2001: A Space-Time Odyssey

[michelvan]

9 - Red China's New Strong Man

The Relationship between USSR and China deteriorated in 1960 during Soviet state visit to China.
Thanks to Nikita Khrushchev's unlucky metaphor about how "you need to change worn old shoes“,
Referring to China's authoritarian form of communism similar to Stalinism, need to reformed.
This was translated into the Chinese metaphor of "you need to get rid of the old whore“,
Mao Zedong considered this a major insult on his person.
Until 1966 the USSR and Chinese relations deteriorated to the worst they could be.

Nikita Khrushchev economic reforms which moved the USSR to less emphasis heavy Industry toward consumer goods by individual enterprises,
in addition to the increasing amount of free political criticism and changing attitudes associated with the Khrushchev Thaw.

Was interpreted by conservative Maoist as treason toward communism and was denounced as "reactionary" and "revisionist"
But Mao had other problems, the Chinese politburo wanted to remove him from power, because of a series of disastrous programs ordered by Mao
And the current situation between USSR and China, with the USSR and US's relations improving despite the situation in Vietnam.

In 1966 Mao Zedong found a Solution to that: The Cultural Revolution
Official a Movement by groups of fanatic young people (Red Guards) operate under Mao orders, against authorities at all levels in China.
Mao Zedong wanted to eliminate his political enemies, special the reformist, but the situation escalated into a civil war in China and went out control.
As in industrial City of Wuhan, Red Guards started to fights under each other!
Beginning in 1967 it went so bad that that Mao Zedong had to fly personal to Wuhan to deal with situation.
It was a certain Irony that Mao Zendong was killed there in shoot out between rivals Red Guards fraction!

The News of Mao dead let to the "30 Day Crisis“ a battle over control of People’s Republic of China.
Like Mao Widow, Jiang Qing and three other High rang official operating as "Gang of Four“ trying to take over the Chinese politburo but failed.
The winner of Crisis became the Chinese People’s Liberation Army under commando of Marshall Lin Biao, who restored law and order in China.
Lin Biao ruled with hard hand over China and cleaned up Mao Zedong's followers and Red Guards,
Made necessary reforms, leading China out it’s political isolation.
His top priority in 1968 was the Vietnam war and reconciling with the USSR, with Success, Kosygin was very receptive to reconciliation with China.
On North Vietnam, Lin Biao supported them with weapons, material and Advisors, including massive buildup of Troops at North Vietnamese border.
He also started an arms race to build an ICBM that could hit the USA,

After the death of Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh in the beginning of 1968, the resulting Power struggle under the north Vietnam leadership,
That was won by Pro China forces in the North Vietnamese Politburo!
The beginning of the Sino-North Vietnamese alliance
Now the USA faced a similar scenario, they had during the Korean War,
Danger of south Vietnam being over run by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. But this time they got Nuclear weapons !
For US Capitol Hill "The Chinese Nightmare“ started.



Notes:
Khrushchev's remaining in office and his continuation of reforms, rapprochement to the West and the rise of a new class of market reformers in the USSR like Alexei Kosygin.
Lead to a greater backlash in China and the Cultural Revolution being even more violent than in our timeline.
There is no Maoism movement, allot Left Radicals orientating now on Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh movement and their way of political combat!
mean Germany, France, Italy will see more radical Left terrorism warfare in 1970s as in our timeline

[lordroel]

Feb 26, 2022 19:53:34 GMT michelvan said:

except that airplane crash during landing at Wuhan killing all on board

Seems if you are a leader of a Communist country, avoid flying as it gets you killed.

[michelvan]

Feb 26, 2022 19:59:47 GMT lordroel said:

Seems if you are a leader of a Communist country, avoid flying as it gets you killed.

Or like secret agent once say "Small Aircraft to have such a poor safety Record"

[lordroel]

Feb 26, 2022 20:09:36 GMT michelvan said:

Feb 26, 2022 19:59:47 GMT lordroel said:

Seems if you are a leader of a Communist country, avoid flying as it gets you killed.

Or like secret agent once say "Small Aircraft to have such a poor safety Record"

If they are build in the Soviet Union it seems.

[michelvan]

I modify the Post pull aircraft crash out, better ?

[lordroel]

Feb 26, 2022 21:10:24 GMT michelvan said:

I modify the Post pull aircraft crash out, better ?

Well he is death, so not better for him.

[michelvan]

10 - The Moon Race Heats Up

USA and USSR were building the Biggest Rocket ever know it was time to Test them.

The Soviet N1 had allot problems it's designer Korolev died, The L-3 Complex became to heavy
Sergei Khrushchev and Vasily Mishin had to modified N1 for payload of 95 to 105 metric tons
They chilled propellants to fill more in tanks and increase number of engines in first stage from 16 to 22 !

The N1-L3 Rocket made its first launch on July 6, 1967.
After lift off problems started as engine n°12 suffered problems, in response the autopilot KORD wrongly shutdown a working engine on the opposed side!
54.5 seconds after launch the KORD reported engines 11, 12 and 13 were shutting down and a rise of temperature show there was a fire in first Stage.
Then 68.87 second after launch the fire burned the wire harness of engine bay, KORD shot down all engines of first stage, crashing the rocket down range,
while the launch escape tower rescued the boilerplate crew capsule.
The failure analysis was difficult, one problem was KORD's faulty plotting, after Engine 12 went in trouble,
another mystery was what happened to engine 11, 12 and 13 and where had the fire started ?
Flight data show that engine 12's turbo pump suddenly started violently vibrating at 51 second,
followed by the turbo pumps of engine 11 snd 13.

The Soviet Academy of sciences independent investigation board had this theory:
That liquid oxygen line were too brittle because, they had use much cooler propellant than originally designed.
It ruptured under the harsh conditions of launch and the pogo oscillations produce by the engines.
The liquid oxygen poured out onto the running engine starting the fire.
Meanwhile the engine turbo pumps started running dry leading to violent vibrations, beginning the fatal chain reaction which lead to the destruction of N1-L3

It was a bad surprise for OKB-1, before the launch of the next N1 they had to replace the Stage's liquid oxygen lines, overwork KORD and install better Pogo dampers.
The N1-L4 was pulled out production and scraped.

On November 9th 1967 the Saturn V successfully performed it's first flight,
But the rest of Program was not running good, the Apollo modification delay manned Test flight Apollo 7 to autumn 1968,
The Lunar Module was also facing considerable delays, threatening the 1970 deadline !
The First LM prototype was Tested in space with Apollo 5, but was not Manned ready do issues with flight computers.
April 4th, 1968. the Second test of Saturn V ended in problems: massive Pogo, failure of J-2 engines and failed restart of third stage !

While NASA start debug the Saturn V, The Soviets made another Launch attempt on July 1968 with the N1-L5.
The flight went good until the 104 second were engine 4 having trouble and a overzealous safety range officer activated, the N1 self-destruct mechanism.
The failure analyst Repot showed clearly that despite the failure of engine 4,
the N1-L5 could have bring the payload in lower orbit had safety range officer not acted.
On November 1968 the N1-L6 was launched despite problems with KROD and premature first stage separation, the payload reached Low Earth Orbit
25 hours after it’s launch, the unmanned L3-Complex test model made the Trans Lunar Injection toward the Moon.
101 hours later the L3-Complex reach the moon where... nothing happened.
The Block-D failed to re-ignite as the L3-Complex passed by the moon and returned back to Earth on it's circumlunar trajectory.

In mean time the Americans notice a large number of Proton rocket launches to moon
There were heavy payload in two category: lunar fly by with return to Earth, the other lunar landings
In June 1968 one of Heavy probes manage to land safely on the lunar surface.
That Probe transmitted signals on 130 and 190 kHz, much to surprise of CIA analysts, it was of TV Cameras.
Their new probe was a remotely controlled rover ! It was intriguing for CIA analysts and NASA engineers to secretly watch on their equipment,
The attempts by controllers in USSR to drive the Rover in search of... something.
After it reach a flat area it stop and turned its cameras off, switching to a 1000 kHz signal that repeated itself until it was interrupted by The lunar night.
The Soviet labeled this probe as Lunokhod 1, another Triumph of USSR.

Sidenote:
POGO is term for a dangerous self-excited combustion oscillation in liquid fuel rockets, causing in extrem situation the destruction of the vehicle during flight.
 

[lordroel]

Feb 27, 2022 11:21:48 GMT michelvan said:

10 - The Moon Race Heats Up

The Soviet labeled this probe as Lunokhod 1, another Triumph of USSR.

The United States must do something, the Soviet Union keeps stealing the spotlight in space.

[michelvan]

Feb 27, 2022 11:24:37 GMT lordroel said:

The United States must do something, the Soviet Union keeps stealing the spotlight in space.

This SpaceRace run on different approach:

USA use the best, but are in uncharted territory of Technology, Apollo CSM, Lunar Module and Saturn V need debugging.
USSR use "Sleg Hammer Approach" in Technology, but has issue with Quality control.
Who ist first to manage solve to there problems is first on Moon

[michelvan]

11 - First Men around the Moon

NASA was in dilemma, the Saturn V underwent modification, Apollo 7 finally ready for manned flight for October 1968,
But Lunar Module was not ready for manned test flight, to heavy, electrical problems and issues with the flight computers.
Grumman believed the LM could be ready for manned Testing in begin 1969 with possible manned landing mid 1969 !
What to do ?
There were several option: wait until 1969 for Apollo 8 and test LM,
or launch Apollo 8 with Spy Sat Camera to moon, but that would take too much time and money, needed for Lunar landing.
Finally Frank Bormann proposed to NASA to launch Apollo 8 without LM to moon testing the Third Saturn V and Apollo CSM.
Marshall Space Flight Center schedule that Saturn V will ready for December 1968 launch of Apollo 8.

Meanwhile the CIA was keeping a close eye on the activities of the Soviets. there had series of failures
The first N1 test flight endet in Disaster, their new Soyuz spacecraft had seems serious issue, also their Zond probes.
Also a explosion on launch pad show the Soviets has serious problems !
The CIA assessment was that USSR would unlikely send a Human to Moon in 1968, with high probability during 1969.

But Soviets catch up with success of Soyuz 1 to 4 with two docking, also successful unmanned testing of their Lunar lander (LK) in orbit.
Now they planned another docking with Soyuz 5&6 this time with LK and Soyuz 7 the first cislunar flight !
Official the unmanned Zond 9, the preparation wenn secretly, the KGB found creative ways to fool the CIA with false information.
On september 14 launched Soyuz 5 and on October 11 Soyuz 6, they almost failed the rendezvous and docking LK by using too much propellants.



Them on November 10, 1968 Zond 9 is launch with Aleksei Leonov and Oleg Makarov on a Proton rocket
Once the Trans Lunar Injection was successful, the TASS announcement that Soyuz 7 is on way to Moon
While world press went hysterical, the flight to Moon was quite uneventful for Crew
Their problem was to ware there spacesuit true there 7 days mission
On 14 November 1968, Soyuz 7 passt the Moon at a minimum distance of 2420 km
As capsule return behind the moon, Leonov quote to the world the now famous phrase by the Russian father of the Space Age
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

Man will not always stay on Earth; the pursuit of light and space will lead him to penetrate the bounds of the atmosphere, timidly at first,
but in the end to conquer the whole of solar space.

The return trip show more and more problem with Soyuz craft, like the falling temperatures of the hydrogen peroxide tanks.
The Crew turn craft so that tanks got heated by sun, what damage the seals around the door of the re-entry cabin by cold.
The landing on 17 November went not well, the capsule depressurised, the crew survive that in there Space Suits,
Follow by malfunction of the automatic skip reentry, the crew endure over 15G but landed in Soviet union
Leonov and Makarov were hospitalised.

Despite all the sacrifice the entire mission accomplished almost nothing scientifically,
much to the dismay of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
Soyuz 7 was an engineering demonstration mission aimed at proven all the critical mission systems for a more ambitious goal of having the Soviet flag standing proudly on the lunar surface.
Designation Zond 9 was given to failed L-3 Complex of N1-L6 launch

Sidenote 
Soviet Lunar lander is called Lunniy korabyl (lunar craft) short LK 

[stevep]

   michelvan ,

   Well that's a wake up call for both sides.  The US will be panicking that the Soviets are ahead again so might do something rash, especially if the Soviets can keep all their problems secret.  In turn the Soviet scientists and technical experts, while the government will be broadcasting their success, will be frantically looking to sort out all the problems exposed before their leaders push for the next mission.

  IIRC Apollo 8 was the 1st mission that orbited the moon and saw the far side OTL?  Think its the earliest Apollo mission I was aware of.

  If both nations go to the Moon then its likely the space race will continued a good bit longer, which will take up a lot of resources but in the longer term could get some big bonuses for science and technology. 

  Steve

[michelvan]

12 - The Neck to Neck Race

In USA people were disappointed that Soviets beat them to manned lunar fly by
James Webb resign from Office and January 1969, Thomas o. Paine became new Administrator of NASA.
And continue the Countdown for Apollo 8 and prepared Apollo 9 to 11.
At last Apollo 7 flight went well for Hardware, but not for Astronauts who were in conflict with overeager Mission Control.
Werner Von Braun got the bugs out Saturn V, While Rocketdyne worked hard to find the Issue with J-2 engines,
Grumman completed LM-3 for Apollo 9 flight, but testing show new problems with electrical system.

On December 21, 1968 Apollo 8 was launch, the Saturn V worked as planned.
it's enter as first manned spacecraft Lunar orbit, something the Soyuz 7 was unable to do !
On 24 December the crew made a broadcast, were commander Bormann read out "Book of Genesis" from the Bible.
This was later maliciously commented in the Pravda: "The Americans begging their God to win the Moon Race"
On 27 December the crew of Apollo 8 made safe landing in pacific.
The Crew was welcome with ticker-tape parade in USA,
While the New York Times comment cynical "Were is the ticker-tape parade for moon Cosmonauts ?!"
In fact Leonov and Makarov were still hospitalised, confirmed by a teeth cursing Khrushchev.
The soviet space agency, because of issue with Soyuz 7, canceled all Soyuz cislunar flights and focus manned lunar landing.

Thomas Paine had to face political problems by Capitol Hill and new US President Richard Nixon.
Those politician demanded a acceleration of Moon landing with Apollo 10.
But LM-3 and LM-4 were heavy test article and not able for moon landing,
Paine explains that Apollo 9 and 10 are needed test flight to qualified the LM-5 for Apollo 11.
On March 3, 1969 Apollo 9 was launched and Lunar Modul Spider was tested successful.

Also successful was the fourth Test launch of N1 in February.
N1-L7 manage to bring unmanned Soyuz LOK and it's LK-lander in moon orbit and tested them remote.
This qualified the N1 Rocket for Manned Flight and got new designation: Luna
Then the CIA discovers that Soviet rollout TWO N1 rockets and installed them on launch pads !

USA counter with launch of Apollo 10 to Moon orbit and test LM Snoopy, on May 18, 1969.
That test became almost a Disaster, the descent went well until the LM reached 14 km over lunar surface.
As the descent stage is separated, the LM accent stage start to react violently and to rotate,
Stafford and Cernam fought hard to stabilize the LM.
The two uttered several expletives until gaining control over Snoopy, close to the moment before the rotation became unrecoverable,
After docking with Charlie Brown, they return to Earth and splash down in Pacific on May 26.

Since January 1969 run the Countdown for Apollo 11, in May the Saturn V was fully assembled, tested, and rollout to Launch pad.
The Rocket was check and undergoes flight readiness test and on June 26 the Countdown Demonstration Test
Now Only wait until Moon is right position for launch and that is July 16, 1969;

Only question was how far are the soviets ready to launch ?

[lordroel]

Mar 1, 2022 16:43:58 GMT michelvan said:

12 - The Neck to Neck Race

In USA people were disappointed that Soviets beat them to manned lunar fly by
James Webb resign from Office and January 1969, Thomas o. Paine became new Administrator of NASA.

Lets hope he can do a better job.

[michelvan]

Mar 1, 2022 16:50:48 GMT lordroel said:

Mar 1, 2022 16:43:58 GMT michelvan said:

12 - The Neck to Neck Race

In USA people were disappointed that Soviets beat them to manned lunar fly by
James Webb resign from Office and January 1969, Thomas o. Paine became new Administrator of NASA.

Lets hope he can do a better job.

He works under Nixon...
... and Nixon not tolerate Failure!

[michelvan]

13 - A Man on the Moon

This post is dedicated to a man, who off all, had the right to be first on the Moon.

During 1967 and 1969 the Soviet tested there L3-complex in low orbit.
First unmanned as Kosmos satellites, then manned Rendezvous with Soyuz, follow by Rendezvous with Lunniy korabl
all went good (with some problems) except Soyuz 7 cislunar

Soyuz 10 was another thing is was analog to Apollo 10, to bring the Lunniy korabl to moon and land it automatic on moon.
On June, 1969 the First Manned N1-L8 was launched, on board was Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Gorbatko.
nearly perfect flight except that Block-D use almost too much fuel for Lunar orbit injection.
But they were able to ready the LK and send it to way to the surface, guides by a 1000 kHz signal emit by Lunokhod 2.

While the CIA and NASA believed that Soyuz 10 was Soviet version Apollo 10, follow end of year by manned landing
and Apollo 11 Launch was scheduled launch on 16 July, 1969.
But Soviet ministry of Space was cautious, they wasn't confident in the LK lander's reliability.
and weren't about to risk the life of their heroic lunar cosmonaut without redundancy.
So Soyuz 10 mission was to bring the Backup Lunniy korabl to it destination for flight of Soyuz 11
At 27 June as the Americans did the Countdown Demonstration Test with Apollo 11
The Soyuz-11 blasted off with Pavel Popovich and Vladimir Komarov.



After it entered into a 200 km low earth orbit it remained there for 25 hours, checking the systems and uploaded new information for TLI
28 June Soyuz 11 made it Trans Lunar Injection burn. It will need over 5 days to reach the Moon
until Soyuz 11 entered an elliptical lunar orbit (150x50 km) at afternoon of the 2 July.
On 3 July the Crew located the Lunokhod 3 and LK-backup landing site.
LOK pilot Pavel Popovich and Flight Engineer Vladimir Komarov prepared the landing procedure,
the L-3 complex lowered its orbit to 100 km by 20 km
Vladimir Komarov enter his Kerchet Spacesuit and began to EVA to the LK craft,
He entered it and started up its systems then detached the LK with its Block-D from the Load-baring structure cover and LOK
Komarov used the Block-D last propellants reserves to brake out of Lunar orbit descending toward the surface,
Guided by 1000 kHz signal radio beacon from Lunokhod 2.
4000 meter over lunar surface Komarov jettison the Empty block-D and ignite the LK engines.
On July 4 1969 Vladimir Milhaylovich Komarov landed as First human in history on the Moon.
Only 177 meter near Lunokod 2 and 360 meter near LK-backup
While Komarov prepared his EVA, Lunokhod 2 was reactivated and rolled toward the LK
Film by it’s TV cameras, Komarov exit the LK, erecting the Flag of USSR and saluting it,
Televised world wide by TASS with background music, the Soviet national anthem.
For a moment Komarov looked up at the Earth and said:

"Планета есть колыбель разума, но нельзя вечно жить в колыбели"
Translation: "Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever"

After that Komarov pulled the Scientific equipment package out the LK and deployed that near by, then he collected samples of Lunar soil and rocks.
He made several photos of his LK, the Lunokhod 2 which followed him via remote control and the LK-Backup at lunar horizon.
After 3 hours of exhausting EVA, he made a report over TV camera outside LK and return into in for the first meal on the Moon and resting.
While he was eating something happened as he heard a loud BANG follow by hissing sound, lucky Komarov was inside his Spacesuit with faceplate up, which he close very fast.
It was not the Pressurized cosmonaut compartment, but the pressurized avionic container which depressurized !
and that was even worse, the avionic was cooled by nitrogen gas which ventilated through containers, now that it was depressurised,
The electronics started to overheat fast and was now failing, Komarov report what happen before the LK radios went dead.

Mission Control in Kaliningrad, react in turmoil and consternation at the news, now everything lies on the flight control crew of the Lunakhod 2 in getting Komarov to backup LK.
But the question was whether his LK-backup had a similar problem?
Komarov inspected his LK, took photos of the depressurized avionic container and took the Sample container to Lunokhod 2.
and hold tight on Rover, which was driven as fast as they could toward the LK-Backup.
Komarov radioed home with the backup LK and without hesitation initiated the ascent order and took off a mere 4 hours after initially arriving on the Moon.
Now it was the turn of LOK Pilot Pavel Popovich, because the LK had a passive rolle in Rendezvous and docking,
it was the task of Popovich to manage to catch up the LK and dockt with it,
Komarov made his final EVA with his samples and Photos back to the LOK.
On 5 July at 10:59 the LOK jettison it’s Utility module with it dockt LK and return to Earth.
at 8 July around 10:00 the Descent Module entered the Earth's atmosphere for a skip maneuver and re-entered for landing on USSR.

Vladimir Milhaylovich Komarov was awarded a second time with "The Hero of The Soviet Union“ and "order of Lenin“.
The flight control crew of Lunokhod 2 was awarded with "The Hero of The Soviet Union“ and "order of Lenin“ for rescue of Komarov.

The LK malfunction was do to a faulty seal on the pressurized avionic container, which caused the depressuring, reason was a faulty acceptance test at the point of manufacture.

Acting General Sectary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Alexei Kosygin announced the official Soviet program of manned Exploration of Solar system called: Galaktika (Russian for Galaxy)
Comprised of further Moon expeditions and a Soviet Space Station program beginning in the 1970s.

In USA the disappointment was great, on their National holiday,
the commies landed on Moon first and made spectacularly heroic events wordy of a Hollywood Movie.
Nixon's first reaction was to fire NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine and and lucking for New Administrator
Now the responsibility lay on Nixon to react to the Soviet victory and challenge.
On 16 July Apollo 11 lifted off to the Moon.

SIDENOTE:
This was original written in July 2015
For All Mankind was broadcast November 1, 2019