The N-1: The Soviet Moon Rocket

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[SpecialEDy]

The Soviets were like me in Kerbal Space Program:
"I haven't researched 2.5m or 3m engines yet, let me just slap 30 of these smaller engines on there".
"Oh it blew up, add a few more struts and relaunch"

[heatherhutchinson]

Next on megaprojects: Simon Whistler's YouTube channels empire

[Ravenforce]

Minor clarification for those who don't know: the pogo Simon mentioned that showed up during Apollo 13 happened in the center engine of the second stage. It had nothing to do with the famous accident.

[avpostbox]

Having a background in studying airspace back in USSR I have heard from the guys related to the industry that N1, perhaps, could be working if Korolev would live longer, not only because he was smarter, but he seemed to have some power to be convincing and knew how to insist on things the way he wanted them and he exercised this skill not only with inferiors but superiors as well. N1 was meant to be a vehicle not only for the moon but also as a lorry to transport parts (I guess like 5 pcs) for assembling a rocket for Mars on the orbit. But after he had passed, things were not going exactly in a beneficial way, mostly due to some "political" things in the industry. Well... there are "but's" as it was mentioned in the video.

[SUNRISE-ADVENTURES]

I would LOVE to see one on the VAB [vehicle assembly building] That NASA uses!!!

[FrenchSpaceGuy]

If I may, here are some factual errors I'd like to correct on the short portion about the N-1 description:
6:38 - The N-1 had 5 stages (6 including the LK), not 4. The 4th stage did not make it to the Moon.
6:41 - The Bloc G which performed the TLI was not the last stage. It was Bloc D.
6:50 - The Bloc D was in charge of the Moon orbit insertion.
7:15 - The center 6 engines did not participate to the control of the rocket. It was the outer 24 engines which did.
8:27 - The 3rd stage is not called Bloc 5, it's Bloc V. The cyrillic letter V, not the roman number 5 like in "Saturn V". All the N-1 stages have the first letters of the cyrillic alphabet: A, B, V, G, D and E. And as akready said, Bloc V was not the last.
8:53 - Bloc G and an NK-21 engine, not an NK-19.
9:00 - It was the Bloc D which made the manoeuvers around the Moon, and it did not have the same engine. It was an RD-58.

[RedPuma]

Surplus NK-33 engines actually survived the cold war in a warehouse somewhere. When they where rediscovered the american engineers wouldn't believe their performance specs, they just sounded too good to be true. Turned out that the sovjet engines where far ahead of the american kerolox engines because the Russians had solved the problem of metal corrosion in oxygen rich environments with their superior metallurgy. The ancient engines where subsequently bought by an american rocket company, fitted with modern electronics and flew again on american rockets. One of the most interesting trivia stories ever I think.

[collinriley]

You mentioned N-1 was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions. Two others I know of were the USS Mt Hood AE-11 and the Halifax explosion December 6, 1917 (which author Laura McDonald listed as the largest non-nuclear explosion in her book “Curse of the Narrows”). (I served on a sister shop of the Mt Hood in 1965-66, and found some references to that explosion in old files in the ship’s office where I worked.) A video on the subject of largest non-nuclear explosions would be interesting.

[jnichols]

There is a great postscript to the N-1 saga. The surplus engines that were supposed to be destroyed were saved by engineers who hid them for decades. The irony is that being built by the USSR during the cold war for the space race, they ended up being further developed into the engines that propelled the American Atlas III space launcher. The Atlas III was a direct desendant of the Atlas ICBM thats main purpose was to deliver nuclear weapons to the USSR. The upgraded engines are still used in the Atlas V. The Atlas V is basically new and replaces the earlier ATLAS ICBM derived series boosters.

[starbomber]

"We need to put something in space, Laika! Wanna become a hero of the soviet union?"

Laika: "Blyat..."

[samiraperi]

13:21 Missed a chance to quote Marvin the Martian and say "Earth shattering kaboom".

[alklazaris]

Legend has it when renovating a building they found the android Simon plugged into a corner. Discovering that Simon could work without sleep and didn't need to be shutdown when charging, the team immediately put Simon to work making videos.

[thetruenolan]

Speaking of giant rockets... I know it was never actually built, but a video on the immense US "Sea Dragon" rocket would be a GREAT story just because of the technical specifications!

[nickthompson]

Let's not forget Korolev's lasting legacy, the R7, which has had the longest service life of any rocket in history.

[tfaltermeier]

NTO is actually the oxidiser. The corresponding fuel is hydrazine. Which is just as nasty.

[dianehansen]

Now, I know a ton about these rockets - having lived through that era and followed every scrap of information - I just HAD to watch this video because you put things so succinctly.
Well done as always.

[theangelbelow]

"Success is nice, but explosions are nicer" - Michael Bay... Maybe

[danhaworth]

Minor nitpick, nitrogen tetroxide is an oxidiser, not a fuel.. other than that, awesome video 👌😊

[wesselbonnet]

Simon: “... the N1 had more thrust than the Saturn V.”

Korolev’s ghost: “Ba-da-boom-boom-disshhhh!”

[sowhat]

Simon didn't mention it, but the engine of the N1, the NK33, was used on the American Antares 100 series, and is still used on the Russian Soyuz 2.1v. The USSR was convinced the N1 would work, so they built stockpiles of prebuilt engines for on demand availability. Spoiler alert: the N1 failed, but the engines on their own were engineered beautifully, so much so, some were bought by the US, and were used in smaller configurations on future rockets, like the Antares 110, 120 and 130 (which last flew in 2014), and in Russia on the current Soyuz 2.1v. The US used them up, and Russia is running on empty. The Antares 200 series is powered by an RD-181, and the future Soyuz 2.1v will be powered by RD-193, both coming from a family of engines engineered from the NK-33.