I've heard the same story. Speculation, like you say, but it fits well with his record (e.g. Berlin, Patton vs. Bradley, Monty, etc...). Certainly one of those stories I'd like to be true.

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In the progress of this discussion I shall endeavor to give a satisfactory answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may seem to have any claim to your attention.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

Therefore, using the backup plan of the Van Braun team was acceptable.

Yes, that's about it. Space wasn't a priority, and so it was acceptable to use the all-American design even though it was known to have taken longer. It simply wasn't worth the political battle. Von Braun still wasn't trusted by many in the government; some still saw him as a prisoner of war.

I've heard some speculation that Ike may have wanted the Soviets to be the first to launch a satellite.

Well, sort of. The question of invasion of airspace was something they were concerned about. They simply didn't know how the Soviets were going to react, whether they would complain about unauthorized overflights of their country. When the Soviets launched Sputnik, the administration was relieved that the Soviets had answered the question for them.

The USSR did initally have much much larger launch vehicles than the US.

Yes, and this was a legitimate cause for concern and a legitimate advantage. However part of the big booster line was the cluster of small engines. The Russians couldn't figure out how to build big motors. It's about the metallurgy and the fluid dynamics. And their big rocket motors kept blowing up. So instead of five big motors, the Soviet launchers had 20 little motors. And sometimes one of those motors would fail catastrophically, and sometimes the complicated plumbing would gum up. And eventually they found they couldn't scale that strategy up to N-1 sizes. In the long run it's not a good way to build launchers. But in the short run it got them quickly to a solid position in space.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Everything I know about Soviet space program (well, quite a bit of it at least) I learned from the Encyclopedia Astronautica, comrade.

And I understood that since we got the pick of the litter from the Peenemunde crew after WW2, and had more advanced warhead design, we developed boosters that were more precise but had lower lift capability. So when it came to boosting something into orbit instead of a ballistic trajectory halfway across the planet, the Soviet "big dumb and ugly" rockets had much more thrust and could be used with less modification.

Even in military matters, the Soviet "simpler gear but LOTS of it" paradigm was contrasted with the West's ever spiraling reliance on sophisticated technology, precision "force mulitpliers". I think this design philosophy may have reached to their manned program as well.

But I hardly ever watch the History Channel, so what do I know?

BTW, here is the official Vanguard Project Page, courtesy the USNAVY. Some other great early bootser projects on that page as well, including confiscated V2s. Seems back in the day all the armed forces had their own space plans, until the efforts were consolidated into the NASA.
A Navy in space?

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Lyford Rome
"Zis is not nuts, zis is super-nuts!"
Mathematician Richard Courant on viewing an Orion test

ICBM versus manned booster has its roots in the economics of that type of warfare.

In engineering, you can get 99% reliability for a certain price, say $10. But that last point of reliability is quite a bit harder to obtain than the previous reliability. It may cost you another $10 for 99.9% reliability. And perhaps another $20 for 99.99% reliability. So to get "four nines" costs you four times as much as only "two nines". The point to understand is that changing the resource allocation for a project doesn't result in a linear change in the quality of the final product.

If you have $100 to spend on ICBMs, and you want to take out five targets, what do you buy? Well, if you get the most reliable ICBM, you can only buy two, and you can't hit four targets. If you get the least reliable, you can get ten of them and assign two to each target. The chances of both ICBMs failing, at 99% each, is 0.01%. That means you get your "four nines" of reliability -- on a target-by-target basis -- by buying ten cheap missiles instead of some minimum number of very expensive missiles.

It gets more complicated when you factor in defenses, but you get the idea. The best results are not automatically obtained by making each article more reliable.

But if you're building manned launchers instead of ICBMs, your "construction" of reliability is completely different. You can't tolerate any individual failure well, so you automatically buy the expensive booster for each mission.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Jay

You say that you are not in the belittling of the Soviet space program, but then you write with respect to Vostock that it was inferior because it did not address an entire segment of the mission. They did address that segment of the mission but in a manner different to the US. How is that inferior?

The FAI's opinion is completely irrelevant to whether or not Vostok was a succesful design. The design criteria for Vostock was to provide the basis for a spacecraft to could fly both crewed and uncrewed missions. By these criteria it was a success. I agree that the Soveit's kept Gagarin's ejection secret until at least the late 80's (although it was fairly well known before then that he had, infact, done so) and that this was done to placate the FAI. However, in the end the FAI's opinion is irrelvevant. Gagarin was the first person to orbit the earth, regardless of whether he landed with it or ejected.

A soft landing is indeed one you can walk away from. Neither the US nor the Soviet's had a true soft landing system for their first generation spacecraft. The US opted to use a water landing (no doubt partly because of the location of the Atlantic missile range), the Soviets the ejection system. Different approaches because of different geography. It is not a question of inferiority. Vostok did had provision for water landings, just as Mercury had for coming down on land.

You said that "The question is not whether the technology was good, but whether it was better than the Americans' and sooner." This is not the issue here. I have never said it was better, only different, and have argued that some specific claims of Soviet inferiority were erroneous.

You wrote: But in this forum the answer to that question is almost always, "To make Apollo look like it came out of nowhere, and thus decrease its credibility." Given that the crebibility of Apollo is not the issue being discussed or is it at stake in the discussion I think you are a little over sensitive.

Cheers

Jon
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Irishman, You wrote:

"For many people, the first time they learn about some of those firsts is from that list from the hoax proponents"

What gives you this idea? Most people these days are notr evwen aware of the Soveit space program in any way and those who are have got their knowledge from sources other that the hoax nutters.

"Many of the Soviet firsts were really reckless stunts"

With the arguable exception of Voskhod 1, I would disagree.

"How far ahead were the Soviets? Far enough ahead that they had a full radio communications relay satellite while the U.S. was still trying to build a ball with spokes (Explorer I)? No."

Your point is?

"And that's the point of Daryl71's comments - many of the labeled Soviet technological superiorities were really political gimmicks. "

Again I diagree, with the possible exception of Voskhod 1. The soviet space program was precisely that, a program of many parts and the the achievements that led to perceived (emphasis on perceived, as opposed to actual) technological superiority was demonstrated with the context of larger programs of space science, miltitary and and economic applications.

Jon

They did address that segment of the mission but in a manner different to the US. How is that inferior?

How is it not? Their rationale, by their own admission, is that they couldn't figure out how to make the spacecraft land, so they just ignored that part of the problem. If you solve only a portion of the problem, how is that not an inferior solution compared to one that lands?

The FAI's opinion is completely irrelevant to whether or not Vostok was a succesful design.

No. You said "by any criteria" it was a good design. The Soviets agreed to conform to the FAI criteria. Then they didn't, and lied about it for years. How is this irrelevant?

By these criteria it was a success.

Yes, but that's not a satisfaction of the statement. My argument is not that there isn't a criterion by which Vostok is a successful design. And I've made that more than plain. You seem to be saying that no matter how you slice it, Vostok was successful. That's just patently wrong. And arguably the most important criterion that could be applied -- the standards the Soviets had previously agreed to meet -- was not met. It doesn't have to be totally useless in order to be inferior. It just has to lack something that something else has.

However, in the end the FAI's opinion is irrelvevant.

Nowadays it is, but we're not talking about nowadays. We're talking about the attitudes and observations that prevailed at the time. The FAI's opinion would be irrelevant in any case had the U.S. and the Soviet Union not previously agreed to be bound by that opinion. If the Soviets had not wanted the FAI certification of their record they would not have lied about the ejection.

Gagarin was the first person to orbit the earth, regardless of whether he landed with it or ejected.

Agreed. But you cannot infer supremacy of the program from that fact, if by supremacy you mean to include technological capability.

Neither the US nor the Soviet's had a true soft landing system for their first generation spacecraft.

Hogwash. The very first Mercury could land its pilot safely on land or water, with the latter preserving the spacecraft intact. The Vostok couldn't under any circumstances.

You said that "The question is not whether the technology was good, but whether it was better than the Americans' and sooner." This is not the issue here.

Funny, I though it was. Daryl said, "When I was younger, I firmly believed that the Soviet Union's early space achievements outshadowed that of the United State's." He then goes on to examine various Soviet technological limitations that questions whether the many records the Soviets set were a true indication of their capacity.

I have never said it was better, only different...

True, but irrelevant. If you're going to compare one program to another, you have to find some way of comparing them directly according to one set of criteria. Showing that each was successful within a certain frame of reference doesn't answer the question of supremacy.

Given that the crebibility of Apollo is not the issue being discussed or is it at stake in the discussion...

Not directly. But Daryl asks, "Why is the Soviet superiority in manned space flight consistently overstated?" I've never seen it overstated except by people who then go on to say that Apollo's success in that context is suspicious. The answer, then, to his question is that Soviet superiority is overstated in order to make U.S. successes -- especially Apollo -- seem more out of place.

I think you are a little over sensitive.

I may be. I apologize if I've offended you.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

With the arguable exception of Voskhod 1, I would disagree.

I've talked to people from the ex-Soviet program who confirm it. I've read statements by others from the ex-Soviet program who confirm it. I've read authors who attribute Khrushchev's deposing in part to his continued (not momentary) recklessness in managing the country's space program.

There seems to be little question these days that the early Soviet space program was merely an exercise in firstmanship.

The soviet space program was precisely that, a program of many parts and the the achievements that led to perceived (emphasis on perceived, as opposed to actual) technological superiority...

Is that not the definition of a stunt in this context? An exercise designed to convey the illusion of greater capability than was actually possible? The consensus among space historians, including Russian ones, is that the early Soviet space program was specifically designed to fool the world.

...larger programs of space science, miltitary and and economic applications.

Programs that did not materialize until Brezhnev took over. There were coherent plans early on, but Khrushchev routinely co-opted them for political purposes leading to a sabotage of the infrastructure the Soviets wanted to build.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Did the USSR ever have the equivalence of the U.S. X-15 program?

Not as far as I can tell, which is a bit odd considering that most of their designers cut their teeth trying to build rocket interceptors during the war. There were a number of high-subsonic rocket planes in the early 1950s, the equivalent of, say, the D-558-2 Skyrocket in the 1950s, and famously, tests of spaceplane designs in the 1970s, but even reading a recent history of the era in the USSR didn't turn up any actual piloted vehicles with the altitude or speed of the X-15. Their designs have long had a weakness for air-launched possibilities, and plenty of such small orbital piloted spaceplanes have been on the drawing boards.

To fill in a bit of background on this, throughout the 1950s, the US was proposing a deal called "Open Skies". At its simplest, this proposed that both sides should open their skies to reconnaissance aircraft belonging to the other. The intention was to minimize the dangers of misunderstandings over such things as missile and bomber strengths etc. It was what we call now a "Confidence Building Measure". It was also a bit disingenuous since the US had the technical and organizational ability to put a systematic series of recon flights in place and the USSR did not. Also, put bluntly, the USSR had a lot more to hide than the US did (for example road and terrain maps were classified in the USSR, in the US a "spy" could buy them in any bookshop). The USSr rejected the "Open Skies" proposal root and branch.

This opened an interesting question. Exactly what constituted "national airspace" or, more precisely, how high did it go? At sea, national territorial waters had been set at the range a land-based coastal defense gun could (at mid-19th century time of writing) fire a shot - 3 miles. So, by extrapolation, it could be argued that national airspace extended upwards about as far as a land-based air defense gun could fire a shot - which was about 36,000 feet. That was very convenient for a U.S. that relied on high-flying bombers to penetrate enemy defenses. Of course the Russians disagreed quite strongly but their disgreement didn't stipulate where they thought national airspace ended or, indeed, if it did have an upper limit at all.

When the Russians launched Sputnik, they were explicitly admitting that there was an upper limit to national airspace and that things above that limit were in international territory. That was an admission of major international military and political significance. It simplified the discussion from "whether" to "where".

The whole issue cropped up again in connection with the space shuttle flights. The Soviets claimed that space shuttle landings infinged their national airspace and claimed they had the right to shoot down any shuttles so doing. IIRc that claim was dismissed as a standard bit of Soviet truculence and I don't believe it was ever considered seriously.

It was the '67 Outer Space Treaty that established the vertical limit of airspace at 60NM, wasn't it?

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

Well, this is the Lunar Conspiracies forum, after all.

I don't think so - I read through the text of the Treaty and couldn't find it but it may be buried in an annex. I don't believe the question has yet been fully resolved. The following link implies that it hadn't at time of writing - but that was twenty years ago.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...n/barrett.html

There is a major row going on between Greece and Turkey at the moment over this issue.

True, but notice I said I was specifically speaking about the perception of Soviet superiority. The perception I got was that the Soviets went orbital before the U.S. could even go suborbital. I don't think I'm alone in that.

Also, the suborbital flights were on the Redstone rocket, but it took the Atlas rocket for the orbital flights.

Yes, that is very much true. But that detail is lost on many people.

I was speaking mostly about people who aren't dedicated space enthusiasts (and thus actively pursuing space information), but general public. These people encounter some program like the Fox program, or Sibrel's website. Suddenly they see a list of Soviet Firsts. Their history of the Space Race is as I described above - the USSR launched the first satellite and the first man in orbit. The US was racing to catch up, thus the moon race. Then they read a list of Soviet firsts that they haven't seen before. Given the standard acceptance level demonstrated by people regarding the moon hoax question, they might ask themselves if the list is even true, but not bother to pursue it, just repeat it to the next person they meet as a fact. They don't seem to question the accuracy or relevance of the firsts.

The only time I've run into people talking about the Soviet space firsts that are not limited to Sputnik, Gagarin, and perhaps Laika, they learned about them via the moon hoax topic. I don't just mean on this board, I mean in person as well. Space enthusiasts posting on space boards or hanging out in astronomy clubs may be a different animal.

My point is the topic of this thread - the perception of the Soviets as dramatically technologically ahead of the U.S. in the space race. They were not. Technology was about par. The Soviets achieved many firsts, but how they achieved those firsts and the nature of those firsts (first woman in orbit is not a significant technological step, except in the nature of waste collection) speaks to the true technological equivalence, not superiority.

The perception I got was that the Soviets went orbital before the U.S. could even go suborbital. I don't think I'm alone in that.

You aren't. I think it's safe to say that the Soviets were capable of going orbital before the U.S. was capable of going orbital, because the U.S. was still working on the Atlas booster and the Redstone wasn't powerful enough. It's important to keep in mind that the Soviets accepted a greater risk in order to achieve that capability, but the timeline is the timeline. Whether or not you believe it was important for the Soviets to satisfy the FAI criteria with regards to the payload, they had an operation heavy-lift booster before the U.S. did. That's the key to "going orbital."

Yes, that is very much true [that the U.S. was behind for political reasons only]. But that detail is lost on many people.

It's lost in some contexts because it is specifically swept under the carpet. Conspiracy theorists don't want to talk about public will or funding or political infighting. That's ironic, because Apollo enthusiasts don't mind talking about it at all. But it seems that when it's debated, the conspiracy theorists want to make it a question of technology only. And this is because they bring up the Soviet program only as a yardstick against which to measure the American program on technological grounds.

The point they wish to prove is that the United States did not have the technology to get to the moon. They don't have the technical understanding to argue it directly, and to explain away the explosion of aerospace know-how that happened in the 1960s. So they try to argue it comparatively. They have only the Soviet program to compare it to, and so it's natural to hedge the bet by overstating Soviet achievements. This is made even easier by the propensity of the Soviets themselves to overstate their achievements and to conduct their programs in secret so as to avoid public failure.

Technology was about par. The Soviets achieved many firsts, but how they achieved those firsts and the nature of those firsts ... speaks to the true technological equivalence, not superiority.

Yes. In one sense we can speak in a narrow sense and try to compare, say, Vostok to Mercury on a point-by-point basis. That is revealing to some extent, but not a universal determination. As JonClarke points out, there are ways of looking at the problem that diminish the differences. For example, could the unquestionable power of the R-7 booster be considered to "offset" in some way the lack of Earth-landing capability? In terms of the FAI rules, no. But in a more generic sense can we say that the Soviets lagged in some areas, but excelled in others? Absolutely, we can. And in that way of thinking it's quite acceptable to say that the U.S. and Soviets were roughly equivalent over the medium term.

But for direct comparison there has to be some sort of regularity imposed on the program. That's where the FAI comes in. It's the supposedly neutral third party that referees these comparisons. Just as each team can't bring its own referee to the game, neither the U.S. nor the Soviet conception of space engineering is necessarily applicable to the comparison. That each program aligned itself toward various goals and dealt with various shortcomings goes without saying. But when those programs apply for recognition according to an external, unbiased standard, you can't afford to be subjective. If we ignore that the Soviets didn't have a compliant Earth-landing system, then why shouldn't we ignore that the U.S. was three weeks late?

Technique counts in this discussion, whether it's expressed as equipment design or in operational know-how. To call the coincidental flight of two unmanueverable spacecraft a "rendezvous" is ludicrous, for example. To cram three men into a spacecraft built for two is reckless, just so you can say you were the first to fly three men. To ask Gagarin to eject because his spacecraft was designed that way is neither ludicrous nor reckless. But then to claim a record for that flight, which required an Earth landing, is disingenuous.

We have here a pattern of behavior that taken together casts doubt on what we can infer from the Soviet records. Whether the records were obtained legitimately or by concealing partial failures, you simply cannot infer from these records the robustness in the program that some attribute to the Soviets on those perceived merits.

__________________
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

At the end of the day, if the conspiracists ask why the Americans succeeded where the Soviets failed, all we need to say is that their ultra heavy lift booster kept on exploding. BOOM!

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131