[FPSPACE] N-1 video

[E.P. Grondine]

Hi everyone - 

All of you are already familiar with the TMK:

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/tmk1.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/tmke.htm

http://www.astronautix.com/craft/os.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/os.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/os11965.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/os11969.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/mkbs.htm

And then of course Chelomei's team's alternatives:
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ur700.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craftfam/almaz.htm

And Korolev working to keep Chelomei's initial Almaz business in his own firm:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/sever.htm

Note that at the beginning of these programs, Mars was thought to be Earth like. Mars was the goal, and not only in the Soviet Union. You can see the Empire class in the US:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/empkheed.htm

After Mariner 4, both nations lost much interest in Mars.
Mars is not Earth-like.

Note that both groups of engineers proposed the use of lunar orbital stations. For crude representation of a late 1990's concept for this type of architecture, see:

http://www.geocities.com/epgrondine

What would have happened if the Soviet Union had of stuck with the TMK architectures is an alternative history.
What would have happened had they not split their efforts
is an alternative history. 

China has no splits between firms in their programs, which is one reason why they will achieve results at minimum costs. Another is that they have decades of the space engineering of other countries to draw upon. Finally, and very significantly, they have tightly and clearly defined goals.

Can we stop Thikol's Ares 1 and the Ares 5 now and get on with Direct and CAPS?

E.P. Grondine
Man and Impact in the Americas
and A History of Cosmonautics




_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail® is up to 70% faster. Now good news travels really fast. 
http://windowslive.com/online/hotmail?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_70faster_032009
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.friends-partners.org/pipermail/fpspace/attachments/20090316/99bcaa72/attachment.html