History of Space Exploration

The history of the exploration of space in 4 and a half minutes.

Music: M83 - Outro

[stuckonearth]

interesting the gap after the moon... Did you know that there was a great deal of exploration still taking place outside of the states?

Did you know that we have started up where the gap left off now that we have abandoned the shuttle and low earth orbit.

We studied and are ready to pick up where we left off.... That is why space x is almost ready to present a functional lunar lander rocket as it was never landed on earth, even the test model was abandoned due to failures.

[georgeperkins]

Watched this is science today, lovely video

[cantthinkofaname]

I see this video as a tribute to space exploration

[WMPotomacfan]

This is great and it show how beautiful space travel is great job on the video

[filipinordabest]

Not enough Soviet Russia. No rapid unplanned disassemblies. But, great choice of clips, and excellent music. 4/10

[luckyea]

The main driving force behind space exploration was the space race between the USSR and the USA. Below are the statistics and some facts.

Rating of countries by the first launches of artificial Earth satellites:

1. USSR - 1957
2. USA - 1958
3. UK - 1962
4. Canada - 1962
5. Italy - 1964

Rating of countries by the first launches of space satellites with their own launch vehicles:

1. USSR - October 4, 1957
2. USA - February 1, 1958
3. France - November 26, 1965
4. Italy - April 26, 1967
5. Japan - February 11, 1970

Rating of countries by the first flights of astronauts:

1. USSR - April 12, 1961
2. USA - May 5, 1961
3. Czechoslovakia - March 2, 1978
4. Poland - June 27, 1978
5. GDR - 26 August 1978

Ranking of countries by the number of first-of-its-kind spacecraft (remarkable, of historical significance, with achievements that were made for the first time by one of the countries) until 1992:

1. USSR - 21
2. USA - 15
3. EU - 1

Ranking of countries by the number of spacecraft launched to explore the solar system, as well as first-of-its-kind or noteworthy vehicles launched into low Earth orbit before 1992:

1. USSR - 115
2. USA - 84
3. EU - 4
4. Japan - 4
5. Germany - 2

Ranking of countries by the number of successful orbital launches (not including emergency and partially emergency) until 1992:

1. USSR - 2278
2. USA - 903
3. Japan - 42
4. France - 39
5. China - 27

Ranking of countries by the lowest proportion of emergency orbital launches for countries with more than 10 launches before 1992:

1. USSR - 5.54%
2. EU - 7.14%
3. USA - 11.25%
4. Japan - 12.24%
5. France - 14.89%


As you can see, in all the above ratings, the USSR took first place. The United States achieved the landing of a man on the moon, so I will dwell on this in more detail.

A manned flight to the moon was not practical. In view of the fact that the USA lost to the USSR all the events of the race in space and had hopeless chances of winning when competing with the USSR in those places that had practical expediency, the Americans decided to deliver a man to the moon, due to the fact that the USSR was not going to send a man to the moon ( Of the given hopeless chances of winning in rivalry with the USSR and a great chance to beat the Soviets in the implementation of the first landing of the crew on the moon, Wernher von Braun wrote in a note to Vice President L. Johnson, in which he tried to answer the questions posed by President Kennedy in a memorandum dated April 20, 1961). For a man to fly to the moon, a tenfold jump in carrier power was needed compared to the rockets existing at that time, and for the reason that the USSR did not plan to fly to the moon, the USSR did not have such a rocket, and he did not try to develop it. But due to large financial expenses and due to the lack of practical expediency, the US leadership refused to finance the delivery of a man to the moon.

For example, this is what the head of the task force, Donald Horniga, wrote about this in his conclusion when analyzing NASA's plan for the Apollo program: “Emotional arguments and national ambition are put in the rationale for manned programs. This is not a subject that can be discussed from an engineering standpoint.”

US President Eisenhower found the requested spending to be beyond reasonable. On December 20, 1960, the issue was considered at a meeting of the US National Security Council. Eisenhower's reaction was indifferent: "I don't care if man of the moon. Someone compared the situation to the one when the Spanish monarchy decided to finance the expensive expedition of Christopher Columbus, who discovered America as a result. Eisenhower, recalling the method used by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, replied that he "is not going to pawn his jewels to send a man to the moon."

But with the change of the President of the United States, the situation has changed. On May 25, 1961, American President John F. Kennedy delivered a speech to Congress in which he proclaimed the goal for the United States to carry out space flight with an astronaut landing on the surface of the Moon before the end of the decade. To this, former President Dwight Eisenhower wrote in the widely read Sunday Evening Post that "the race to the moon, the inevitable spending of huge sums and the increase in public debt is the wrong way."

But despite this, the Apollo program was adopted in 1961. Kennedy was able to convince Kennedy to accept this program by a consultant from his campaign headquarters, Richard Neustadt, writing in a note that the Apollo program, or rather, its key and most expensive part of it - the projected Saturn rocket, is a project of prestige, and that the United States is lagging behind the USSR and, most likely, will be left behind in rivalry with the USSR, therefore, it is necessary to withdraw from the race and redirect resources to getting a man to the moon.

On October 26, 1963, N. S. Khrushchev, answering journalists' questions, said that the Soviet Union did not plan to send a man to the moon. At that time, Korolev had a multi-launch scheme that involved assembling a lunar spacecraft in near-Earth orbit from separately launched modules. But it was not approved at the government level and therefore was not funded. Also, even before the launch of the lunar flight and lunar landing programs in the USSR, technical proposals were developed for the creation of a manned lunar orbital station L4.

The main initiator of the idea of manned flight to the Moon and even to Mars was Sergei Pavlovich Korolev.

But Korolev's views on the need for manned space exploration were opposed by the view of G. N. Babakin that only the exploration of outer space by robots would give real and quick benefits to mankind. And the decisive word in this rivalry was for V. Chelomey, who, being one of the key creators of the USSR nuclear missile shield and the head of the second of the main organizations for the creation of space technology (including manned), considered Babakin's view as more promising. Chelomey was the direct superior of Sergei Khrushchev, who was his deputy and was the son of N. S. Khrushchev. But after the removal of N. S. Khrushchev from power, Chelomey fell into disgrace, which gave Korolev the opportunity to implement his ideas. Therefore, only a few years later, with a great delay in relation to the United States, on August 3, 1964, the lunar manned program of the USSR was approved by a government decree.

Korolev originally planned a flight to Mars as more valuable than a flight to the Moon, but due to the launch of the US lunar program and the complex technical implementation "Martian" version, the project was revised towards the Moon.

But even further, Korolev ran into problems due to the fact that many did not share his idea of flying to the moon. The most experienced space propulsion design bureau Glushko refused to make powerful engines for spacecraft necessary for flight to the moon. Glushko was a principled opponent of flights to the Moon and advocated the creation of orbital near-Earth stations for defense purposes. Also, experienced Gosplan economists, with whom Korolev usually consulted, warned that the real figures for the necessary costs through the Ministry of Finance and the State Planning Commission will not be approved. Pashkov, highly knowledgeable in the politics of the State Planning Commission, advised to underestimate real costs, and in the future we will issue more than one decree, hardly anyone dares close the work of such a scale and then the money will be found! Therefore, the calculations that were submitted to the Central Committee and the Council of Ministers were underestimated. And when it came to allocating the necessary funds for it, the leaders of the country demanded that the designers observe the regime savings, and this only led to "raw" design solutions and a sharp decrease reliability of new space technology.

On January 14, 1966, Sergei Korolev dies during a medical operation. Further, in view of the fact that there were no more such supporters of the flight to the moon as Korolev, after the appointment of Glushko as the head and chief designer of NPO Energia, he closed the lunar program.


As you can see, landing a man on the moon had no practical significance, so the governments of the countries refused to allocate money for this. But when the leadership changed, this problem was resolved. The lack of practical significance led to the fact that the lunar manned program of the USSR was adopted much later than the United States. Even despite the fact that the lunar manned program was approved in the USSR, there were still frictions inside the USSR between Korolev (a supporter of flights to the moon) and those who believed that sending a man to the moon was economically unreasonable and pointless, which hindered this goal . Before the Americans reached the moon, Korolyov died, and later his opponents of a manned flight to the moon closed the lunar manned program of the USSR. The US put a man on the moon. Unlike the USSR, the US had a motive to reach the moon. They were served by the fact that the Americans had previously lost to the USSR all phases of the space race and thus wanted to rehabilitate themselves. But it was much more economically feasible to send interplanetary spacecraft to the Moon, which the USSR did. The USSR was already on the moon 10 years before the US landed a man on it.

In general, looking at the above facts, we can say that the space race was won by the USSR, and the USA won the lunar race.