In the 20th century, space projects of incredible scale were born in the minds of the best engineers in the USA and the USSR. All of them pursued only one goal - to overtake their geopolitical opponent. Only a small part of these programs received the right to life, but today we will remember exactly those that were never destined to be born.
Space fighters
Many have probably heard about the Spiral aerospace system, but not everyone knows about the similar American project X-20. But it was the X-20 Dyna Soar program that formed the basis of the very concept of military space complexes. Of course, projects for the creation of devices of this type have been worked out before, but only Boeing specialists have come close to implementing something similar.
The customers of the X-20 were the US Air Force. The creators had Napoleonic plans: a reusable orbital plane was supposed to effectively intercept spacecraft, conduct reconnaissance and even deliver nuclear strikes on the ground. Looking ahead, we note that this project turned out to be only a tempting utopia: the named tasks are better solved by highly specialized complexes. But the main reason for abandoning the program was its price - from 1957 to 1963, 410 million dollars were spent on it. As a result, the project was curtailed, and funds were redirected to the Gemini program.
By this time, the developers managed to build several prototypes of the X-20, as well as conduct a number of studies. The reusable vehicle was to be launched into orbit using the Titan launch vehicle (depending on the specific task, it was supposed to use different modifications of the rocket). An additional engine was not required to complete one turn, but if necessary, the X-20 could be enhanced by the third stage of the Martin Trans-Stage. It gave the X-20 the ability to make several orbits around the planet and maneuver in space, conducting operations to approach and neutralize Soviet satellites.
X-20 Dyna Soar project
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The ship itself was a small single-seat orbital aircraft. The length of the X-20 reached 10.7 m, the wingspan was 6.35 m. He could put 450 kg of payloads into orbit, and landed like an ordinary plane on the runway.
The Soviet leadership perceived Dyna Soar as a very real threat - and prepared its own response. In the 1960s, under the leadership of the legendary designer Gleb Lozino-Lozinsky, the equally legendary Spiral aerospace system was developed.
Even at the time of closure, the X-20 Dyna Soar program was still very far from practical implementation. But the seriousness of the American plans was proved by the fact that a detachment of volunteers was recruited for the X-20 - only seven people. Among these astronauts was Neil Armstrong, who later became the first person to set foot on the moon. By the way, for his outstanding endurance, he received the nickname "Ice Captain".
The Spiral differed from its overseas competitor mainly in its airborne horizontal takeoff. The vehicle was launched from a special hypersonic accelerator aircraft. The separation was supposed to take place at a speed of Mach 6 and an altitude of 30 km, and after separation, an accelerator operating on hydrogen fluoride fuel entered into action.
The main purpose of the program was, of course, the military. A small single-seat orbital aircraft (length 8 m, wingspan - 7.4) could be used to intercept enemy satellites, destroy naval targets with an air-to-surface missile, and conduct reconnaissance. The total weight of the combat load could reach 2000 kg. For maneuvering in orbit, it was planned to use liquid jet engines, and land in aircraft mode.
All these plans remained only in dreams. The result of a lot of work on the "Spiral" was the creation of an experimental (so far subsonic) aircraft MiG-105.11 - "Laptya", as it was nicknamed for its upturned blunt nose. In 1976, he first took to the air, and in 1977 he successfully took off from the carrier, the Tu-95 bomber, in flight. However, the subsonic counterpart was very far from the planned orbital complex and represented only the first step on a long and difficult journey, the journey along which did not work out.
Experimental aircraft MiG-105.11
Work on the complex was finally curtailed in 1979, when experiments were in full swing on another promising reusable ship project. The "Spiral" program cost the USSR 75 million rubles, and the high cost, along with the difficulty of implementation and the "lack of urgent tasks" became one of the main reasons for its closure. Moreover, the Americans abandoned their project back in the 1960s.
But by the end of the 1970s, the United States had already prepared the ground on which new shoots of concern for the Land of the Soviets were to grow. With the new "space threat" associated with the Space Shuttle program, the USSR was involved in yet another space race, the result of which was the creation of the Buran complex.
The unmanned orbital rocket plane (BOR) was created as part of the Spiral program, but did not take part in the tests. It was a 1: 2 scale model of an orbiting aircraft. The flying experimental apparatus was launched already in the year of Buran's tests, in 1982. BORs made a significant contribution to the implementation of the Buran program.
All in all, Dyna Soar and Spiral can be considered one of the most incredible space projects of all time: nothing like this has happened either before or since. And although even then the prospects for their implementation were very vague, in our century the concept is experiencing an unexpected renaissance, and the development of new reusable ships, such as the Dream Chaser, is in full swing in the United States. Fortunately, their full-fledged military use is no longer discussed.
MAKS is not only the abbreviation for the aerospace show, but also the designation for a promising orbital vehicle. The Multipurpose Aerospace System (MAKS) project was presented in the late 1980s. As in "Spiral", the orbital plane was to be launched using an air launch from the An-225 "Mriya" heavy aircraft. The project was not implemented, and the development was curtailed after the collapse of the USSR.
Lunar program of the USSR
While the results of the "lunar race" remained unclear, the Soviet Union was in a hurry to the moon at full steam. To send a manned expedition, a super-powerful rocket was required - which has become the N-1 complex, which has been developed since the early 1960s. The giant "Tsar Rocket" was created under the leadership of Sergei Korolev, and when he was gone, the work was continued by the designer Vasily Mishin.
The rocket consisted of five stages. Only on the first of them 30 liquid engines NK-33 were installed, creating a total thrust of 5130 tons. In total, the N-1 had 44 engines of five different models. The dry mass of N-1 reached 208 tons, and the starting mass could be 2950 tons. For comparison, the dry mass of the Soyuz-U launch vehicle, with the help of which the Progress spacecraft are put into orbit, is only 24 tons. On the other hand, N-1 was capable of launching a load weighing up to 100 tons into low-earth orbit, and delivering a payload of 34 tons to the Moon.
Spaceship L-3
For such a heavy missile and targets were appropriate. At first, it was even planned to use it to launch the modules of an interplanetary spacecraft into orbit, which will fly to Mars or Venus. But in the first half of the 1960s, these ideas were replaced by a much more realistic flight to a natural satellite of the Earth. From 1969 to 1972, four test launches of the H-1 were made - the rocket was like a curse: all the launches were unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the Americans landed on the moon.
Of all the launch vehicles that were sent into orbit, the largest and most powerful was the American Saturn V. The dry mass of the rocket was 235 tons, the launch weight reached 2328 tons, and the payload was 120 tons. One of its developers was the legendary German Wernher von Braun, and the rocket itself was eventually used for flights to the Moon under the Apollo program.
The unsuccessful N-1 rocket is sometimes called the main culprit for the defeat of the USSR in the lunar race, but this is only partially true. The reason for the lag behind the United States was a whole range of factors, including a lower technological level of production, and a lack of funding (in terms of the current rate, the lunar program cost the Americans $ 135 billion - five times more than the USSR's costs), as well as the lack of a clear understanding of the country's leadership their goals.
Booster rocket N-1
But there is another reason that is not always talked about. The fact is that there was often no proper coordination between the groups of Soviet developers and scientists. Probably, the long-standing rivalry between the royal OKB-1 and OKB-52 Academician Chelomey played a role in the defeat. One thing is indisputable: the main reason for the termination of the Soviet lunar program was the landing in 1969 on the moon of astronauts from the United States. The project has lost its relevance.
By the way, in the same OKB-1, the manned spacecraft LZ was developed, which was to become one of the main characters of the national lunar program. The 15-ton complex consisted of a lunar landing and lunar orbital vehicles. It was planned that when the ship reaches lunar orbit, the lander and orbital modules will separate. One astronaut will remain in orbit, while the other will land on the lunar surface using a lander. Then the lunar landing module will lift the astronaut back, dock with the orbital module - and the astronauts will go home.
Soviet lunar ship and American Apollo module
Soviet specialists borrowed many technical solutions from the United States, but the H1-L3 project was in many ways inferior to the Apollo program. So, instead of three astronauts (as on an American ship), only two could be on board the L3. Even the size of the American lunar module is almost twice the size of the Soviet one. As a result, the L3 spacecraft was never built, and the tests carried out within the framework of the H1-L3 program were limited to launching models and prototypes.
The project of an interplanetary spacecraft was born in the USSR in the first half of the 1960s, when Mars was considered as one of the flight targets. Then, two projects were being developed in parallel. The group of designer Gleb Maksimov was working on a small spacecraft for flying around Mars with a crew of up to three people. The group of Doctor of Technical Sciences, pilot-cosmonaut Konstantin Feoktistov had a completely different scale: his engineers planned to assemble a large ship in near-earth orbit. Such a device could be useful for very long journeys.
Laser installation "Skif"
Work on the "Skif" was started in the late 1970s at NPO Energia (already familiar to us OKB-1), and in 1981 they were picked up at the Salyut Design Bureau. The orbital platform was intended to destroy space objects with a laser, including American ships and satellites.
The complex and costly program was often attacked, and in 1983 it was completely canceled. However, it was soon revived through the fault of the Americans themselves, who announced the start of the Strategic Defense Initiative project. The USSR could not let everything take its course, and it was decided to resume work on the Skif.
An experimental sample of the complex, named "Polyus" ("Skif-DM"), weighed 77 tons with a length of 34 m. The station consisted of service and target blocks. The engine compartment contained four propulsion engines, orientation and stabilization engines, fuel tanks and other equipment. The complex was planned to be armed with a gas-dynamic laser of 100 kW, which had already passed a long way of testing by the time of launch.
On May 15, 1987, the installation was sent into space using the Energia super-heavy launch vehicle. However, after its separation, there was a failure, and the complex "Skif-DM" fell into the Pacific Ocean, never reaching orbit. It was the ending, and the ending is tragic.
Launch vehicle "Energia" and complex "Skif-DM"
The cost of the Skif program is not known for certain, but it often figures among the most expensive space projects in the USSR. Problems in the country's economy, combined with technical miscalculations, led to the completion of research.
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)
This program began in 1983, when Reagan promised to create a fantastic "umbrella" to protect the United States and its allies from Soviet missiles. However, many experts question the defensive nature of SDI, since this program could be used for offensive purposes.
To disassemble SOI in detail, a whole multivolume work will be required, therefore, we will note only the main points. The scale of the project can be understood by one figure: $ 21 billion - that is how much was spent only on basic research within the SDI. How much the program would have cost if implemented is anyone's guess.
The most "simple" elements of SDI were anti-missiles. Especially for SDI, Lockheed Martin presented the HOE (Homing Overlay Experiment) project: the interceptor missile operated by kinetic interception of the target - the target was hit not by a blast wave, but by striking elements that opened in the manner of a propeller. But the innovative ideas of kinetic interception were not limited to this either.
Homing Overlay Experiment project
Experts put forward the idea of Briliant Pebbles - compact satellites that would rotate in orbit, and at the X hour would already be aimed at Soviet ballistic missiles, and could sprinkle them with heavy tungsten shock blocks the size of a watermelon. It was planned that a flotilla of almost 4,000 such mini-satellites would operate in space, instantly ready for action.
In addition, the Americans wanted to have in orbit stations with laser installations for interception. For the delivery of orbital lasers, NASA was going to use the famous Space Shuttle ships. It was planned that the power of the space chemical laser will reach 20 MW, which is enough to neutralize ballistic targets.
Among the incredible developments of the SOI program are the Prometheus and CHECMATE projects. The first of them provided for the destruction of missiles by something like buckshot, formed as a result of nuclear detonation of a huge "space plate". And CHECMATE meant placing electromagnetic weapons on orbital stations …
Even now, the debate continues about whether the SDI program was an attempt to defend against Soviet missiles, or whether it pursued completely different goals - for example, to drag the USSR into another senseless and super-expensive space race, dealing a severe blow to the Soviet economy. If we consider the program from this side, then it certainly fulfilled its task.
The SDI program was closed in the early 1990s, when it became finally clear that it would not be able to solve the entire range of missile defense tasks. Naturally, the “cosmic” price of the project and the collapse of the USSR played a role. But if almost all Soviet developments of the late 1980s have sunk into oblivion, then many developments in SDI have been embodied in other defense projects.
Ilya Vedmedenko