WEBVTT

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Ten, nine ignition sequence start six
five four three two one zero all engine

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running

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lift off , we have a lift off at that
it's probably the most well-known

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peacetime battle between the United
States and the Soviet Union in both

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technological and ideological terms of
the 20th century and although the USA

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won the race to the moon, if you've been
a betting person from the mid-1950's

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to the 1960's the
chances are that you would have thought

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that the Soviet Union would have a very
good chance of getting there first,

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so why didn't Russia put a man on the
moon. At the time the Soviets were

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leading in the space race, they had
already started with the launch of

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Sputnik, then launched several probes to
the moon including one in 1959 that

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orbited and taken photos of the far side
and by 1961 they put the first man into

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space,

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so when Kennedy made his now-famous "We choose to go to the moon" speech in 1962

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to rally public support the Soviet
leader Khrushchev’s response was silence,

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neither confirming nor denying that they
had a plan for manned moon missions but

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at the time Khrushchev wasn't really
interested in competing with the US over

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the moon,

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he was more interested in ICBMs the
intercontinental ballistic missiles for

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strategic rocket forces of the Soviet
Union but there were others in the

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Soviet Union that had harbored plans for
a manned moon mission for a long time

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these included the man whose name was a
state secret and the most powerful man

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outside the Kremlin when it came to
space he was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev,

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off outside the inner circle of the top
space scientists he was known only as

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the "Chief designer" or by his first two
initials "SP" because the Soviet

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leadership feared that the Western
powers would send agents to try and

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assassinate him.

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Korolev was the man who was behind many of the Soviet space successes and the

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head of the OKB1 the design bureau, he
oversaw Sputnik and the manned missions

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including the first man in space

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"Yuri Gagarin". His authority extended over
most everything to do with space his

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design group worked on missions to Mars
and Venus, communication

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and spy and weather satellites, ICBMs and
the soviet manned moon missions. Korolev

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have had a huge amount of control over
the space program, in administrative

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power he was almost a one-man version of
NASA, covering areas that in the US were

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done across multiple aerospace companies
and flight centre's but even a man of

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his power and connections didn't get
everything his own way. He had to

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continuously fight against rival
designers and design groups. Although

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Korolyev wanted the moon missions
himself, in 1964 the job was given to his

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rival, Vladimir Chelomei  because of his
patronage by Khrushchev but his lack of

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experience meant that the missions
progressed slowly. The progress of Apollo

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on the other hand worried the chief
designers and as a result of this and

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the infighting between the design
bureaus meant that they were multiple

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overlapping designs for the moon
missions at one point there were 30

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different designs for launchers and
spacecraft. In 1964 the Soviet Leader

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Khrushchev was replaced by Leonard
Brezhnev, Korolev was given the

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complete control over the moon missions
and pushed through his designs ahead of

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Chelomei’s and the decision finally to
compete for the moon was given with the

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aim to land in 1967, the 50th
anniversary of the october revolution

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and to get there before the Americans.
This however created a problem for

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Korolev, in order to lift a payload
weight of 95 tons he needed a very large

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rocket this new rocket will be called
the N1, be as big as the American Saturn 5 and

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would require new large powerful engines
similar to the F1 rocket engines used in

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the Saturn. Valentin Glushko was the
leading rocket designer at the time and

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the head of the OKB 456 
Bureau which had a near-monopoly when it

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came to rocket design and production. He
specialized in making engines that used

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hypergolic propellants, these consist of
a fuel and oxidizer that when mixed

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together spontaneously ignite when they
come into contact with each other.

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Korolev thought these were too

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dangerous for manned missions due to the
highly toxic and corrosive nature of the

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chemicals used to make up the fuel. Glushko said that it was not possible to

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create a new large engine design that
used cryogenic fuel of liquid oxygen and

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kerosene and get it ready in time with
limited resources and cash.

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He also cited that at the time the
Americans had been working on cryogenic

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engines for the Saturn for 5 years
and still hadn't got them to work

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reliably. There was also a personal
problem between the two men Korolev

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blamed Glushko for denouncing him in the
great purge under Stalin in 1938

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leading to Korolev's near death
serving 6 years in a Soviet labour

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camp.  Glushko on the other hand considered Korolev's to be irresponsibly cavalier

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and autocratic towards things which were
outside of his own of competence. This

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clash between them led to Glushko 
refusing to work for Korolev and

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caused delays the overall program

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Korolev was forced to find a new engine
designer and gave the job to Nikolai

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Kuznetsov who was a leading jet engine
designer but had not designed a rocket

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engine before. The Kuznetsov 
design bureau looked at the problem and

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realized that creating a rocket engine
was not that different to the jet

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engines they were used to but they ran
into the same problem as Glushko, in

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that the Soviets simply didn't have the
industrial infrastructure that the

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Americans did to produce a new large
engine. The solution they came up with

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was innovative  but would have both
negative and positive outcomes. Where the

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Americans used 5 large engines for
the initial booster stage of Saturn,

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Korolev was forced to use 30 small but
highly efficient engines arranged in a

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ring of 24 around the base and 6 at
the center in order to achieve the thrust

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required. The design of these engines was
very advanced and used a method called

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for closed-cycle system this was capable
of boosting the efficiency

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power to levels to that which were believed
impossible before. The Americans had

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known about the closed cycle system but
thought it was too difficult and

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dangerous as the high-pressure
high-temperature oxygen method could

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cause the engine to burn up, so they used
for more reliable but less efficient

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open cycle system but with much larger
engines. It had only been possible for

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the Soviets to create a closed-cycle
engine because they had secretly

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developed advanced stainless steel
alloys something which the Americans

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didn't know about at of the time.
Using so many smaller engines allowed the

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N1 rocket to create more power than the
Saturn but the likelihood of one or more

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of them failing and making a rocket
unstable was much greater. One of the

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main problems was the complex fuel
plumbing that was required to supply all

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the engines which in time proved to be a
very fragile system. But just as the

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Soviets were working on the new engines,
in 1966 Korolev died after undergoing a

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routine operation,  this was a setback
because Korolev had a unique set

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of abilities and connections and was the
major driving force behind making sure

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that the moon missions would be
delivered. The work of continuing fell to

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Vasily Mishkin, Korolev’s deputy but
Mishkin didn't have the political

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astuteness or power of his old boss. The
Soviets also didn't have the facilities

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to test all 30 of the engines of the
main stage at once before they were

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mounted to the rocket. The Baikonur
launch complex could also not be reached

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by heavy barges so the whole rocket had
to be broken down into sections

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transported by rail and then rebuilt
again at the launchpad.

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This meant that the development of the
N1 rocket as a whole was still ongoing

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when it came to the launches, so it was
almost expected that there would be

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failures. The Soviets planned 14 launches
the first 12 will be unmanned

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and the last two would be the manned
lunar missions. On the 21st February 1969

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the first N1 rocket was prepared for
launch. This would be the first time that

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the whole system had been tested in fact
it was revealed later but only two out

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of every batch of six engines had even
been run before the launch. This was in

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contrast to the Americans which were
fully able to test their F1 engines

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before the Saturn was assembled. Once
that have been done it was removed from

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the assembly building to the launchpad
nearby, fully assembled tested and ready

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to go. Within seconds of the launch of
the engine control system which was

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called Kord shut down 2 the 30 stage
one engines, then self oscillating

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vibration started in the fuel system due
to unstable combustion in some of the

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engines, this ruptured fuel lines which
caught fire and burned through

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electrical control wiring, this then
caused the KROD system to incorrectly

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shut down all of the engines 68 seconds
into the flight and the rocket crashed

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32 miles from the launch pad. After the
investigation and subsequent

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modification, the second flight was due
for the 3rd July 1969, the launch

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took place at 11:18 p.m. as the rocket
cleared the tower the liquid oxygen

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turbo pump on engine number eight
exploded causing a fire which

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triggered KORD to shut down all the
engines except one, the N1 fell back onto

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the launch pad with nearly 2,300 tonnes
of rocket fuel on board, the resulting

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explosion was one of the largest ever to
happen and was the equivalent of 3.8

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kilotons of TNT or a small nuclear bomb.
It destroyed the launch complex, blasted

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debris over 6 miles away and was
visible over 22 miles away. Some 30

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minutes after the blast when launch
crews were allowed onto the site they

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found droplets of unburned

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rocket fuel still raining down from the
sky and afterwards it was discovered

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that 85% of the rocket
fuel did not detonate which actually

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reduced the size of a blast. 17 days
later

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Neil Armstrong became the first man on
the Moon with the Apollo 11 mission and

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although the race for the moon had been lost, 
the Soviets carried on. The blast caused a

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two-year delay whilst the launch complex
was rebuilt and further modifications

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were made to the rocket. In November of
1971 the third attempt also failed due

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to unexpected Eddie and counter currents
in the base of the main stage causing

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the rocket to roll uncontrollably and
ultimately break up due to the stress on

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its structure.

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One year later in November 1972 the
fourth and final launch also failed 107

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seconds into the flight after the
program shutdown of the six centre

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engines caused a hydraulic shock wave to
rupture the fuel pipes and start a fire,

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the main stage then exploded shortly
afterwards.

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Although there had been four previous
launch failures the Soviets had actually

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made huge progress and the design by
trial and error was believed to have

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ironed out all the problems but by the
time of the fifth launched in August

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1974 the whole moon mission was
cancelled by Brezhnev

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By this time the Americans had been to
the moon six times and public interest

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in space was waning. One theory is that
if the fifth launch had been successful

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it would have forced the Soviets to
carry on the lunar mission where the

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main goal of beating the USA had already
been lost. The cancellation of the

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project was therefore a way of sweeping
a very expensive undertaking under the

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carpet. Vasily Mishkin was ultimately
fired and replaced by Glushko but by

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1976 the N1 rocket program was scrapped.

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The rockets were broken up to hide the
failure and to make the U.S. think that

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the space race was still ongoing.

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It wasn't until Gorbachev's period of "Glasnost" 
when this cover story was blown and the

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true story of the failed Soviet moon
mission became widely known about and

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why the Russians didn't put a man on the
moon. But there is a strange twist to the

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end of this story, the NK 43 rockets that
had been developed for the N1 were by

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the end much more reliable and the most
efficient and powerful rocket engines

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for their size ever made. 20 years after
they were meant to have been destroyed

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on order of a Kremlin, 60 of them were
rediscovered and sold to be Americans

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for $1.1 million dollars each.

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A subsequent new larger model the RD-180
based on the technology of the NK 43 is now

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built by the Russians and used by the
Americans for their Atlas 5 heavy launch

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vehicle.

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Thank you for watching I hope you
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