1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:12,480 Ten, nine ignition sequence start six five four three two one zero all engine 2 00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:13,620 running 3 00:00:13,619 --> 00:00:18,028 lift off , we have a lift off at that it's probably the most well-known 4 00:00:18,028 --> 00:00:22,679 peacetime battle between the United States and the Soviet Union in both 5 00:00:22,679 --> 00:00:28,289 technological and ideological terms of the 20th century and although the USA 6 00:00:28,289 --> 00:00:33,299 won the race to the moon, if you've been a betting person from the mid-1950's 7 00:00:33,299 --> 00:00:36,869 to the 1960's the chances are that you would have thought 8 00:00:36,869 --> 00:00:40,409 that the Soviet Union would have a very good chance of getting there first, 9 00:00:41,009 --> 00:00:46,349 so why didn't Russia put a man on the moon. At the time the Soviets were 10 00:00:46,350 --> 00:00:49,920 leading in the space race, they had already started with the launch of 11 00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:55,649 Sputnik, then launched several probes to the moon including one in 1959 that 12 00:00:55,649 --> 00:01:02,460 orbited and taken photos of the far side and by 1961 they put the first man into 13 00:01:02,460 --> 00:01:03,359 space, 14 00:01:03,359 --> 00:01:09,420 so when Kennedy made his now-famous "We choose to go to the moon" speech in 1962 15 00:01:09,420 --> 00:01:15,090 to rally public support the Soviet leader Khrushchev’s response was silence, 16 00:01:15,090 --> 00:01:20,280 neither confirming nor denying that they had a plan for manned moon missions but 17 00:01:20,280 --> 00:01:25,019 at the time Khrushchev wasn't really interested in competing with the US over 18 00:01:25,019 --> 00:01:25,799 the moon, 19 00:01:25,799 --> 00:01:31,289 he was more interested in ICBMs the intercontinental ballistic missiles for 20 00:01:31,290 --> 00:01:36,480 strategic rocket forces of the Soviet Union but there were others in the 21 00:01:36,480 --> 00:01:41,280 Soviet Union that had harbored plans for a manned moon mission for a long time 22 00:01:41,280 --> 00:01:45,750 these included the man whose name was a state secret and the most powerful man 23 00:01:45,750 --> 00:01:51,180 outside the Kremlin when it came to space he was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev, 24 00:01:51,180 --> 00:01:55,950 off outside the inner circle of the top space scientists he was known only as 25 00:01:55,950 --> 00:02:01,020 the "Chief designer" or by his first two initials "SP" because the Soviet 26 00:02:01,019 --> 00:02:04,829 leadership feared that the Western powers would send agents to try and 27 00:02:04,829 --> 00:02:05,879 assassinate him. 28 00:02:05,879 --> 00:02:10,469 Korolev was the man who was behind many of the Soviet space successes and the 29 00:02:10,469 --> 00:02:15,750 head of the OKB1 the design bureau, he oversaw Sputnik and the manned missions 30 00:02:15,750 --> 00:02:17,878 including the first man in space 31 00:02:17,878 --> 00:02:22,649 "Yuri Gagarin". His authority extended over most everything to do with space his 32 00:02:22,650 --> 00:02:26,520 design group worked on missions to Mars and Venus, communication 33 00:02:26,520 --> 00:02:32,520 and spy and weather satellites, ICBMs and the soviet manned moon missions. Korolev 34 00:02:32,520 --> 00:02:36,900 have had a huge amount of control over the space program, in administrative 35 00:02:36,900 --> 00:02:42,150 power he was almost a one-man version of NASA, covering areas that in the US were 36 00:02:42,150 --> 00:02:46,740 done across multiple aerospace companies and flight centre's but even a man of 37 00:02:46,740 --> 00:02:50,670 his power and connections didn't get everything his own way. He had to 38 00:02:50,669 --> 00:02:54,659 continuously fight against rival designers and design groups. Although 39 00:02:54,659 --> 00:02:59,909 Korolyev wanted the moon missions himself, in 1964 the job was given to his 40 00:02:59,909 --> 00:03:04,949 rival, Vladimir Chelomei because of his patronage by Khrushchev but his lack of 41 00:03:04,949 --> 00:03:10,259 experience meant that the missions progressed slowly. The progress of Apollo 42 00:03:10,259 --> 00:03:14,489 on the other hand worried the chief designers and as a result of this and 43 00:03:14,490 --> 00:03:18,629 the infighting between the design bureaus meant that they were multiple 44 00:03:18,629 --> 00:03:23,519 overlapping designs for the moon missions at one point there were 30 45 00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:29,189 different designs for launchers and spacecraft. In 1964 the Soviet Leader 46 00:03:29,189 --> 00:03:33,479 Khrushchev was replaced by Leonard Brezhnev, Korolev was given the 47 00:03:33,479 --> 00:03:38,399 complete control over the moon missions and pushed through his designs ahead of 48 00:03:38,400 --> 00:03:43,110 Chelomei’s and the decision finally to compete for the moon was given with the 49 00:03:43,110 --> 00:03:48,510 aim to land in 1967, the 50th anniversary of the october revolution 50 00:03:48,509 --> 00:03:53,939 and to get there before the Americans. This however created a problem for 51 00:03:53,939 --> 00:03:59,430 Korolev, in order to lift a payload weight of 95 tons he needed a very large 52 00:03:59,430 --> 00:04:06,090 rocket this new rocket will be called the N1, be as big as the American Saturn 5 and 53 00:04:06,090 --> 00:04:12,000 would require new large powerful engines similar to the F1 rocket engines used in 54 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:17,009 the Saturn. Valentin Glushko was the leading rocket designer at the time and 55 00:04:17,009 --> 00:04:22,139 the head of the OKB 456 Bureau which had a near-monopoly when it 56 00:04:22,139 --> 00:04:27,569 came to rocket design and production. He specialized in making engines that used 57 00:04:27,569 --> 00:04:33,180 hypergolic propellants, these consist of a fuel and oxidizer that when mixed 58 00:04:33,180 --> 00:04:37,168 together spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. 59 00:04:37,168 --> 00:04:38,968 Korolev thought these were too 60 00:04:38,968 --> 00:04:43,498 dangerous for manned missions due to the highly toxic and corrosive nature of the 61 00:04:43,499 --> 00:04:48,778 chemicals used to make up the fuel. Glushko said that it was not possible to 62 00:04:48,778 --> 00:04:54,778 create a new large engine design that used cryogenic fuel of liquid oxygen and 63 00:04:54,778 --> 00:04:59,249 kerosene and get it ready in time with limited resources and cash. 64 00:04:59,819 --> 00:05:04,408 He also cited that at the time the Americans had been working on cryogenic 65 00:05:04,408 --> 00:05:08,848 engines for the Saturn for 5 years and still hadn't got them to work 66 00:05:08,848 --> 00:05:13,678 reliably. There was also a personal problem between the two men Korolev 67 00:05:13,678 --> 00:05:19,109 blamed Glushko for denouncing him in the great purge under Stalin in 1938 68 00:05:19,110 --> 00:05:23,579 leading to Korolev's near death serving 6 years in a Soviet labour 69 00:05:23,579 --> 00:05:28,739 camp. Glushko on the other hand considered Korolev's to be irresponsibly cavalier 70 00:05:28,738 --> 00:05:33,538 and autocratic towards things which were outside of his own of competence. This 71 00:05:33,538 --> 00:05:38,038 clash between them led to Glushko refusing to work for Korolev and 72 00:05:38,038 --> 00:05:40,709 caused delays the overall program 73 00:05:40,709 --> 00:05:46,019 Korolev was forced to find a new engine designer and gave the job to Nikolai 74 00:05:46,019 --> 00:05:51,300 Kuznetsov who was a leading jet engine designer but had not designed a rocket 75 00:05:51,300 --> 00:05:55,619 engine before. The Kuznetsov design bureau looked at the problem and 76 00:05:55,619 --> 00:05:59,519 realized that creating a rocket engine was not that different to the jet 77 00:05:59,519 --> 00:06:04,379 engines they were used to but they ran into the same problem as Glushko, in 78 00:06:04,379 --> 00:06:09,059 that the Soviets simply didn't have the industrial infrastructure that the 79 00:06:09,059 --> 00:06:14,639 Americans did to produce a new large engine. The solution they came up with 80 00:06:14,639 --> 00:06:20,429 was innovative but would have both negative and positive outcomes. Where the 81 00:06:20,428 --> 00:06:25,528 Americans used 5 large engines for the initial booster stage of Saturn, 82 00:06:25,528 --> 00:06:31,588 Korolev was forced to use 30 small but highly efficient engines arranged in a 83 00:06:31,588 --> 00:06:38,158 ring of 24 around the base and 6 at the center in order to achieve the thrust 84 00:06:38,158 --> 00:06:42,688 required. The design of these engines was very advanced and used a method called 85 00:06:42,689 --> 00:06:47,830 for closed-cycle system this was capable of boosting the efficiency 86 00:06:47,829 --> 00:06:52,810 power to levels to that which were believed impossible before. The Americans had 87 00:06:52,810 --> 00:06:56,980 known about the closed cycle system but thought it was too difficult and 88 00:06:56,980 --> 00:07:01,030 dangerous as the high-pressure high-temperature oxygen method could 89 00:07:01,029 --> 00:07:06,250 cause the engine to burn up, so they used for more reliable but less efficient 90 00:07:06,250 --> 00:07:11,889 open cycle system but with much larger engines. It had only been possible for 91 00:07:11,889 --> 00:07:16,240 the Soviets to create a closed-cycle engine because they had secretly 92 00:07:16,240 --> 00:07:20,740 developed advanced stainless steel alloys something which the Americans 93 00:07:20,740 --> 00:07:25,600 didn't know about at of the time. Using so many smaller engines allowed the 94 00:07:25,600 --> 00:07:31,360 N1 rocket to create more power than the Saturn but the likelihood of one or more 95 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:36,040 of them failing and making a rocket unstable was much greater. One of the 96 00:07:36,040 --> 00:07:40,840 main problems was the complex fuel plumbing that was required to supply all 97 00:07:40,839 --> 00:07:46,719 the engines which in time proved to be a very fragile system. But just as the 98 00:07:46,720 --> 00:07:53,170 Soviets were working on the new engines, in 1966 Korolev died after undergoing a 99 00:07:53,170 --> 00:07:58,210 routine operation, this was a setback because Korolev had a unique set 100 00:07:58,209 --> 00:08:02,859 of abilities and connections and was the major driving force behind making sure 101 00:08:02,860 --> 00:08:07,060 that the moon missions would be delivered. The work of continuing fell to 102 00:08:07,060 --> 00:08:11,560 Vasily Mishkin, Korolev’s deputy but Mishkin didn't have the political 103 00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:17,680 astuteness or power of his old boss. The Soviets also didn't have the facilities 104 00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:23,500 to test all 30 of the engines of the main stage at once before they were 105 00:08:23,500 --> 00:08:28,089 mounted to the rocket. The Baikonur launch complex could also not be reached 106 00:08:28,089 --> 00:08:32,139 by heavy barges so the whole rocket had to be broken down into sections 107 00:08:32,139 --> 00:08:36,069 transported by rail and then rebuilt again at the launchpad. 108 00:08:36,700 --> 00:08:41,920 This meant that the development of the N1 rocket as a whole was still ongoing 109 00:08:41,919 --> 00:08:46,029 when it came to the launches, so it was almost expected that there would be 110 00:08:46,029 --> 00:08:51,949 failures. The Soviets planned 14 launches the first 12 will be unmanned 111 00:08:51,950 --> 00:08:58,100 and the last two would be the manned lunar missions. On the 21st February 1969 112 00:08:58,100 --> 00:09:03,050 the first N1 rocket was prepared for launch. This would be the first time that 113 00:09:03,049 --> 00:09:08,299 the whole system had been tested in fact it was revealed later but only two out 114 00:09:08,299 --> 00:09:13,699 of every batch of six engines had even been run before the launch. This was in 115 00:09:13,700 --> 00:09:18,200 contrast to the Americans which were fully able to test their F1 engines 116 00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:23,150 before the Saturn was assembled. Once that have been done it was removed from 117 00:09:23,149 --> 00:09:28,159 the assembly building to the launchpad nearby, fully assembled tested and ready 118 00:09:28,159 --> 00:09:33,110 to go. Within seconds of the launch of the engine control system which was 119 00:09:33,110 --> 00:09:38,960 called Kord shut down 2 the 30 stage one engines, then self oscillating 120 00:09:38,960 --> 00:09:43,460 vibration started in the fuel system due to unstable combustion in some of the 121 00:09:43,460 --> 00:09:47,870 engines, this ruptured fuel lines which caught fire and burned through 122 00:09:47,870 --> 00:09:52,580 electrical control wiring, this then caused the KROD system to incorrectly 123 00:09:52,580 --> 00:09:57,710 shut down all of the engines 68 seconds into the flight and the rocket crashed 124 00:09:57,710 --> 00:10:02,269 32 miles from the launch pad. After the investigation and subsequent 125 00:10:02,269 --> 00:10:08,090 modification, the second flight was due for the 3rd July 1969, the launch 126 00:10:08,090 --> 00:10:13,519 took place at 11:18 p.m. as the rocket cleared the tower the liquid oxygen 127 00:10:13,519 --> 00:10:17,990 turbo pump on engine number eight exploded causing a fire which 128 00:10:17,990 --> 00:10:23,930 triggered KORD to shut down all the engines except one, the N1 fell back onto 129 00:10:23,929 --> 00:10:30,229 the launch pad with nearly 2,300 tonnes of rocket fuel on board, the resulting 130 00:10:30,230 --> 00:10:35,360 explosion was one of the largest ever to happen and was the equivalent of 3.8 131 00:10:35,360 --> 00:10:42,259 kilotons of TNT or a small nuclear bomb. It destroyed the launch complex, blasted 132 00:10:42,259 --> 00:10:48,559 debris over 6 miles away and was visible over 22 miles away. Some 30 133 00:10:48,559 --> 00:10:53,029 minutes after the blast when launch crews were allowed onto the site they 134 00:10:53,029 --> 00:10:55,079 found droplets of unburned 135 00:10:55,080 --> 00:10:59,520 rocket fuel still raining down from the sky and afterwards it was discovered 136 00:10:59,519 --> 00:11:04,049 that 85% of the rocket fuel did not detonate which actually 137 00:11:04,049 --> 00:11:08,729 reduced the size of a blast. 17 days later 138 00:11:08,730 --> 00:11:13,769 Neil Armstrong became the first man on the Moon with the Apollo 11 mission and 139 00:11:13,769 --> 00:11:19,199 although the race for the moon had been lost, the Soviets carried on. The blast caused a 140 00:11:19,200 --> 00:11:24,090 two-year delay whilst the launch complex was rebuilt and further modifications 141 00:11:24,090 --> 00:11:30,330 were made to the rocket. In November of 1971 the third attempt also failed due 142 00:11:30,330 --> 00:11:35,310 to unexpected Eddie and counter currents in the base of the main stage causing 143 00:11:35,309 --> 00:11:40,229 the rocket to roll uncontrollably and ultimately break up due to the stress on 144 00:11:40,230 --> 00:11:41,279 its structure. 145 00:11:41,279 --> 00:11:49,019 One year later in November 1972 the fourth and final launch also failed 107 146 00:11:49,019 --> 00:11:53,159 seconds into the flight after the program shutdown of the six centre 147 00:11:53,159 --> 00:11:57,959 engines caused a hydraulic shock wave to rupture the fuel pipes and start a fire, 148 00:11:57,960 --> 00:12:01,500 the main stage then exploded shortly afterwards. 149 00:12:01,500 --> 00:12:06,059 Although there had been four previous launch failures the Soviets had actually 150 00:12:06,059 --> 00:12:10,500 made huge progress and the design by trial and error was believed to have 151 00:12:10,500 --> 00:12:15,179 ironed out all the problems but by the time of the fifth launched in August 152 00:12:15,179 --> 00:12:19,649 1974 the whole moon mission was cancelled by Brezhnev 153 00:12:19,649 --> 00:12:25,889 By this time the Americans had been to the moon six times and public interest 154 00:12:25,889 --> 00:12:31,110 in space was waning. One theory is that if the fifth launch had been successful 155 00:12:31,110 --> 00:12:34,680 it would have forced the Soviets to carry on the lunar mission where the 156 00:12:34,679 --> 00:12:39,899 main goal of beating the USA had already been lost. The cancellation of the 157 00:12:39,899 --> 00:12:44,399 project was therefore a way of sweeping a very expensive undertaking under the 158 00:12:44,399 --> 00:12:49,980 carpet. Vasily Mishkin was ultimately fired and replaced by Glushko but by 159 00:12:49,980 --> 00:12:54,019 1976 the N1 rocket program was scrapped. 160 00:12:54,019 --> 00:12:58,159 The rockets were broken up to hide the failure and to make the U.S. think that 161 00:12:58,159 --> 00:13:00,499 the space race was still ongoing. 162 00:13:00,499 --> 00:13:05,749 It wasn't until Gorbachev's period of "Glasnost" when this cover story was blown and the 163 00:13:05,749 --> 00:13:10,790 true story of the failed Soviet moon mission became widely known about and 164 00:13:10,789 --> 00:13:17,808 why the Russians didn't put a man on the moon. But there is a strange twist to the 165 00:13:17,808 --> 00:13:24,110 end of this story, the NK 43 rockets that had been developed for the N1 were by 166 00:13:24,110 --> 00:13:29,808 the end much more reliable and the most efficient and powerful rocket engines 167 00:13:29,808 --> 00:13:34,879 for their size ever made. 20 years after they were meant to have been destroyed 168 00:13:34,879 --> 00:13:40,879 on order of a Kremlin, 60 of them were rediscovered and sold to be Americans 169 00:13:40,879 --> 00:13:43,789 for $1.1 million dollars each. 170 00:13:43,789 --> 00:13:51,349 A subsequent new larger model the RD-180 based on the technology of the NK 43 is now 171 00:13:51,350 --> 00:13:57,558 built by the Russians and used by the Americans for their Atlas 5 heavy launch 172 00:13:57,558 --> 00:14:00,949 vehicle. 173 00:14:00,950 --> 00:14:05,330 Thank you for watching I hope you enjoyed the video and if you did then 174 00:14:05,330 --> 00:14:11,150 please thumbs up, subscribe, share and comment and don't forget we have other 175 00:14:11,149 --> 00:14:15,379 videos available which you may also find interesting on the link was showing now 176 00:14:15,379 --> 00:14:18,080 so until the next time it's goodbye from me :-)