Russian Space Flight - Part Four

Hey, I might just finish this series this week after all.

Over the last three days, I've been trying to give you a taste for the accomplishments in the Russian Space Program, how they took the world's first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (the R-7, adapted from German technology as, indeed, our own rocketry was) and made it the basis for most of their rockets to come (making it also the most reliable rocket in the world, with a success rate higher than 95% - 97.5% for production models). How they adjusted and adapted this basic design to perform effectively all of their space achievements (that I've described at length the past three posts). They did it in a frozen world, rich in minerals, but short on easy transport (minimal free water), chronically short on funds and with a confusing/complex bureaucracy that makes ours look simple. Clearly, when the space race started, they had the jump on us. So, how did they lose the race to the moon so decisively that they never sent people at all?

Why should we care? There are lessons there for us if we take the time to learn.

Russia's Moon Shot

If you checked that link I gave you yesterday on the events leading to and included in the Soyuz 1 disaster, you can get a good feel for the key problems:

• Politics - too many chiefs, competing and constantly challenging the previous decisions. Bad for design, bad for testing, bad for moral. Too many interlocking responsibilities, especially if they're rivals, and you're asking for tasks to be done more often than required and some not at all.
  
• Loss of a key leader: Korolyov, who spearheaded this endeavor and who had led the Soviet space program through the 1966, finding his way through this political morass with sound engineering, good leadership and careful diplomacy, died unexpectedly in 1966, leaving a heavy-handed deputy, Mishin, in his place.
• Underfunding: program had been put into place when Kruschev was still in charge and the new powers that be didn't support it the same way. Lack of funding added to delays and schedule complications.
  
• Schedule: In fighting and poor management led to considerable delays, weeks and months that quickly stacked up into years. Schedule pressure to do something to beat this or that accomplishment of the US led to frittering between conflicting priorities and, therefore, getting nothing done on time or well. The schedule was not technologically driven and it was unrealistic so that things delivered to meet it didn't work and everything else fell further behind. (Anyone who thinks that delivering "anything" on time is better than delivering something done right a little later just hasn't done the math) They lacked the absolute focus NASA was able to bring to the Apollo program. From being arguably ahead in the early sixties, they had fallen 3 or more years behind by the end of the decade.
• Geography: unlike the US, large components could not be brought via barge, which severely limited the size of the components transportable. So what? Well, unless all of your build up and testing facilities are at the launch site (NASA's isn't either), that means that very large items must be tested, disassembled, transported, and reassembled at the launch facility with perhaps limited ability to validate the integrity of the reassembled components. With the Soyuz, which is relatively svelte, this is of limited importance. With the N-1, which had thirty individual engines in the first stage alone, it was a recipe for disaster.
• Key disasters: Soyuz-1, four ugly test launch failures with N-1 killed an already spectacularly flawed program.

Just want to point out how little of this is technical. And that's the sad part. Our own failures, as well, despite the technical problems that are the actual cause, really trace down to cultural and managerial issues.

Now, before I end our Soviet space saga, I think I should touch on the Buran. Before joining NASA, I'd never even heard of it. When I got here, I was told that it was made entirely from our stolen plans only they added so much for ejection seats that it could never fly with people. Well, folks, that turned out to be nonsense.

Now, at a glance, there's no doubt in the world that the similarity is striking. But, looking beneath the skin, you get something else entirely. Forgoing our solid rocket boosters and hydrazine rockets (hydrazine, which is very toxic was eschewed by the Soviets early on, and they don't have the experience with solid rocket boosters we have), they also chose to avoid main engines so that Buran is launched on the back of a (planned to be anyway) reusable booster. But the booster is useful (and has been used) for other uses. The Buran, by forgoing main engines, had an increased capacity and a lower weight (as well as a better lift-to-drag ratio despite the apparent identicalness). It had ejection seats and the potential to have jet engines to help during reentry rather than just gliding. Here's the one and only launch (unmanned - it could fly and land itself) of the Buran.

It wasn't apparently technical issues that grounded the Buran, but funding and politics as it's developments coincided with the fall of the Soviet Union. And the plane they got out of that is too cool for words! For the record, we have plenty of Shuttle analogs and planned replacements that, well, haven't gone anywhere. Really.

Of course, that would be another post.

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Russian Space Flight - Part Three

I said yesterday that we don’t appreciate, in many ways, the Russian space program. Perhaps this will help put it in perspective.

Total launches (US) since 1950: 1538
Total launches (USSR/Russia/Ukraine): 3014

(By the way, Russia and the US are responsible for more than 90% of the space launches worldwide, 4552/5022) The Russian launchers have one of the best launch success rates in the world (the best if we don’t count Iran’s single launch). That’s a sizeable achievement.

Many people might be disturbed that I keep stressing Russia’s strengths and achievements, as if that somehow reflected poorly on us. I’m not sure how to answer that. How do their achievements tarnish our own? They couldn’t have done what they’ve done without some serious technical smarts. We’re fools indeed if we refuse to learn from their achievements or failures because they “lost” the space race.

So, today, I want to talk about the Russian human spaceflight programs.

Most of you probably know that the first human in space was Yuri Gagarin, launched on Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. He orbited in his automatic spacecraft (manual control was disabled, though he was given codes – in an envelope – to unlock it). The Russians (in fact everyone) didn’t know what low gravity would do to the crewmember and the designers played it “safe.” Also, since they were afraid the landing would be too rough for people to survive, Gagarin actually ejected during return and landed separately from his spherical capsule (see above). It was nearly a month later that Alan Shepard successfully flew his suborbital flight into space and nine months before John Glenn orbited the earth.

Vostok Program – Months after Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight, Ghermann Titov spent more than a day in space in Vostok 2, suffered space sickness and even slept (and was also the youngest person ever to fly in space at 25 years old). Look at that baby face. (I wonder if looks were a criteria for the Soviet Cosmonaut program). As with all Vostok missions, he ejected from the capsule before landing. Vostok 3 and 4 were flown simultaneously (a first they repeated many times). And, in 1963, the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, flew on Vostok 6 (again simultaneously with Vostok 5). Russia would not send another woman into space for 19 years, and Sally Ride wouldn’t make into space until 1983.

There were only two flights flown for the Voskhod program, using the same hardware basically as Vostok with some adaptations to allow for multiple crew and to allow them to land with the capsule (ejection, in fact, was no longer an option). The program was geared for firsts only: the first multi-human flight for Voshkod 1 was also the first flight without space suits. Cramped and uncomfortable, Krushchev was removed from the head of government during the flight and the flight was truncated. Voshkod 2 boasted the first “EVA” though Alexai Leonov didn’t leave the inflatable airlock (and was nearly stranded outside, subject to the bends and severely overheated in his spacesuit – very exciting for a 12 minute EVA).

Since 1967, the workhorse of the Russian human spaceflight program has been Soyuz, originally planned to be the Soviet path to the moon. It didn’t turn out that way, and it provided several casualties. I'll explain why it failed tomorrow. But it also highlights some of the strengths of the Russian methods and designs. You can find a list of Russian/Soviet human launches here.

The Soyuz program started with the tragic loss of Vladimir Komarov on Soyuz 1 in 1967. (For a precursor to the discussion tomorrow on what killed the Russian moon shot and an example of frightening mismanagement, check this chronology from Encyclopedia Astronautica) The flight was fraught with failures and problems. Repeated unmanned test flights had failed dramatically and quality inspectors had noted more than 100 design faults to their program management, but they were overruled in the interest of schedule (a lesson that space programs have sadly overlooked several times). With limited power, no stabilization, limited manual control, the choice was made to abort the mission, but multiple parachute failures precluded slowing and the spacecraft impacted explosively. Komarov was lost, the first human space casualty. This tragedy, the rework that followed, and the repeated failures of the N1 rocket effectively scuttled Russia’s moon shot (but I’ll talk more about that later).

Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 were flights to test capabilities key that would become key to Russia’s future space strength, space stations. Soyuz 4 and 5 docked on orbit and transferred crew from one vessel to another, though, without a connecting tunnel, this transfer had to be done via EVA. Soyuz 6, 7 and 8 all flew simultaneously (the planned docking/rendezvous failed). Soyuz 9 flew for more than 17 days. Soyuz 11 was the first successful docking with a nascent space station, Salyut 1, and performed experiments there for 23 days. Unfortunately, the mission ended in tragedy as a ventilation valve opened while still in space and depressurized the spacecraft. Future missions were designed with suited crew as a result.

Most of Soyuz’ flights since have been in support of space station work or to perform science. No more cosmonauts have been lost in space since Soyuz 11 in 1971. Soyuz has flown to Salyut, then Mir, then the ISS and still provide lifeboat capability for the ISS. The Salyut, in general, provided a platform for longer-term activities, but wasn’t really suited for long-term occupation though Salyut 6 and 7 both included extended stays. Mir, however, was designed to be continually occupied and was inhabited, with only a few short interruption, from 1987 to 2000 when it was abandoned. The ISS has been inhabited since 2000, a joint effort of both Russia and the US. There has been at least one Russian in space almost continually since 1987.

One of the key lessons examining Russian missions is how effective their designs have been, not because things haven’t gone wrong, but because the seriously bad things happening have been survivable. Soyuz has had multiple ballistic reentries, which are much harder than nominal, but no fatalities as a result. They’ve had repeated problems with service module/reentry capsule separation, but the spherical reentry capsule has minimized the effect of these failures. Retrorockets have failed to fire and parachutes malfunctioned (both happened on Soyuz 5, landing so hard that Cosmonaut Volynov broke his teeth. Far off course, he then trudged several kilometers to find shelter, waiting for rescue.) and the crew has survived. They have landed far off course. Soyuz 23 crashed through the ice on a frozen lake and waited on the bottom, without heaters, for hours, but the crew survived.

For more information on failures and near misses in spaceflight (all nations), there is a very impressive list here.

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Russian Space Flight - Part Two

Now, when I did a similar series on US Spaceflight, I concentrated on human spaceflight, largely because it was what I knew best but also because so much of it is already part of our culture: Hubble photos, Viking data, earth science satellites, Voyager pictures, Mars rovers, weather satellites, cell phones, etc. But, aside from Sputnik, what do you know about Russian unmanned space?

Probably not much. Yet Russia (with our without including the Ukraine - and I'm using Soviet and Russian interchangeably) has launched more rockets into space than any other country. Period. And, as I noted yesterday, they have a sizable number of successes and firsts and an enviable launch success rate.

Naturally, there were Sputniks (and, yes, there was more than one). Sputnik provided the first live creature in space (a dog, Laika) who was also the first space casualty (who died unpleasantly). This was followed by a string of other science and satellites, including more animals (this time planned to be recovered and recovered successfully), dogs and more, in fact several trips before Yuri Gagarin's historic flight. But Yuri will have to wait until tomorrow.

They pioneered the Molniya orbits for communication satellites since geostationary orbits are not helpful for much of their high lattitude geography. These are so clever! By staggering them carefully they can get full coverage with highly elliptical orbits.

Luna program. They were the first to land a spacecraft on the moon, flyby the moon, impact the moon, send samples autonomously from the moon (and I don't believe the US ever did so except via astronaut) and had lunar rovers more than twenty years before we ever put one on Mars. One rover has traveled further than any exterrestrial rover has ever gone, nearly twice as far as our three Martian rovers (combined) had gone in five years.

With their Mars program, they managed to deliver the first Mars orbiter, the first probe to impact Mars and the first probe to "soft land" on Mars, though those achievements, rushed as they were (as both US and Russian efforts were) were not entirely successful. The soft landed probe, Mars 6, failed almost on contact and what it did send was garbled. Computer chip failures (probably a result of the high radiation environment) were endemic to the Mars probes.

Then there was the Venera and Vega programs. These included a number of atmospheric probes and even landers on Venus (though the horrific heat severely limited their lifetimes - they survived longer than planned). They include the first orbiter, probe and impactor on Venus. And, the first to successfully soft land on Venus. There were also two probes sent on to flyby Halley's comet.

Truth is, even a cursory glance through Russian spaceflight shows a great deal of creativity, innovation, even genius. They have set the bar high for autonomous everything and still do more with autonomous rendezvous than we have ever done. They are experts (and their expertise is hard won). Of course, one can't look at the early programs without also being struck by the large number of failures - some tragic as I'll go into in a later post. But I'm also impressed about their determination to change their reliability in the 1970's with extensive testing and their success as a result. Politics were also a frightful mess. And geography. In fact, they had a number of challenges and they did an incredible job.

Tomorrow, Russian human spaceflight.

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Russian Space Flight - Part One

With all the talk about commercial spaceflight, Constellation (NASA's current exploration program), Chinese human spaceflight and Russia providing the bridge to the ISS after the Shuttle is retired, it's only natural that mention of NASA's crowning achievement come up, along with the reminder that it's not only an achievement no one else has made, but it's shouldn't be this big a deal to go back. I disagree with the latter and hope no one strives to go elsewhere until we've well and truly conquered the moon, but that's another set of blog topics.

The thing is it's easy to lose sight of all the Soviet/Russian human (and other) spaceflight programs have achieved. NASA definitely deserves kudos for the incredible task it did back in the 60's (notwithstanding the criticism that we've gone a long time living off that past glory, but, again, I digress), but I'd be a poor student of space history if I didn't acknowledge all the Russians/Soviets have done (I'm going to just say Russians from now on - I'm lazy) to further spaceflight. Someone said they were ahead of us technologically in the beginning. I say, not really - the playing field was actually pretty level with both of us working of the German designs. The Russians were driven by many different drives and had a different focus than we did. Not to say worse, not to say better, but different. And they had a number of tragic setbacks we managed to avoid. Even so, the list of achievements is long - I got this from Wikipedia and it may not be complete. I left the links in so that you can explore them and get comfortable with the notion that these are valid.

• 1957: First intercontinental ballistic missile, the R-7 Semyorka
• 1957: First satellite, Sputnik 1
• 1957: First animal to enter Earth orbit, the dog Laika on Sputnik 2
• 1959: First firing of a rocket in Earth orbit, first man-made object to escape Earth's orbit, Luna 1
• 1959: First data communications, or telemetry, to and from outer space, Luna 1.
• 1959: First man-made object to pass near the Moon, first man-made object in Solar orbit, Luna 1
• 1959: First probe to impact the Moon, Luna 2
• 1959: First images of the moon's far side, Luna 3
• 1960: First animals to safely return from Earth orbit, the dogs Belka and Strelka on Sputnik 5.
• 1960: First probe launched to Mars, Marsnik 1
• 1961: First probe launched to Venus, Venera 1
• 1961: First person in space (International definition) and in Earth orbit, Yuri Gagarin on Vostok 1, Vostok programme
• 1961: First person to spend over a day in space Gherman Titov, Vostok 2 (also first person to sleep in space).
• 1962: First dual manned spaceflight and approach, Vostok 3 and Vostok 4
• 1963: First woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, Vostok 6
• 1964: First multi-man crew (3), Voskhod 1
• 1965: First EVA, by Aleksei Leonov, Voskhod 2 *See note below
  
• 1965: First probe to hit another planet (Venus), Venera 3
• 1966: First probe to make a soft landing on and transmit from the surface of the moon, Luna 9
• 1966: First probe in lunar orbit, Luna 10
• 1967: First unmanned rendezvous and docking, Cosmos 186/Cosmos 188. (Until 2006, this had remained the only major space achievement that the US had not duplicated.)
• 1969: First docking between two manned craft in Earth orbit and exchange of crews, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5
• 1970: First samples automatically returned to Earth from another body, Luna 16
• 1970: First robotic space rover, Lunokhod 1
• 1970: First data received from the surface of another planet (Venus), Venera 7
• 1971: First space station, Salyut 1
• 1971: First probe to orbit another planet (Mars), first probe to reach surface of Mars, Mars 2
• 1975: First probe to orbit Venus, first photos from surface of Venus, Venera 9
• 1984: First woman to walk in space, Svetlana Savitskaya (Salyut 7 space station)
• 1986: First crew to visit two separate space stations (Mir and Salyut 7)
• 1986: First permanently manned space station, Mir, which orbited the Earth from 1986 until 2001
• 1987: First crew to spend over one year in space, Vladimir Titov and Musa Manarov on board of TM-4 - Mir

*On the "first EVA", it should be noted that it depends on the definition. Leonov never left the inflatable airlock but he definitely was suited and was exposed to vacuum outside his vehicle. Additionally, Leonov nearly was nearly trapped out there when his suit was too stiff to bend and drastically overheated (a chronic problem with early EVAs). He ended up bleeding air from his suit to get back inside. Pretty scary. The coolest EVA stories of all time can be found here.

It's a list that would do any country credit. Even today, there are things they do better than we do, like automated rendezvous. The Soyuz rocket has an admirable track record as well. Not that we don't have our own specialties and strengths, but that's a good thing. If we learn, shore up our weakness with learned strengths and do the same for others, it all brings us closer to a viable human space exploration.

And that, my friends, is for all mankind.

(I'm planning to write blogs on this topic most of the week. I don't know if I'll finish Russian spaceflight in the week, but I'll slip into next week if necessary).

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