Snippets in space history from recent Russian book

A few weeks back I posted a couple of snippets from this newish Russian
volume on space history, and now it's time for a more complete book
report (as I've developed my cosmonautics vocabulary more extensivley
beyond what was common to astrophysics). The title is _Bitva za Zvezdy -
Kosmicheskoe Protivostoyanie_, or "Battle for the Stars - Opposition in Space"
(I'd go for the less exact "Space Race"). This is from Izdatelsvto AST, Moscow
(2003), part of their "military history library", written by Anton Pervushin.
Another subtitle shows up after the title page - "Alternatives and
Potentialities", which gives a hint that he is at least as interested
in projects which never came to fruition as the major successes. This is
vol. 2 of a set of 2. The first one deals with rocket systems in the
pre-space age, by which he means before Gagarin.

I'll note a few things from various chapters that struck me as newish,
in some cases apparently not in astronautix.com yet. The chapter numbering
is continuous with vol. 1.

Chapter 6. He said, "Let's go!"
Gagarin and his era

Chapter 7. Mesospheric war
From jets to cruise missiles and rockets, Korea and after.
The first "Buran" was a cruise missile. I'd never heard of the
Super Hustler piloted piggyback system for a B-58. I thought the
D-21 was scary...
Myasischev's supersonic bombers, of which the M-50 actually flew.
Tupolev's projects, leading up to the T-4 Sotka.

Chapter 8. American winged vehicles

Chapter 9. Space planes of the Soviet Union
Ty-130 or Zvezda
Tsybin's Lopotok lifting body with folding winglets, compared to X-20
Myasischev's VKA-23 (M-48), looked even more like an X-20
Spiral
Article 105.11 (Lapot'), with jet analog
led to actually contructed BOR, -4 seen being fished out of Indian Ocean
-5 was a 1450-kg Buran analog, flown on a 2000-km test hop toward Lake
Balkhash from Kapustin Yar (as I guess they still called it).
Aerodynamics of re-entry with final parachute landing.
BOR-5s were launched 5 times from 6 June 1984 - 27 July 1988
(BOR-5 is listed in astronautix.com)

Chapter 10. Race to the Moon
von Braun (the "rocket baron") features, including his memo
responding to JFK's questions abou the feasibility of various space
options. Pervushin links poliitical and technical developments
(especially in USA), as well as military and NASA work rather more
tightly into single threds than I would.

It's telling these days that he begins this chapter by presenting
the arguments that the Apollo landings really happened, pointing
out that no Russian library of any size wikll be lacking the
requisite information. He goes on to detail the proposed Soviet
landing missions, to the detail level of when the lunar vehicle has to
putch up so its radar won't mistake the falling crasher stage for
the lunar surface. He ends up with Chelomei's giant booster proposal.

He also devotes a couple of pages to the perennial question of how
the USSR lost the race to the Moon, blaming the asymmetry in
economic resources, irrational decisions from the top, and undue
competition for internal resources. In a very odd aside, he opines
that the USSR would have been much more successful if, rather than
Khruschev, power in the post-Stalin era had gone to Lavrenti
Beria, on the theory that bad decisions arose from being swayed
by ideology and emotional appeal, while Beria was above all cold and
calculating. (If there were an emoticon for "shivering up and down
the spine" it would go here).

Chapter 11. Lunar bases
That guy Korolev - already thinking about lunar bases using in situ
resources, while getting the first man into orbit and adapting the
capsule for reconnaissance use...

Chapter 12. On the way to Mars
Several Soviet concepts from the late 1960s that all have the same
feel as the NASA Apollo-adaptation plans (as in the report republished
by Apogee in Mars vol. II).

Chapter 13. Satellite interceptors
Nukes in space - lists Soviet K1-5 tests, and the project for
a nuclear warhead exploded on the Moon so everyone would know
they reached it. Only passing mention of Argus.

Khruschev's global rocket and how his bluffs cost dearly
USSR's satellite inteceptors, history of interceptor tests (including
one after ABM treaty out of military inertia).
Pictures of Polyot-1 and "satellite interceptor"

Shows the counterpart to the F-15/ASAT combination, Mig-31D with
underslung ASAT (tail 071/072, "Article 07") which used an R-33
rocket on central pylon. Issues with radar system, added two-sided
winglets to improve stability. First flight of 072 from Zhukovsky,
1987, by Aviard Fastovets. The planes are now in Kazakhstan,
uncertain situation with missiles but not closed out.

14. Buran versus the Space Shuttle
Perhaps as one might expect for a book in a military-history series,
he emphasizes the military aspects of the design and politics
of the STS system (although to an extent that I though went on the
far side of misdirection). Follows its various incarnations in design,
short shrift to actual shuttle flights.
Buran - history included a long skinny lifting body, until politics
plus crossrange (the USSR being without without a worldwide network
of actual bases and additional emergency landing sites) plus politics
won out. Buran had an internal phased array for cleaner communications
in whatever orientation, used cryogenic fuel cells (a first, and their
first foray into fuel cells IIRC). They planned at least 3 orbiters,
four unpiloted tests flights upgrading along the way, specific
guidance stuff for first unpiloted flights was back in payload bay.
Plan then had four two-cosmonaut flights, with installation of
ejection seats, including Mir docking and Kristall retrieval
with explicit Spacelab analog and probably RMS.

Chapter 15. Successors to Buran
A whole litany of projects usually wrapped up with "and there was no
more money", in a few cases "and it wouldn't have actually worked"
Depressingly like the whole chapters in Chronicles listing kings
of whom it is written "reigned, and then he died".

Chapter 16. Successors to the Shuttle
Much like successors to Buran...

Chapter 17. Orbital cities
He traces the idea back to Tsiolkovskii (surprise!), and devotes
almost all the space to projects, some quite grandiose, that were
never built. The Almaz series does get 12 pages with diagrams.
Skif-DM (Polyus) is described here rather than in the next
chapter, with some very fast spin about research measurements
supposed to be made during ascent.

Chapter 18. "Star Wars"
The Terra-3 laser complex at Sary Shagan reported as having
in fact illuminated Challenger, 10 Oct 1983, at minimum power.
Followup program on Il-76MD, 60-tonne laser apparatus, which replaced
the usual weather radar bulge. Optical elements retracted into
fuselage on top, between wings and tail. Analogous modifications
made to an A-50 and Tu-142 (antisubmarine versiojn of Tu-95 Bear),
otherwise still secret. The Il-76MD (or A-60) was itself retired in
1990.
The USSR maintained an active antimissile program in 1970s including
energy weapons, EM launchers. Most builders closed it off after it
appeared unpromising; could not even on paper meet the goal of
annihilating the US nuclear capability within the requisite 20-25
minutes

Chapter 19. The problems of power
Traces a parallel (to NERVA, more or less) nuclear rocket development
in USSR with Big Names such as Kurchatov, Keldysh, later Korolev,
Myshin.
Gets to solar sails, photon rockets, flavors of ion rockets.
Propulsive use of "local resources" - magnetic field, ionization of
upper atmosphere, recombination catalysts (now that sounds like a
particularly Russian - the phyiscs is so clever and complicated that
there _must_ be a use for it).

Chapter 20. Space artillery - not quite only Gerald Bull

Chapter 21. Into space on a lift
Quotes almost two pages from Fountains of Paradise at the outset.
Trace idea to Yuri Artsutanov in 1960, although (surprise!)
Tsiolkovskii mentioned it.
Rotating, asynchronous elevator systems.
Tethers and magnetic field for thrust or power.
The text suggests the author has real enthusiasm for these.
Yunitskii's all-planetary transport system - think Ringworld Jr...

Chapter 22. Interstellar expeditions
Wherein we learn to recognize "Geoffrey Landis" in Cyrillic.

Chapter 23. Untamed planet
That is, Mars. History of Mars probes plus Mars Direct and
Energiya's current viewgraph/PowerPoint engineering for
human expeditions.

One common phrase might as well enter the astronautics lexicon:
"ostal'sya na bumage" - it remained on paper. A common epitaph for
space projects.

I thought there was an interesting anecdote about the results of confusion
in call signs between the ASAT Mig-31 and a chase plane, but can't find
it at the moment. No index...

Bill Keel

In article ,
"Jim Oberg" writes:

"Pat Flannery"
That one's a Sukhoi.

Bol SHOY!

No, it really is a Sukhoi, Tommy.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

Pat Flannery wrote:


William C. Keel wrote:

Tupolev's projects, leading up to the T-4 Sotka.


That one's a Sukhoi.

D'uh! Musta turned two pages at once while typing in the summary.
I knew Sukhoi did that one - for a period possibly as long
as 15 minutes sometime last year.

Bill Keel

"William C. Keel" wrote in message ...
...
Chapter 22. Interstellar expeditions
Wherein we learn to recognize "Geoffrey Landis" in Cyrillic.
...

OK, you've definitely caught my attention.

--
Geoffrey A. Landis
http://www.sff.net/people/geoffrey.landis

Jim Oberg wrote:

"Pat Flannery"


That one's a Sukhoi.



Bol SHOY!


One of my favorite might-have-been aircraft designs was the improved
T-4MS "200" design, which was a VG lifting body concept. The Backfire
and Blackjack bombers caused consternation during the Reagan years-
imagine if this thing had shown up:
http://www.suchoj.com/ab1953/T-4MS/images/T-4MS_05.jpg
http://www.suchoj.com/ab1953/T-4MS/riss/T-4MS_08.jpg
http://www.suchoj.com/ab1953/T-4MS/riss/T-4MS_04.jpg (what do #6 and #22
translate as anyway? Are they stealth or propulsion related?)
Capable of flying at Mach 3.5, and partially ceramic, this thing would
have caused the Pentagon to crap its collective pants.
Sukhoi still calls the original T-4 "Sotka" the "Father Of The Flanker"
from all of the prototype's technology that later made its way into the
Su-27.

Pat

Peter Stickney wrote:

In article ,
"Jim Oberg" writes:


"Pat Flannery"


That one's a Sukhoi.


Bol SHOY!



No, it really is a Sukhoi, Tommy.



Yeah, you have to get up pretty early in the afternoon to pull one over
on me. ;-)

Pat

William C. Keel wrote:

D'uh! Musta turned two pages at once while typing in the summary.
I knew Sukhoi did that one - for a period possibly as long
as 15 minutes sometime last year.




Stooge of the Imperialist Powers...... ;-)

Pat

In article ,
Pat Flannery writes:


Peter Stickney wrote:

In article ,
"Jim Oberg" writes:


"Pat Flannery"


That one's a Sukhoi.


Bol SHOY!



No, it really is a Sukhoi, Tommy.



Yeah, you have to get up pretty early in the afternoon to pull one over
on me. ;-)

Mom always liked you best.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster