I mean, thats correct, but they were never able to make a rocket big enough for the moon landing. They got stuck with their absurdly gigantic ships and the US overtook them.
But they did. The N1 was just as powerful as the saturn V. But they struggled getting the engines stable enough to fly. And there was a lot of poltical infighting to ever get it fully operation. And then the US beat them to the moon, destroying the last poltical will.
If they couldn’t get the engines stable enough to fly, did they really make a moon rocket? They certainly built a really big rocket shaped building filled with rocket fuel.
It’s like saying SpaceX Starship is an orbital vehicle. Sure, it would be if it does it, but if SpaceX were to abandon the project before it achieved orbit then they can’t claim they made the biggest orbital vehicle.
The N1 was absolutely not as capable as the Saturn 5. N1 was only capable of 95 tons to low earth orbit and 33 tons to trans trans lunar injection, compared to the Saturn 5 being capable of 140 tons in to low earth orbit and 43.5 tons to trans lunar injection.
The N1 had a lot of technical limitations in its design. The tanks were much heavier per volume of fuel carried. The computers were bulky and comparatively primitive. And while the staged combustion NK engines were technically impressive in their own right, their specific impulse paled in comparison to the hydrolox J-2s, and the fact that only 5 F-1s were needed just made it fundamentally more reliable than the NK-15 which couldn’t be tested because of their single use valves.
They never carried humans to the moon because they didn’t think it was worth it to risk a human life for it. However, they were the first to send satellites to the moon, scan the surface, take pictures of the far end of the moon, land on it, and send a rover to it. In fact, they sent multiple rovers to the moon, and they were not so dissimilar to our current rovers on mars.
Fun fact, the Soviets were the real space pioneers. They pretty much were first at everything except the moon landing.
I can back this up with a list from one of Carl Sagan’s books if there are sceptics out there.
In my view, the Soviets won the Space Race, as they got most successes. The Americans may have their credit with the moon landing.
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Watch For All Mankind, amazing alt-universe stuff.
Actually winner of the Space Race goes to
North Korea… lmfao
North Korea, Best Korea /joke
I mean sure, you can win every race if you call it when you’re in the lead 🤦
They won the race to the moon but never finished.
I mean, thats correct, but they were never able to make a rocket big enough for the moon landing. They got stuck with their absurdly gigantic ships and the US overtook them.
But they did. The N1 was just as powerful as the saturn V. But they struggled getting the engines stable enough to fly. And there was a lot of poltical infighting to ever get it fully operation. And then the US beat them to the moon, destroying the last poltical will.
If they couldn’t get the engines stable enough to fly, did they really make a moon rocket? They certainly built a really big rocket shaped building filled with rocket fuel.
It’s like saying SpaceX Starship is an orbital vehicle. Sure, it would be if it does it, but if SpaceX were to abandon the project before it achieved orbit then they can’t claim they made the biggest orbital vehicle.
The N1 was absolutely not as capable as the Saturn 5. N1 was only capable of 95 tons to low earth orbit and 33 tons to trans trans lunar injection, compared to the Saturn 5 being capable of 140 tons in to low earth orbit and 43.5 tons to trans lunar injection.
The N1 had a lot of technical limitations in its design. The tanks were much heavier per volume of fuel carried. The computers were bulky and comparatively primitive. And while the staged combustion NK engines were technically impressive in their own right, their specific impulse paled in comparison to the hydrolox J-2s, and the fact that only 5 F-1s were needed just made it fundamentally more reliable than the NK-15 which couldn’t be tested because of their single use valves.
They never carried humans to the moon because they didn’t think it was worth it to risk a human life for it. However, they were the first to send satellites to the moon, scan the surface, take pictures of the far end of the moon, land on it, and send a rover to it. In fact, they sent multiple rovers to the moon, and they were not so dissimilar to our current rovers on mars.