One False Step (10 page)

 Once on the surface, a moonwalk similar to that accomplished by Neil Armstrong would have taken place. The Soviet flag would have been raised on the moon, likely televised in the same manner as Apollo 11, and then a series of experiments would have been deployed on the lunar surface. A selection of lunar samples would have been taken, though the cargo that could have been carried was considerably less than was carried by Apollo. (One interesting device planned was a small lunar rover, which would have been remotely controlled from Earth after the cosmonaut left the lunar surface.)

 Takeoff would have taken place after a short stay on the moon, and the LK pilot would have docked with the waiting LOK. He would then transfer back to the LOK the same way he came – spacewalking with his samples back to the return vehicle. The LK would then be jettisoned, and the LOK return to Earth, likely 'skipping' in the atmosphere in the same manner as the Zond to return somewhere in the Soviet Union. Upon arrival, the two cosmonauts would be isolated and placed in a quarantine facility similar to that employed by the Americans, to guard against the possibility of contamination.

 Multiple landings would likely have taken place; it seems reasonable to assume all three crews would have landed on the moon, probably in a variety of sites to gain the maximum scientific return. This return would, however, have been far less than was returned by Apollo. Only landing a single cosmonaut on the moon was a significant limitation, effectively removing the possibility of putting a scientist on the moon, and the light cargo return would have precluded anything like the suite of samples returned by Apollo.

 Furthermore, the lunar landing system was very much working at the limits of the potential of the developed booster technology; there were far fewer capacities for development than was the case with Apollo. Even if a prolonged program was established – and unlike Apollo, which had Apollo Applications, there is little evidence of a systematic co-ordinated program of long-term lunar exploration. There would likely have been two or three 'footsteps-and-flags' style missions, again as a series of spectaculars, before the series was bought to a halt in favour of the developing space station program.

 The effect on the American space program is also of interest. Had the Soviets actually
beaten
the United States to the moon, then it seems likely that space would have once again been foremost in the national psyche – NASA being beaten to the moon would have been as bad for prestige as losing the race to put the first man into space, and before that the first satellite. Would this have led to more lunar exploration, or would NASA have been called upon to put a man on Mars by 1982? Certainly some sort of response would have been required. (The amusing point here – perfecting the N-1, required for this lunar program, would have given the USSR a significant head-start in a Mars mission!)

 Had the Soviet Union landed on the moon
after
the Americans, there would have been a considerably lesser effect. It is possible that the cancelled lunar missions would have been restored, if only to ensure that the American lunar program outlasted that of the Soviet Union. It is probably still unlikely that a follow-on program would have been authorised, unless it was apparent that long-term ambitions were held by the Soviet space program in this area.

 The argument could be made that the Soviet attempt to reach the moon was doomed from the start. Not from any technological shortcoming. The LOK was just as advanced as the Apollo, and there was every reason to believe it would have worked perfectly, and though the LK was rather rudimentary compared to the NASA LM, this was more a matter of weight limitations than any technological incapability.

 Likewise the N-1 rocket. It may have been a nightmare to develop, but had the development continued, it would almost certainly have successfully flown. The design changes made to the fifth model, planned for launch in 1974, had a good probability of success. So why did the Soviet Union fail to reach the moon?

 The first problem was the delay in committing to a moon shot – NASA had a three-year head-start, and was able to use it well perfecting lunar systems designs, constructing hardware, and beginning the development of their own test program. In contrast, the Soviet Union had yet to even determine which rocket design they would use by that point, and was far slower to make key hardware decisions.  

 Funding was the second problem. The Soviet Union simply did not have the resources to commit to a prestige project such as a lunar landing, and as a result the project was run on a shoestring budget. Korolev did not adopt extensive ground testing on the N-1, which could have seen it fly successfully earlier, because he was concerned about the expense involved. In total, $4.5 billion was spent on the Soviet attempt to land on the moon – in contrast with the $24 billion spent by the Americans. Based on those figures, it should almost be surprising that the USSR came as close as it did!

 A third problem was the squabbling bureaucracies. Three different design bureaux proposing their own plans was one thing, but one of them continuing to promote those plans for years after the 'final' decision had been made was quite another. What limited resources were available were squandered, and more importantly in this context, a lot of time was lost.

 The death of Korolev himself was another great blow. Only he had the ability to unite the disparate elements of the Soviet bureaucracy required to make a moon flight truly possible. The general consensus among those involved is that
this
was the key moment – Alexei Leonov believes that at least the flight around the moon would have been achieved. Whether simply his survival would have enabled a landing is more problematic, though it is more likely that the N-1 would have been made operational had he lived. He did have a reputation as being more of a risk-taker than Mishin; during the Vostok program he continually pushed for bolder and bolder flights, and there is a good chance he would have been willing to take gambles such as a manned 'Zond 7', and possibly even a higher-risk lunar landing attempt if one could have been improvised – and the Soviet Union was very good at improvisation when it came to its space program.

 This is as much a story of what the Americans did
right
. NASA was established as a central agency to control space activities early on, and was therefore able to co-ordinate resources; this did not happen in the USSR, where such a coordinating force simply did not exist. NASA came up with a solid plan by 1962 and stuck with it; the landing on the moon was completed in the manner laid out in 1962. The USSR was debating plans well into the mid-sixties. Having two separate lunar programs was extravagant in the extreme; had either the Proton
or
the N-1 been selected, then the resources required to perfect one of the rockets in the time-scale required would have been available.

 Could
the Soviet plan have worked? Almost certainly. There would have been far less of a safety margin, but the equipment was well tested, and performed well in the simulated missions. The launcher was the key problem. Could the Soviet Union have beaten the Americans to the moon, even given more luck? No. But it was a much closer race than history generally records.

 One final postscript. In the mid-2000s, a Russian space tourism organisation, Space Adventures, made a startling offer – to essentially fly 'Zond 9' for $80 million dollars, and sell one of the two seats to a tourist. While the 2009 deadline came and went without a bidder, the offer potentially remains on the table, so the circumlunar mission may yet be flown. Remembering the success of Zond 7 and 8, it seems like a definite possibility; but remembering the failures of Zond 5 and 6, the writer suggests that any potential bidder fund a test flight! (Update: As this book went to print, I learned that Space Adventures had sold one of two tickets for this flight...book now to avoid disappointment!)

Bibliography

Analysis of Soviet Lunar Missions
, Phillip S. Clark, Space Chronicle, Volume 57, Supplement 1, pp3-41

Aspects of the Soyuz 7K-LOK (Lunniy Orbital Korabl) Lunar Orbital Spaceship
, Philip Mills, Space Chronicle, Volume 57, Supplement 1, pp50-55

Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945 to 1974,
Asif A. Siddiqi, NASA, 2000

Soviet and Russian Lunar Exploration
, Brian Harvey, Springer-Praxis, 2007

The Rocket Men
, Rex Hall and David J. Shayler, Springer-Praxis, 2001

Chapter 4: The Men Who Didn't Walk On The Moon

 Apollo was originally conceived in response to a single mission objective – to land a man on the moon, and return him to the Earth. Based on that simple logic, the project should have come to an end after Apollo 11, and the accomplishment of this goal – indeed, there were many in the public, and even some in NASA, who thought that this should be so.

 But after the flight, a large amount of equipment was already in existence or under construction – enough to complete nine more missions to the Moon. NASA Administrator James Webb had not known how many missions would be taken to satisfy Kennedy's pledge, so had made sure that there was a substantial equipment inventory. The equipment was in position, and might as well be used instead of simply sitting in museums or rusting in gardens.

 Apollo 11 was a test flight, pure and simple – proving the capability of the Apollo system to land two men on the moon and bring them back. Although some scientific work was carried out, it was very much a secondary goal, and that was entirely as it should be. Apollo 12 was similarly an engineering flight – it was essential to improve landing techniques if research programs could be planned, and improved knowledge of the internal structure of the moon made this a real possibility. The salvaging of components from Surveyor 5, which had been sitting on the moon for two years, was another vital goal in the development of techniques for long-term survival on the moon.

 Once these missions had been completed science could receive a higher priority. The next eight missions were to visit several sites around the moon, conducting geologic surveys, deploying scientific packages for long-term studies (the ALSEP), as well as more engineering tests. Images from the Lunar Orbiter series of probes were used to select an appropriate suite of sites to provide a representative sampling of the moon.

 The remaining missions would come in two types. The next three missions were scheduled as 'H' type missions, using the original equipment developed for the first lunar landing. These had only a very limited potential, and a stay time that only allowed for two moonwalks of only limited range. The remaining five missions would be 'J' missions, with the Lunar Module used to its full capabilities. A stay time of fifty-four hours was now possible, allowing for three extended moonwalks. Increased payload capabilities allowed for far greater sample return, and the last four 'J' missions would feature a 'Lunar Rover' which would greatly increase the range of potential exploration. With these five flights, Apollo would fulfil its truest potential. (The only 'G' mission was the landing of Apollo 11; earlier letters were used to denote test flights of Apollo hardware.)

 The question of whether Apollo would be allowed to
reach
this full potential was far from cut and dried, however. The peak of NASA funding as a percentage of Gross National Product was reached two years before the first successful landing on the Moon, and the effects were becoming notable in lost opportunities for future missions. The follow-on project for Apollo – Apollo Applications, had already been cut drastically.

 Apollo Applications began as a wide-ranging series of missions intended to use Apollo hardware in a variety of new ways; its centrepiece would be the flight of a space station, using a spent stage from a Saturn V (later a Saturn IB) rocket, drained of fuel and equipped for long-term habitation. This would later become known as Skylab. Apollo capsules with telescopes were to be flown, others for the evaluation of human responses to zero-gravity, collection of micrometeorite particles, and test new hardware for potential flights to the planets – again using Apollo hardware.

 Funding cuts meant that the only remnant of Apollo Applications would be Skylab, and even that required a sacrifice from the lunar landing program – the Saturn V that
would
have sent Apollo 20 to the moon would be needed to launch the Skylab station into orbit. This mission was lost by the end of 1969.

 Though the United States – and indeed the entire world – revelled in the success of Apollo 11, afterwards, there were increasing questions as to where the project should go next, and simply returning to the moon multiple times lacked mass public appeal. By Apollo 13, flying to the moon was appearing routine.

 Of course, the events that transpired as a result of Apollo 13 indicated that flying to the moon was far from routine. Although the crew came home safely, and it would later be known as NASA's 'successful failure', it still had an effect – many more in NASA, even among senior management, suggested that the program should be immediately brought to an end. Their argument was that Apollo was only a limited method of exploring the moon, and that potentially NASA could develop a more advanced system. By this time, NASA was also becoming increasingly committed to the development of Shut
t
le, and this would start to absorb men and resources.

 Ultimately, this decision was
not
taken, but budgetary restrictions became increasingly apparent, and two more missions were dropped from the roster. Apollo 15 – the last of the 'H' missions, was dropped from the schedule, and would now become the first of the 'J' missions. Another 'J' mission, Apollo 19, was also cancelled – this meant that the series of lunar landing missions would now end with four more flights – one 'H' mission in the shape of Apollo 14, the 'Return to Flight' mission, and three 'J' missions – Apollo 15, 16 and 17. The hardware remained, of course, and there were some hopes for a while that at least one of the missions might be reinstated, but it was not to be, and Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt were the last two men to leave the moon. But what if the other three missions
had
been flown?