the risks. Grissom knew the risks.

Like many other astronauts, Grissom knew his work was dangerous, but important. He is quoted in the book Footprints on the Moon as saying, "If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life." Source www.biography.com...-first-astronauts&awesm=~oGLgTAX2SazwYV

Komarov knew the risks

According to the authors, Komarov answered: "If I don't make this flight, they'll send the backup pilot instead." That was Yuri Gagarin. Vladimir Komarov couldn't do that to his friend. "That's Yura," the book quotes him saying, "and he'll die instead of me. We've got to take care of him." Komarov then burst into tears. Source www.npr.org...

They all knew (astronauts, cosmonauts and rocket designers) that something might go wrong with any given mission. So I think your question about survival of 20g's is irrelevant. Zond 5 was viable for a manned lunar orbit mission.

If Zond 5 was viable for manned travel beyond 475km and lunar orbit then the N-1 becomes a red herring. We can also go all the way back to page 1 of this thread to see how many people were suckered by the N-1/Cia/1981/talking points video.

If this thread teaches you anything it should be that history is not concrete and a jackhammer will make short work of it.

originally posted by: onebigmonkey
and why did it pull 20 Gs SJ?

Was it planned to do that or did it go wrong somehow?

Every astronaut and every cosmonaut knew the risks.

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

originally posted by: onebigmonkey
and why did it pull 20 Gs SJ?

Was it planned to do that or did it go wrong somehow?

Every astronaut and every cosmonaut knew the risks.

Why did it pull 20 Gs SJ?

Was it planned to do that or did it go wrong somehow?

originally posted by: SayonaraJupiter

They all knew (astronauts, cosmonauts and rocket designers) that something might go wrong with any given mission. So I think your question about survival of 20g's is irrelevant. Zond 5 was viable for a manned lunar orbit mission.

your argument is irrelevant.. of course they knew there were risks but there is a different is evaluating risks and knowing about certain death.. everything upto zond-5 and a bit past proved that if any were manned, the crew would have a 100% death rate..

at what point were the russians able to prove their missions would have a survivable re-entry acceleration??

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

And... for the millionth time .... this is not an Apollo hoax thread,

Tell us why you think the Russians didn't send people beyond the Van Allen belts(I bet you won't tell us)

originally posted by: mrwiffler
a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

And... for the millionth time .... this is not an Apollo hoax thread,

Tell us why you think the Russians didn't send people beyond the Van Allen belts(I bet you won't tell us)

originally posted by: mrwiffler
a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

And... for the millionth time .... this is not an Apollo hoax thread,

Tell us why you think the Russians didn't send people beyond the Van Allen belts(I bet you won't tell us)

It's a very good question. That's why I asked that same question in my OP. In fact, we are not talking about a Soviet moon orbit in the 1970's 1980's 1990's or 2000's or 2010's because they never did it.

Here was one of my questions, as stated in the OP:

"Why didn't the Soviets, after Apollo-Soyuz, proceed to the next step, which would be, to duplicate Apollo 8?"

Other important questions remain to be answered in this thread. I'll remind you that this is a general space history thread and not a hoax thread.

Why didn't the Soviets, after Zond 5, proceed to the next step, which would be, to duplicate Apollo 8?
Why didn't the Soviets, after Intercosmos, proceed to the next step, which would be, to duplicate Apollo 8?
Why didn't the Soviets, after BION, proceed to the next step, which would be, to duplicate Apollo 8?

a reply to: SayonaraJupiter

Because duplicating your rivals achievements just shows everyone that you are trailing behind them.

originally posted by: choos
at what point were the russians able to prove their missions would have a survivable re-entry acceleration??

They don't need to. Example: Komarov. A hero of Russian space exploration. Komarov was willing to die for it.

he was killed when the Soyuz 1 space capsule crashed after re-entry on April 24, 1967 due to a parachute failure.[1] However, because he died when the capsule crashed into ground, he is not considered the first human fatality in outer space. Source Wiki

en.wikipedia.org...