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Apollo-Soyuz Mission: When the Space Race Ended (2020)

31 points by diodorus 5y ago

slg 5y ago
Did someone just finish season 2 of For All Mankind?
- wyldfire 5y ago
  The submitter, maybe. But the article was written before season two aired.
  - slg 5y ago
    That was my point. This is a roughly year old article about a relatively minor space mission that mostly served a symbolic mission. The question becomes why is this being posted now? The answer is probably that For All Mankind rekindled interest in this mission over the last couple months and even if the submitter didn't see the show, it is possible that whoever shared this with them did.
- Belphemur 5y ago
  As an avid watcher of the show, I really thought it was just an "invention" of the show. I'm really happy to learn it actually happened! This is amazing! We would need more event like this these days ...
- jnsie 5y ago
  I did! Just last night. Was excited to see this post!
f00zz 5y ago
That handshake starts the opening sequence in the (otherwise awful) movie "Valerian": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6oTziHKM_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6oTziHKM_c
- d_silin 5y ago
  ...that movie is not that awful! It definitely had entertainment value for me.
  - KineticLensman 5y ago
    > It definitely had entertainment value for me. It definitely has nutty energy. I think if you survive the lengthy virtual reality sequence near the beginning it has some bits that are okay. I was actually quite impressed by Rihanna playing the shapeshifting Glamopod entertainer. And interesting to see a French rather than a Hollywood sci-fi film.
    - doogerdog 5y ago
      Not as good as The Fifth Element, but I liked it a lot. I don't understand why it gets so much hate. All movies have parts that are well done and parts that I would have done differently.
      - eps 5y ago
        Same director. Apparently Valerian is based on a French comic and it doesn't diverge too far from it. Hence the quirkiness.
- ggambetta 5y ago
  I was hoping it would be a decent spiritual sequel to The Fifth Element... I was severely disappointed :(
- kilroy123 5y ago
  It's watchable, but yes, not great.
guscost 5y ago
This framing makes it sound a little like the space race ended in a tie.
- flohofwoe 5y ago
  It kind of did? The Russians clearly had many more "firsts", but the Americans had the first man on the moon, so I'd say even though the Russians clearly had won by the numbers, the Americans didn't too bad either. Maybe not quite enough for a tie, but pretty close.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    The Soviets were ahead with respect to earth orbit [ADDED: for earth orbit manned flight, as well as other probes]. But their counterpart to the Saturn V, the N1, was basically a disaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket) In fact, as I recall S1, For All Mankind is basically premised on the notion that the N1 worked and therefore, the Soviets kept their early lead and landed on the moon first.
    - freeflight 5y ago
      > The Soviets were ahead with respect to earth orbit. Soviets were the first to land on another planet orbiting the sun, Venus. While the moon orbits earth.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        I was specifically commenting on manned flight but, yes, the Soviets had a rocketry lead that also allowed them to take the first pictures of the far side of the moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_3 which is an interesting story of its own. (Basically they shot the photos on film and faxed them back to earth.) But they couldn't get the bigger rocket needed to send and return cosmonauts to and from the moon working.
      - KuiN 5y ago
marcodiego 5y ago
I wonder if "the space race" would still be called the same today if soviets got to the moon first.
- wyldfire 5y ago
  If you're wondering that, you might enjoy "For All Mankind" mentioned in other threads here as likely inspiration for this post.
willwashburn 5y ago
It was crazy how the same time this was happening there was a space shuttle battle going on over on the dark side of the moon because the Americans were bringing nukes and the Soviet’s were also launching a spec ops raid on the American lunar base to recover a potential defector. That was one crazy day y’all.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  What is this a reference to?
  - Neekerer 5y ago
    The TV show "For All Mankind"
- jgrahamc 5y ago
  There are many threads on reddit filled with comments like that. This doesn't really work here on HN and I was sad to find this as the top comment. I have no clue what you are referring to.
LatteLazy 5y ago
The space race seems weird to me. Russia won most of it (first satellite, first peraon in space etc). Then the US rushed to catch up, but Russia had basically stopped competing already. They had no interest in the moon and did a bunch of science based missions instead. Its like having an Olympics where Russia won half the events and went home early and the US arrived late and won other events. But they didn't really compete directly ever...
- benmller313 5y ago
  That isn't quite how I understood this to have gone. It seems like the Russians very much did want to go to the moon, and would have beaten the American's there if they had succeeded in getting their version of the Saturn V off the ground in one piece.
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    Oh, the N1 rocket is an interesting story. Originally a design by Korolev, it had to be built by another team because Korolev died. It was so big that it needed over 160 railway wagons to be transported to Baikonur in piecemeal fashion (Baikonur is inland - no water transport available). It had an ungodly number of engines for its age, but a very subpar computer system (KORD) for monitoring them, which was a recipe for disaster. The budgets were so tight that the assembled first stage was never statically fired (the engines were ablatively cooled, so a static fire would probably require a separate set of engines). And yet the engineers tried their best.
    - avmich 5y ago
      No, engines weren't ablatively cooled. N1 had engines with quite high Isp - the problem for them, NK-15 engines, was that they were single use engines and couldn't be tested beforehand on a stand. They, however, were state of the art, high pressure and regenerative cooling, with oxygen rich staged combustion. However, Nikolai Kuznetsov had relatively little experience with rocket engines, so NK-15 is generally regarded as a failure, and NK-33 didn't have a chance to fly on N1 before the project was closed.
xony 5y ago
one fake mission ended everyone's aspiration & research

31 points by diodorus 5y ago

slg 5y ago

Did someone just finish season 2 of For All Mankind?

wyldfire 5y ago
The submitter, maybe. But the article was written before season two aired.
- slg 5y ago
  That was my point. This is a roughly year old article about a relatively minor space mission that mostly served a symbolic mission. The question becomes why is this being posted now? The answer is probably that For All Mankind rekindled interest in this mission over the last couple months and even if the submitter didn't see the show, it is possible that whoever shared this with them did.
Belphemur 5y ago
As an avid watcher of the show, I really thought it was just an "invention" of the show. I'm really happy to learn it actually happened! This is amazing! We would need more event like this these days ...
jnsie 5y ago
I did! Just last night. Was excited to see this post!

f00zz 5y ago

That handshake starts the opening sequence in the (otherwise awful) movie "Valerian": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6oTziHKM_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6oTziHKM_c

d_silin 5y ago
...that movie is not that awful! It definitely had entertainment value for me.
- KineticLensman 5y ago
  > It definitely had entertainment value for me. It definitely has nutty energy. I think if you survive the lengthy virtual reality sequence near the beginning it has some bits that are okay. I was actually quite impressed by Rihanna playing the shapeshifting Glamopod entertainer. And interesting to see a French rather than a Hollywood sci-fi film.
  - doogerdog 5y ago
    Not as good as The Fifth Element, but I liked it a lot. I don't understand why it gets so much hate. All movies have parts that are well done and parts that I would have done differently.
    - eps 5y ago
      Same director. Apparently Valerian is based on a French comic and it doesn't diverge too far from it. Hence the quirkiness.
ggambetta 5y ago
I was hoping it would be a decent spiritual sequel to The Fifth Element... I was severely disappointed :(
kilroy123 5y ago
It's watchable, but yes, not great.

guscost 5y ago

This framing makes it sound a little like the space race ended in a tie.

flohofwoe 5y ago
It kind of did? The Russians clearly had many more "firsts", but the Americans had the first man on the moon, so I'd say even though the Russians clearly had won by the numbers, the Americans didn't too bad either. Maybe not quite enough for a tie, but pretty close.
- ghaff 5y ago
  The Soviets were ahead with respect to earth orbit [ADDED: for earth orbit manned flight, as well as other probes]. But their counterpart to the Saturn V, the N1, was basically a disaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket) In fact, as I recall S1, For All Mankind is basically premised on the notion that the N1 worked and therefore, the Soviets kept their early lead and landed on the moon first.
  - freeflight 5y ago
    > The Soviets were ahead with respect to earth orbit. Soviets were the first to land on another planet orbiting the sun, Venus. While the moon orbits earth.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I was specifically commenting on manned flight but, yes, the Soviets had a rocketry lead that also allowed them to take the first pictures of the far side of the moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_3 which is an interesting story of its own. (Basically they shot the photos on film and faxed them back to earth.) But they couldn't get the bigger rocket needed to send and return cosmonauts to and from the moon working.
    - KuiN 5y ago

marcodiego 5y ago

I wonder if "the space race" would still be called the same today if soviets got to the moon first.

wyldfire 5y ago
If you're wondering that, you might enjoy "For All Mankind" mentioned in other threads here as likely inspiration for this post.

willwashburn 5y ago

It was crazy how the same time this was happening there was a space shuttle battle going on over on the dark side of the moon because the Americans were bringing nukes and the Soviet’s were also launching a spec ops raid on the American lunar base to recover a potential defector. That was one crazy day y’all.

vlovich123 5y ago
What is this a reference to?
- Neekerer 5y ago
  The TV show "For All Mankind"
jgrahamc 5y ago
There are many threads on reddit filled with comments like that. This doesn't really work here on HN and I was sad to find this as the top comment. I have no clue what you are referring to.

LatteLazy 5y ago

The space race seems weird to me. Russia won most of it (first satellite, first peraon in space etc). Then the US rushed to catch up, but Russia had basically stopped competing already. They had no interest in the moon and did a bunch of science based missions instead. Its like having an Olympics where Russia won half the events and went home early and the US arrived late and won other events. But they didn't really compete directly ever...

benmller313 5y ago
That isn't quite how I understood this to have gone. It seems like the Russians very much did want to go to the moon, and would have beaten the American's there if they had succeeded in getting their version of the Saturn V off the ground in one piece.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Oh, the N1 rocket is an interesting story. Originally a design by Korolev, it had to be built by another team because Korolev died. It was so big that it needed over 160 railway wagons to be transported to Baikonur in piecemeal fashion (Baikonur is inland - no water transport available). It had an ungodly number of engines for its age, but a very subpar computer system (KORD) for monitoring them, which was a recipe for disaster. The budgets were so tight that the assembled first stage was never statically fired (the engines were ablatively cooled, so a static fire would probably require a separate set of engines). And yet the engineers tried their best.
  - avmich 5y ago
    No, engines weren't ablatively cooled. N1 had engines with quite high Isp - the problem for them, NK-15 engines, was that they were single use engines and couldn't be tested beforehand on a stand. They, however, were state of the art, high pressure and regenerative cooling, with oxygen rich staged combustion. However, Nikolai Kuznetsov had relatively little experience with rocket engines, so NK-15 is generally regarded as a failure, and NK-33 didn't have a chance to fly on N1 before the project was closed.

xony 5y ago

one fake mission ended everyone's aspiration & research