posted 10-09-2007 02:06 AM               

To the son of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, the launch of the first man-made satellite 50 years ago was the first point in the score of a game in which his father's country triumphed.

"The Soviets won 3 to 1," Sergei Khrushchev told The Associated Press on Thursday. "The Soviets launched the first Sputnik, the first man in space, the first manned space station. ... Americans have one victory: The man on the moon."

Astronaut Jim Lovell, whose leadership of the Apollo 13 mission was portrayed by Tom Hanks in the movie of the same name, countered that the space race was just that.

"If you say landing on the moon is the finish line, we did (win)," Lovell said as Khrushchev stood nearby at the Adler Planetarium. "The Russians tried very desperately to land on the moon ... but failed."

posted 10-09-2007 10:01 AM               

I would also point out that in the case of Salyut 1, the first crew to occupy it did not make it home alive and it never got occupied after that. Skylab flew three crews successfully in 1973 and all returned "safely to the Earth". The Salyuts that came after Salyut 1 didn't fly until after the first three Skylab missions had been completed as far as I know. So if one were to term "first space station" as first to be occupied, then this could work. But if one was to say "first to be occupied and crew returned safely to the Earth" then it gets a little sticky.

How far should one continue this list of space firsts?

• First successful telecommunications satellite
  
• First successful rendezvous and docking in space
  
• First orbital change in space
  
• First reuseable winged spacecraft
  
• First successful interplanetary probe (Soviets might have something there)
  
• First retrieval of satellites from orbit
  
• First repair of hardware in orbit

posted 10-09-2007 07:57 PM               

USSR tried desperately to beat USA to the moon. When it became clear that the race was lost, the propaganda machine claimed they were never really trying to get there in the first place.

posted 10-09-2007 09:10 PM               

There is no doubt that the first "space race" was won by the United States. Then, in typical American fashion, we destroyed everything we built to accomplish the victory so we could have something "new."

Since only 500 or so humans have ever gone into orbit after 50 years of the capability of launching a satellite, I'd say we're perhaps almost out of the Space Race starting chocks... but just barely.

posted 10-10-2007 07:30 PM               

• First satellite
  
• First living animal in orbit
  
• First man in orbit
  
• First woman in orbit
  
• Numerous solo records for duration in Earth orbit (some held to this day)
  
• First three person crew
  
• First EVA

• Lack of political will and funding
  
• Disorganized infrastructure
  
• Death of Sergei Korolyov
  
• Lagging electronics and computer technology, quality control

posted 10-10-2007 09:14 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by kyra:
A first is a first, and that's something you can never take away. I believe the Soviets were in the lead until midway through 1965.

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First woman in orbit, means little really. First spacewalk, Ed White had actual objectives and the USSR pretty much floated around.

The objects and goals with the US three man crew again was much farther ahead than the USSR. I could be wrong with this but I believe I read that the USSR simply squeezed in a third chair in their design to beat the Apollo. (I am too tired to look it up at the moment.)

The USSR did have the first space station and were the first to inhabit space long term. However, their space program is even more stagnant than our Space Shuttle program as they haven't really made any gains in their rockets since long before the shuttle.

posted 10-11-2007 06:55 PM            

President Nixon's visit to China and then Apollo-Soyuz ended the spirit of the race by mid-70s, though we kept looking over our shoulders. The primary driver became economics. We were going to win that one outright, with the anticipated Shuttle's dollar/pound capability. Sadly, that didn't happen.

posted 10-13-2007 08:45 PM               

It seems the Soviets did two important things to produce this:

1. The lifting capability of the R-7 rocket
   
2. Taking advantage of their more disorganized fluid structure (in secrecy) to NASA's methodical and open structure. (i.e we can see they are planning on doing this, let's beat them to it, even if the object we launch is not as advanced. But we will not need to reveal that fact.)

posted 10-14-2007 07:37 PM               

The Atlas missile for instance was always intended from the outset as a first generation stop gap ICBM and this was known from the beginning. It is why work progressed on Titan in parallel to Atlas. The biggest limitation of Atlas when it was deployed operationally is it required a minimum of five hours of launch preparation in a silo before it was ready to fly. The R-7 had similar limitations, although based on its construction I imagine it could be prepared for flight in a little less time due to its more robust construction (Atlas had that balloon tank construction, which required pressurizing before the rocket could be erected vertically or it would collapse under its own weight).

Both ICBMs were also intended more as counters to the opposing country's bombers as opposed to countering ICBMs. It was Titan that really became the first true quick launch capable ICBM with hypergolic propellants to power it and the Soviets countered with their own similar rocket as well.

posted 10-14-2007 09:06 PM               

• Atlas was designed to counteract ICBMs.
  
• Atlases on alert (operational) were capable of launch at 15 minutes of a "go".
  
• Atlas was always pressurized to maintain structural integity.
  
• Atlas D and E models required erection from a horizontal position and hnece loading of both propellants.
  
• Atlas F were in silos and always had the fuel (RP-1 kerosene) loaded.
  
• When the alert came the liquid oxygen was loaded and the missile raised to the surface. All 3 models were designed for 15 minutes reaction due to the ICBM threat.

posted 10-15-2007 01:55 PM            

The space race became official when Kennedy boldly announced the moon program, and to do it "before the decade (60s) was out." He moved the goal posts and marked them well. The Soviets were stuck; they were in the race, whether they liked it or not. With the moon-program, Saturn was born and the heavy lift advantage, that the Soviets held, ended. Both sides then had the liftoff capacity to "go to" and "return from" the moon.

Anyone can opt out of any race before the finish line. That concedes defeat, and it did not happen with the moon-race. I wrote in the previous post that we stopped detailed tallies a few days after Apollo 11. At the time, there were reports of 1 or 2 Soviet s/c on the way to the moon! We followed reports from tracking stations and some of us weren't even sure that we'd be "first" in the moon-race. We didn't know if their s/c missed the moon, crashed or landed. Much later, we found out that the Soviets landed an unmanned craft on the moon and even returned it with samples. That was quite an achievement, and had 11 failed, the Soviets would have declared victory in large bold letters. NASA gets the nod for doing it in full view of the world and for crossing the finish line, with the astronauts and the samples, on the surface of the Pacific. There was a winner and a runner-up.

posted 10-15-2007 02:44 PM               

• The first Soviet lunar sample return was Sept 24, 1970: Luna 16. If Apollo 11's failure had delayed Apollo 12 by 11 months then the Soviets would won the race - if you consider unmanned missions as part of the race.

• The US using a variety of rockets was not "trying to make do" compared to the Russians. Since the R-7 was not operational in large numbers it could be used for the space missions. The US needed to use multiple vehicles for the higher rate of space flights while trying to meet the numbers needed the R&D flights and the military deployment for Thor, Jupiter and Atlas. Redstone and Jupiter were the only stop gap missiles the US "tried to use".

posted 10-15-2007 04:43 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by art540:
If Apollo 11's failure had delayed Apollo 12 by 11 months then the Soviets would won the race - if you consider unmanned missions as part of the race.

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I don't personally consider unmanned missions being part of the moon race, simply because Kennedy set the goal of "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." The goal, from the beginning, involved a "man" taking the journey.

The fact is that the Soviet Union also planned to land a man on the moon as well. Their later efforts to land unmanned craft that returned samples were more-or-less an effort to save face.

posted 10-16-2007 01:26 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by art540:
Actually Ali noted that the Soviets would have declared a win if Luna 15 had succeeded and Apollo 11 failed.

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Indeed, the ultimate race was astronauts on the moon and back safely to earth. But by the time of Apollo, the US had a clear lead: Most missions launched, higher ratio of success, longest and more diverse EVAs, longest time in orbit, longest total manhours, highest altitude for men, number and quality of rendezvous, docking, etc. etc. To their credit, the Soviets did many of these and other things, but they couldn't match the numbers. The American mentality dominated, we will play umpteen innings until one side is the clear winner; we don't like ties. I still say, 11 was 100; and on top of the above, there was a clear winner.

It's been delightful to see astronauts and cosmonauts, of whatever nationality, hug and shake hands on the Mir and then the ISS. The whole stretch of rendezvous, docking, opening the hatch and the handshakes of Apollo-Soyuz was very special. I think the greatest gesture happened on Apollo 11 itself. That was when the astronauts left on the moon two medals that the widows of Yuri Gagarin and Vladimir Komarov gave to Frank Borman, CDR Apollo 8, during the latter's visit to, then, the Soviet Union, and who passed the medals of the two dead cosmonauts over to the Apollo 11 crew.

posted 10-17-2007 10:04 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by ctoddb:
That said, the post-Apollo era proves that the Soviets were headed in the "right" NEXT direction: long-term and permanent manned occupation of space.

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posted 10-17-2007 10:44 AM               

Reason being is that before Apollo, NASA was following Von Braun's plan for spaceflight to the letter. Goal one was fly unmanned payloads, goal two was to get men into orbit. Goal three and four were to build a reuseable vehicle to service a space station and fly a permanently manned space station. Sending a man to the moon didn't become a target until Kennedy's goal made it as such and in a sense it became something of a long and winding road which brought the program back to where it started when done.

So NASA was following the next logical step in that original plan when they went ahead with shuttle (which Nixon approved). The one thing that really hobbled shuttle was there was no real destination for it until the ISS started to get built almost two decades later (unless you count the MIR docking flights). If Skylab hadn't reentered when it did, then it could have helped as a placeholder.

After we've been flying Orion for a few years, work needs to begin again on another full follow on to shuttle, not just a LEO taxi that can only carry people (which is what the first Orion will essentially be). Yes shuttle was expensive and yes it took some design compromises that caused its operational costs to escalate. But in terms of what a platform like the shuttle can do in orbit in support of spaceprobe launches, platform servicing and station construction, it is a nice piece of hardware to have for future spaceflight applications.

posted 10-18-2007 09:52 PM            

...despite Sputnik's initial triumph, a decade later the Soviet Union lost the race to the moon.