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Steve Pemberton
Steve Pemberton
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I will assume that by "going to the Moon" the question is about landing humans on the lunar surface, not just circling the Moon. If so the question seems to make an incorrect assumption that all that is needed to land humans on the Moon is a powerful enough rocket. While a rocket with sufficient lifting capability is of course required, what is also needed are spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to the Moon, landing them safely on the surface, bringing them back to Earth, and reentering Earth's atmosphere at much higher speed than reentering the atmosphere from low Earth orbit. Accomplishing all of this using 1960's technology was a monumental effort which involved hundreds of thousands of people over nearly an entire decade, and it required pushing technology and innovation to the limit.

While the Soviets during the early space race period were successful in their rocket designs (other than the N1), they had mixed results in their attempts to send probes to the Moon, Venus and Mars. Although they did have several successes and historic firsts, reliability of their spacecraft was something that the Soviets seemed to struggle with more than the U.S. did. The U.S. certainly had failures also, but seemed to demonstrate more technical capability operating spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit. It's a good possibility that even if the Russians had developed the N1 rocket, they may not have been able to successfully land cosmonauts on the Moon and return them safely to Earth before the U.S. did.

"They (Soviets) had a head start in the space race by focusing on it early on."

Discussions about U.S. vs. Soviet space programs are always susceptible to a bit of nationalistic bias, but in terms of the early space race I think it's pretty fair to say that both sides were pretty evenly matched. In 1945 both the U.S. and Russia scooped up German rockets, rocket plans, and rocket scientists. The U.S. had a slight advantage by getting lead German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his team, but the Russian rocket scientists had no problem reverse engineering the V-2 rocket.

Both sides worked diligently over the next decade to put the first satellite into orbit (while simultaneously developing ICBM capability). Political complications in the U.S. delayed the launch of the first U.S. satellite, allowing the Soviets to claim that title in 1957, beating the U.S. by several months. This takes nothing away from the Soviet achievement, and the credit is well deserved. But it was not the indication of a lack of capability on the part of the U.S. that Soviet propaganda at the time tried to claim.

The Soviets also put the first human into orbit in 1961, again an important achievement. But Soviet spacecraft development after that was slow compared to the U.S. The introduction of the Gemini capsule in 1965 put the U.S. in the technical lead, and this was followed soon afterwards by the Apollo capsule in 1968 and Lunar Module spacecraft in 1969, which made eight successful trips to the Moon out of nine attempts, and in all nine cases returned the astronauts safely to Earth. We have since learned that many of the Russian failures (and some of the successes) were due to pushing by the Soviet leadership to move faster than the engineers considered safe. While this certainly happened in the U.S. also, as evidenced by the Apollo 1 fire, this seemed to be a persistent problem in the early Soviet space program, and in fact is what many blame the N1 launch failures on. While all we can do is speculate, there would seem to be a greater possibility that a rushed Soviet human lunar landing attempt prior to July 1969 would have ended in failure and possibly disaster.

I will assume that by "going to the Moon" the question is about landing humans on the lunar surface, not just circling the Moon. If so the question seems to make an incorrect assumption that all that is needed to land humans on the Moon is a powerful enough rocket. While a rocket with sufficient lifting capability is of course required, what is also needed are spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to the Moon, landing them safely on the surface, bringing them back to Earth, and reentering Earth's atmosphere at much higher speed than reentering the atmosphere from low Earth orbit. Accomplishing all of this using 1960's technology was a monumental effort which involved hundreds of thousands of people over nearly an entire decade, and it required pushing technology and innovation to the limit.

While the Soviets during the early space race period were successful in their rocket designs (other than the N1), they had mixed results in their attempts to send probes to the Moon, Venus and Mars. Although they did have several successes and historic firsts, reliability of their spacecraft was something that the Soviets seemed to struggle with more than the U.S. The U.S. certainly had failures also, but seemed to demonstrate more technical capability operating spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit. It's a good possibility that even if the Russians had developed the N1 rocket, they may not have been able to successfully land cosmonauts on the Moon and return them safely to Earth before the U.S. did.

"They (Soviets) had a head start in the space race by focusing on it early on."

Discussions about U.S. vs. Soviet space programs are always susceptible to a bit of nationalistic bias, but in terms of the early space race I think it's pretty fair to say that both sides were pretty evenly matched. In 1945 both the U.S. and Russia scooped up German rockets, rocket plans, and rocket scientists. The U.S. had a slight advantage by getting lead German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his team, but the Russian rocket scientists had no problem reverse engineering the V-2 rocket.

Both sides worked diligently over the next decade to put the first satellite into orbit (while simultaneously developing ICBM capability). Political complications in the U.S. delayed the launch of the first U.S. satellite, allowing the Soviets to claim that title in 1957. This takes nothing away from the Soviet achievement, and the credit is well deserved. But it was not the indication of a lack of capability on the part of the U.S. that Soviet propaganda at the time tried to claim.

The Soviets also put the first human into orbit in 1961, again an important achievement. But Soviet spacecraft development after that was slow compared to the U.S. The introduction of the Gemini capsule in 1965 put the U.S. in the technical lead, and this was followed soon afterwards by the Apollo capsule in 1968 and Lunar Module spacecraft in 1969, which made eight successful trips to the Moon out of nine attempts, and in all nine cases returned the astronauts safely to Earth. We have since learned that many of the Russian failures (and some of the successes) were due to pushing by the Soviet leadership to move faster than the engineers considered safe. While this certainly happened in the U.S. also, as evidenced by the Apollo 1 fire, this seemed to be a persistent problem in the early Soviet space program, and in fact is what many blame the N1 launch failures on. While all we can do is speculate, there would seem to be a greater possibility that a rushed Soviet human lunar landing attempt prior to July 1969 would have ended in failure and possibly disaster.

I will assume that by "going to the Moon" the question is about landing humans on the lunar surface, not just circling the Moon. If so the question seems to make an assumption that all that is needed to land humans on the Moon is a powerful enough rocket. While a rocket with sufficient lifting capability is of course required, what is also needed are spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to the Moon, landing them safely on the surface, bringing them back to Earth, and reentering Earth's atmosphere at much higher speed than reentering the atmosphere from low Earth orbit. Accomplishing all of this using 1960's technology was a monumental effort which involved hundreds of thousands of people over nearly an entire decade, and it required pushing technology and innovation to the limit.

While the Soviets during the early space race period were successful in their rocket designs (other than the N1), they had mixed results in their attempts to send probes to the Moon, Venus and Mars. Although they did have several successes and historic firsts, reliability of their spacecraft was something that the Soviets seemed to struggle with more than the U.S. did. The U.S. certainly had failures also, but seemed to demonstrate more technical capability operating spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit. It's a good possibility that even if the Russians had developed the N1 rocket, they may not have been able to successfully land cosmonauts on the Moon and return them safely to Earth before the U.S. did.

"They (Soviets) had a head start in the space race by focusing on it early on."

Discussions about U.S. vs. Soviet space programs are always susceptible to a bit of nationalistic bias, but in terms of the early space race I think it's pretty fair to say that both sides were pretty evenly matched. In 1945 both the U.S. and Russia scooped up German rockets, rocket plans, and rocket scientists. The U.S. had a slight advantage by getting lead German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his team, but the Russian rocket scientists had no problem reverse engineering the V-2 rocket.

Both sides worked diligently over the next decade to put the first satellite into orbit (while simultaneously developing ICBM capability). Political complications in the U.S. delayed the launch of the first U.S. satellite, allowing the Soviets to claim that title in 1957, beating the U.S. by several months. This takes nothing away from the Soviet achievement, and the credit is well deserved. But it was not the indication of a lack of capability on the part of the U.S. that Soviet propaganda at the time tried to claim.

The Soviets also put the first human into orbit in 1961, again an important achievement. But Soviet spacecraft development after that was slow compared to the U.S. The introduction of the Gemini capsule in 1965 put the U.S. in the technical lead, and this was followed soon afterwards by the Apollo capsule in 1968 and Lunar Module spacecraft in 1969, which made eight successful trips to the Moon out of nine attempts, and in all nine cases returned the astronauts safely to Earth. We have since learned that many of the Russian failures (and some of the successes) were due to pushing by the Soviet leadership to move faster than the engineers considered safe. While this certainly happened in the U.S. also, as evidenced by the Apollo 1 fire, this seemed to be a persistent problem in the early Soviet space program, and in fact is what many blame the N1 launch failures on. While all we can do is speculate, there would seem to be a greater possibility that a rushed Soviet human lunar landing attempt prior to July 1969 would have ended in failure and possibly disaster.

Source Link
Steve Pemberton
Steve Pemberton
  • 4.5k
  • 1
  • 14
  • 35

I will assume that by "going to the Moon" the question is about landing humans on the lunar surface, not just circling the Moon. If so the question seems to make an incorrect assumption that all that is needed to land humans on the Moon is a powerful enough rocket. While a rocket with sufficient lifting capability is of course required, what is also needed are spacecraft capable of carrying astronauts to the Moon, landing them safely on the surface, bringing them back to Earth, and reentering Earth's atmosphere at much higher speed than reentering the atmosphere from low Earth orbit. Accomplishing all of this using 1960's technology was a monumental effort which involved hundreds of thousands of people over nearly an entire decade, and it required pushing technology and innovation to the limit.

While the Soviets during the early space race period were successful in their rocket designs (other than the N1), they had mixed results in their attempts to send probes to the Moon, Venus and Mars. Although they did have several successes and historic firsts, reliability of their spacecraft was something that the Soviets seemed to struggle with more than the U.S. The U.S. certainly had failures also, but seemed to demonstrate more technical capability operating spacecraft beyond low Earth orbit. It's a good possibility that even if the Russians had developed the N1 rocket, they may not have been able to successfully land cosmonauts on the Moon and return them safely to Earth before the U.S. did.

"They (Soviets) had a head start in the space race by focusing on it early on."

Discussions about U.S. vs. Soviet space programs are always susceptible to a bit of nationalistic bias, but in terms of the early space race I think it's pretty fair to say that both sides were pretty evenly matched. In 1945 both the U.S. and Russia scooped up German rockets, rocket plans, and rocket scientists. The U.S. had a slight advantage by getting lead German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and his team, but the Russian rocket scientists had no problem reverse engineering the V-2 rocket.

Both sides worked diligently over the next decade to put the first satellite into orbit (while simultaneously developing ICBM capability). Political complications in the U.S. delayed the launch of the first U.S. satellite, allowing the Soviets to claim that title in 1957. This takes nothing away from the Soviet achievement, and the credit is well deserved. But it was not the indication of a lack of capability on the part of the U.S. that Soviet propaganda at the time tried to claim.

The Soviets also put the first human into orbit in 1961, again an important achievement. But Soviet spacecraft development after that was slow compared to the U.S. The introduction of the Gemini capsule in 1965 put the U.S. in the technical lead, and this was followed soon afterwards by the Apollo capsule in 1968 and Lunar Module spacecraft in 1969, which made eight successful trips to the Moon out of nine attempts, and in all nine cases returned the astronauts safely to Earth. We have since learned that many of the Russian failures (and some of the successes) were due to pushing by the Soviet leadership to move faster than the engineers considered safe. While this certainly happened in the U.S. also, as evidenced by the Apollo 1 fire, this seemed to be a persistent problem in the early Soviet space program, and in fact is what many blame the N1 launch failures on. While all we can do is speculate, there would seem to be a greater possibility that a rushed Soviet human lunar landing attempt prior to July 1969 would have ended in failure and possibly disaster.