Race to the Moon! Did Soviets or Americans Build the Better Lander? - Rocket Rumble #2

[@ericrisinger1241]

Apollo 15s lunar touchdown was so rough it destroyed the descent engine bell. Had that engine been required for ascent (like the Soviets) the crew would have died

[@ericrisinger1241]

@@montylc2001 welcome to the real world- where pilot error, engine failure, unseen terrain features, or erroneous fuel calculations could all easily cause a lander to touch down too hard and destroy the bell, contingency plan or not. In the case of the Soviets, that would cause mission failure and cosmonaut death. In the case of the Americans, it's ok. You really didn't say anything other than confirm my point that the American design is better

[@DougVanDorn]

@@montylc2001 Monty, I hate to tell you this, but that's really not true. I've done ALL the research. In point of fact, there were concerns over the lengthened engine bell contacting the surface while the engine was still running, so the J-mission commanders were told to shut their engines down the moment the contact light came on, so as to avoid the potentially lethal effects of the bell becoming blocked by lunar regolith while still firing. That could cause the combustion chamber to explode, which would likely have been a non-survivable situation for the crew. So, the engine extension was specifically NOT supposed to EVER hit the ground! In point of fact, on Apollo 15, the engine bell crumpled because the LM landed straddling the rim of a small-ish 10-meter crater, and while Dave Scott shut the engine down the moment he had a contact light, he had also gone into a near-hover at that point, so his LM fell harder to the surface than any other LM. The engine bell only hit the crater rim after the front and left footpads hit, and the whole LM tipped back into the crater about 20 degrees. Thankfully, the engine had enough time to mostly stop firing by then, though the remaining pressure in it caused a big burp of soil that you can see flying out as the LM tipped back, on the descent film. If you listen to the first EVA, when Scott is doing a walkaround of the LM, you'll note he says "You can tell the Program Manager that I got his engine bell." The Program Manager was Jim McDivitt, and was the guy who told Scott, upon pain of pain, do NOT let your engine bell hit the ground on landing. HIS engine bell, you note. That's why Scott made that particular comment, to tell his old pal Jim that he had indeed crumpled the engine bell, and had survived, so maybe the dire warnings were a bit overstated. If you'd have read, say, all of the crew debriefs for the flight, you'd have this kind of information.

[@powderedash7495]

The Blok Ye stage on the Soviet LK had a design optimised to direct landing debris and engine exhaust away from the engine, and featured a backup engine in case of failure of the main engine. The engine bell on the Blok Ye was nested, making damage less likely as the bell was not exposed as on the LM. The basic argument therefore that an Apollo 15-esque landing would have stranded the Soviets on the Moon is incorrect.

[@RideAcrossTheRiver]

@@DougVanDorn " the engine extension was specifically NOT supposed to EVER hit the ground! " The extension was not to hit the surface with the engine _running._

[@grady631]

Ok, but the bell on the lk is shorter compared to the landing legs

[@TheWokeFlatEarthTruth]

Did Soviets or Americans Build the Better Lander? Well in fairness the US LM worked at least 6 times under the conditions that it was designed for.

[@larrybremer4930]

My Stepfather worked at NASA (retired with shuttle) but he often commented as the US and Russia started working together and seeing each others solutions up close NASA engineers admired the Russians ingenuity on many systems. Where NASA does complex multiple redundancy Russia tended to use a simple, reliable (and usually heavy) system. Different philosophies and each has its merits. Russia went for crude and cheap, but that does not mean it was at all under engineered. It is like the fable that NASA spent millions making a pen that works in zero G, and the Russians used pencils. While the story is not true it does accurately represent the differences in the approaches to the engineering and solutions.

[@VhenRaTheRaptor]

​@@larrybremer4930 There is beauty in simplicity.

[@ebikeengineer]

@@VhenRaTheRaptor There is - until you're millions of miles from any help and need that redundancy to get you home due to an unforeseen issue (Murphy lives in space as well as here on Earth).

[@reserva120]

@@VhenRaTheRaptor mostly sloth and stupidity- Socialist, while masters of mass murdering slaughter.. are culturally stupid cheap ..

[@mephisto8101]

I think Shadwozone can write off his Legos as business expenses... ;)

[@ShadowZone]

Pssst ;)

[@MrAoldham]

@@ShadowZone I wish!!!

[@soopahsoopah]

Hell yeah the LK was a fascinating spacecraft, but oy, that would have been a hell of a workload for one cosmonaut. Then an EVA transfer back to the Soyuz? Exhausting.

[@DougVanDorn]

At least the LK had a small digital computer that would have managed the flight trajectory for its pilot. The LOK (Soyuz) of the time made due with mechanical sequencers, the mainline Soyuz spacecraft didn't get digital computers until the Soyuz-T, IIRC, in the mid 70s. Interestingly. no one knew how easy or hard it would be, or how exhausting, to move around on the Moon. One thing the Soviets came up with was to land a small electric cart at their intended landing site, to scout it out, and use a beacon from it to steer the piloted LK lander to a pre-selected spot near the cart. The moonwalking cosmonaut would then only need to walk as far as the cart, get into its seat, activate its manual controls, and go puttering around his landing site in his mobility aid, When the LOK/LK system was abandoned, the cart had its manual controls and seat removed and was sent to the Moon as Lunokhod, a remotely controlled rover. In any event, the pilot would have two transfer EVAs, one to get into the lander and one to get back into the LOK orbiter, but at least there were plans to make his surface excursions less physically taxing.

[@enscroggs]

@@DougVanDorn Plans only. Nothing actually accomplished. Given that overwhelming fact, there is no valid comparison. The LM was flown in space twice before Apollo 11 to confirm its abilities, including a full rehearsal of the entire descent, ascent, rendezvous, and docking during the Apollo 10 mission. The thing missing was the actual landing. The Soviet LK was never tested in space, so how it would have performed is educated conjecture at best.

[@Drgonzosfaves]

​@@enscroggs A reminder. The Apollo 10 LEM wasn't loaded with enough fuel on purpose to ensure Cernan and Stafford didn't go all cowboy and try to land on the moon.

[@SeattlePioneer]

Tired or not, I suppose he would have been highly motivated.

[@leokimvideo]

N1 was an incredible rocket. A real lesson about stacking up failure points with masses of multiple engines.

[@TheBeardyPenguin]

Great video as always bud, really enjoying these rocket rumbles Very impressive stock recreation of the LK, not an easy shape to mimic at all!

[@rwdavidoff]

So this is missing a few interesting details about the Soviet L3 complex, which is that it wasn't envisioned quite like Apollo. From 1967, concerns about engine issues or other problems led to the modification of the plan to include various other elements. First, given the limited hover time of the LK (only like 10 seconds, compared to about ten times that for LM) it would be very crucial to land without delay or error in guidance--no waiting like Armstrong did looking for a spot without rocks if you missed the main target. Thus, they planned to have a probe landed on the surface akin to Lunakhod rovers, which could broadcast radio signals the LK could use as beacons for precision landing at a surveyed location, and then the rovers could be used by the astronaut for transport to maximize science during the limited time on the surface. Next, those beacons would also be used for an entire second LK launch on a second N1, with the intent of this other LK landing automatically. If the LK the cosmonaut landed in was damaged or defective, this second LK could still return them to orbit, and it could possibly carry a little extra supplies to stretch time on the surface. Only then would the crew LK/Soyuz launch on a second N1. See Siddiqui, Challenge to Apollo, p517 "The Lunar Flotilla" and this description of the state of the project from the same source on p643: "The repeated additions and modifications to the N I-L3 plan in 1965-67 also complicated mission design. Even after the ink was dry on a final draft plan for a particular element of the L3 complex, months later, engineers would propose modifications based on new anticipated needs. This not only made it impossible to manufacture flight models of the spacecraft, but also added layer after layer of complexity to the N I-L3 mission. By 1968, the following components were part of the entire program: • Ye-6LS (two robot probes to map lunar gravitational anomalies) • Ye-8LS (two robot lunar satellites to photograph the lunar surface) • TIK-T2K (automated and piloted flights of the LOK and LK in Earth orbit) • LIE (automated test of the Blok D stage in Earth orbit): • NI-LI (two lunar orbital LI flights as test payloads for early N I launches) • Ye-8 (two lunar rovers to serve as transport for cosmonauts); • NI-L3 (one N I launch with the backup LK) • NI-L3 (one N I launch with two cosmonauts to land on the Moon)"

[@philliberatore4265]

A non-negotiable fact of scuba diving is to never dive alone. I can't imagine one person flying down to the Moon and back (after an EVA, no less) and surviving whatever goes wrong. And something always goes wrong.

[@ShadowZone]

Yes! As a diver myself, I never go underwater without a buddy, especially when it's a challenging dive. And it doesn't get any more challenging than exploring another celestial body.

[@mako88sb]

I did scuba for a while and that was always drilled into us. Then I read Deep Descent by Kevin F McMurray. Bit of a shocker to find out that the buddy system while diving on the Andrea Doria was something that didn’t always happen. I just dug the book out of the attic to refresh memory and I quickly came upon the death of Richard Roost. Considered by many as an expert diver, he buddies up with two others on his first dive ever of the AD. The 3rd dive he went solo and never returned. This wasn’t the only death of a diver who wasn’t buddied up with someone on the AD. Not sure why that would even be allowed. It’s probably mentioned in the book but I probably forgot. Have to read it again to get the details right.

[@thirdboylol95]

10:33 that’s is the MOST accurately sized LK I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen anyone using a stayputnik to make the shape of the lander before. Good job! And I assume there’s an external command seat in there?

[@ShadowZone]

Thanks! And yes, there is :)

[@Mohenjo_Daro_]

Being an astronaut in the lander sounds horrifying when returning to the command module. It's a speck in the sky, and if you miss it, you're as good as dead floating in space

[@i-love-space390]

At least on the American side, the tracking was pretty precise on the trajectories of each. NASA had contingency plans for all kinds of imperfect lunar ascents. Michael Collins told reporters that he had a whole book of rendezvous plans to rescue Neil and Buzz as long as they could limp into any sort of crappy orbit over the moon. He also said, he is very glad they never needed to be used.

[@Mohenjo_Daro_]

@@i-love-space390 Yeah, but that really wouldn't put my mind at ease. Things can still go wrong no matter how many checks and contingency plans you have

[@mako88sb]

@@i-love-space390 Speaking of contingency plans, not sure if you’re aware of the Scott Manley episode about the LM with the booster cables? Pretty interesting episode. I think someone should do a book about every conceivable contingency plan that had been written about for those missions

[@armorer94]

Well, as the USSR couldn't perfect their boost stages it's a moot point.

[@Ph33NIXx]

Cool that there is a lego version of the LK Lander

[@JoseFernandez-qt8hm]

This is Armenian Radio; our listeners asked us: “Why was Soviet government not in a hurry to land Communist men on the moon?” We’re answering: “What if they refuse to return?”

[@ligmasack9038]

America landed MEN on the Moon, Russia didn't; so this would mean the American L.M. was the better Craft as it actually did the Job.

[@NolanEgbert]

The LK lander was not the failure point of the Soviet manned lunar program so its an interesting thing to consider how it would’ve fared had the N1 successfully got it and Cosmonauts to the moon

[@kerbalnaut6692]

@@NolanEgbertTheir bird sounds top heavy with a smaller base.

[@Starshipsforever]

The simple answer is that "NO" the Soviets had no real chance to beat the United States to the lunar surface, even if Korolev hadn't died on the operating table in 1966. The Soviet effort was too divided by infighting between rival design bureaus and the capricious whims of Soviet politics to muster the resources in time to do more than come in second place. The problems with the N1 itself prove this with no money or anything else to work out the temperamental first stage's problems on a battleship test stand, like was done with Apollo's Saturn V S-IC at Marshall Space Center's 4670.

[@mercuryredstone2235]

Nice to know Apple's For All Mankind tv show is utter bullshit. Just another example of that show being far left propaganda (I'm a lefty BTW) along with North Korea being the first to Mars! It's not so much a space opera as an increasingly stupid soap opera about space, if anything it makes me appreciate The Expanse even more.

[@jwhite4]

I didn't read all the comments, but the 50 kg of soil samples the Russian LEM could handle, how was that supposed to make it back to Earth? Did that also have to be transferred during the spacewalk to the lunar orbiting module? If so, yikes!

[@ShadowZone]

Yep, that was the plan. Basically Leonov would have been forced to be an orbital pack rat.

[@Erikjust]

Its funny when you think about it, the whole space race can be boiled down to essentially two countries each saying "mine is bigger than yours and anything you can do i can do better, i can do anything better than you!"

[@MrAoldham]

The L3 is soooo.... kerbal

[@HailAnts]

I've been a huge fan of the space race my whole life, though I was not even four when Apollo 11 landed and I don't remember it at all. Before the fall of the Soviet Union the Soviet moon lander was just a rumor. The first time I ever saw a picture of it wasn't until the mid 90s!

[@charlied5953]

You didn't see any photos of the Soviet lander until after the fall of the USSR in 1991. The Soviets never admitted that they actually tried to land men on the moon.

[@NovaRaptorTV]

UR-700: Am I a joke to you? But seriously, this was an absolutely nutty proposal by Chelomey's design bureau for a direct ascent lunar mission. And this rocket also had its engines, the RD-270(world's first full flow staged combustion cycle engine), actually fired on the test stand. And you can see examples of that engine today.

[@penka7855]

Напишу на русском, надеюсь встроенный в Ютуб переводчик у вас работает) Спасибо за вашу работу, крайне качественно продемонстрированна Советская лунная миссия, и да, вы очень хорошо выговариваете русские названия и буквы) Также вы сказали про лунный ровер у США, но вы упустили, что СССР планировали использовать для этого "Луноходы", а также предварительно перед посадкой человека планировалось прилунять аварийный лунный модуль в автоматическом режиме. Так, при неисправности луного модуля, можно было бы проехать на Луноходе до второго и безопасно улететь. Также вы пропустили крайне интересный лунный скафандр СССР. У него очень интересно выполнена приборная панель. Думаю, можно в будущем также сравнить скафандры, потому что там есть интересные решения! П.с.: у меня в университете стоял спускаемый аппарат от 7К-ЛОК, так что я достаточно хорошо знаю тему советской космонавтики) Спасибо вам большое!

[@davidsandy5917]

The scariest part of the Russian approach is the two EVAs. On the other hand, I like the approach of the decent and assent engines on the lander being the same engine. The total mass will be less, and in the U.S. approach the accent engine's first firing would be in its only use. We should remember that on Apollo 11, the circuit breaker used to Ingnite the accent engine was broken. It only takes one flaw to wreck the entire mission.

[@rogerphelps9939]

The US approach saved the most weigh overall.

[@gnaskar]

While Apollo's lander is clearly better (having twice the mass budget helps), it's worth remembering that both were hugely risky: Orbital docking in lunar orbit, requiring that the lander launch into the correct plane at the correct time. Blasting a rocket engine into the lunar regolith and praying that none of it gets into the engine bell of your ascent engine. Your only ascent engine. A single point of failure that can strand you on the moon if it fails. No airlock or decontamination, so if you're allergic to moon dust there's no way to get rid of it. One astronaut on their own for a record setting several days in zero-gee, with no hope of medical assistance if something went wrong. And you need that person alive and well to keep the return spacecraft in the correct orientation for docking. So that's another mission critical singleton component.

[@JCDavis314]

Thankfully, the LEM was a two-stage lander with a separate engine for the descent and ascent stages. So the ascent engine was shielded from the regolith.

[@coreytaylor5386]

thats another major point I like to bring up why we havent been eager to go back to the moon even if we have had the tech since the 60s after the end of the Apollo program (besides the obvious budget cuts and infrastructure loss) until recently, we had absolutly no business going to the moon with where we where at in tech at the time. we where only able to get everything to the barest of bare minimum of functionality and launched for the sake of the propaganda win and after the Apollo program ended and the cold war thawed a bit the standards for what was acceptable risk rose above "basically a suicide mission, do it for your country, you will be immortalized as a hero" and so did the costs and development needed for any potential mission instead of shrinking costs you would expect for an already developed program.

[@MrAoldham]

People forget the human factor too, just a look can convey a thousand words. The moral support of another during the risky landing and then moon walk.

[@DougVanDorn]

@@JCDavis314 Very true. But it's also an entirely separate engine, with its own set of tanks, pipes and wires. By using a separate engine, you roughly double the main engine components that could fail. And you set up the scenario where a lander with a descent engine that worked great could land on the Moon with no problems at all, but kill its crew if the ascent engine crumps on them. Whereas, by the time the LK lander had landed its pilot, its engine was used and proven to work well, so you'd have less concerns about it than you might have, sitting on the Moon, depending on an engine that hasn't been fired since it was rebuilt after its acceptance testing. Each path raises its own particular horrors, lol.

[@DougVanDorn]

@@coreytaylor5386 I dunno -- the Apollo program, at least, wasn't that hare-brained, or suicidally risky. If everything worked as planned and designed, within an allowable range of errors and malfunctions, it really wasn't much riskier than Earth orbital flights. Every time they actually started up the LM's engine and headed to the surface, it all worked. They landed safely on every actual attempt, the ascent engine worked every time, and rendezvous (around the Earth, Moon, or wherever) turned out to be relatively forgiving of small errors, if you paid close attention to what you were doing. And the one time something major DID go wrong, with a little luck (that it happened with the LM still attached) and a ton of thought on how to use a LM as a lifeboat, that crew (13, of course) suffered the loss of function of one entire spacecraft, and worse, that was the only one that could get them home. But they got home, because someone sat down in 1963 and said to themselves: "This flying to the Moon is risky, how can we make it less risky? Well, we can add a few pounds of oxygen and water to the LM, enough to get a whole crew of three back home from the Moon, if worse came to worse. It'll make our LM last on the Moon longer, and make the flight out, anyway, less risky." So, it was NOT gung-ho flyboys itching to die for their country who volunteered for "basically a suicide mission," it was smart people who only got comfortable flying the missions because other smart people did everything they could think of to mitigate the risks at each stage of the mission. The Soviets, I don't know enough to say how they approached it, but I bet they figured their plan, while risky, was solid enough that they expected it to work.

[@i-love-space390]

It is interesting that even though the N1 had greater thrust on launch than the Saturn V, it could still lift less mass to orbit or to the moon. Those hydroLOX upper stages of Saturn made a difference. And unlike our FrankenRocket, the SLS, Saturn kept the booster stage using Kerosene, but since they dropped it really quickly, and didn't have to lug those huge tanks and heavy engines all the way to orbit (like SLS) it could lift more to orbit and to the moon than SLS, even though SLS has higher liftoff thrust. SLS has all the complexity and problems of using HydroLOX, but because of unbelievably stupid design choices, gets less of the benefit than the much more primitive Saturn V. Maybe Werner Von Braun was just SMARTER than today's engineers??

[@turkur4738]

You don't get to build a Saturn V by being smarter than today's engineers... you do it by being smarter than yesterday's politicians.

[@mustarastas88]

Rememberthat the Saturn V was also more expensive than the SLS lol.

[@Drgonzosfaves]

I like your alien astronauts. I actually lol'd.

[@slordmo2263]

Well, the Soviet lander was a rookie attempt at the final competition.... a prototype at best, (it never flew in space, right?) The USA flew 2 LM missions (one in earth orbit, one in lunar orbit) before even attempting landing. The USA did things differently....we relied on the 'men' to do a lot of the 'flying' and the big earth mainframe computers for others. The actual computers on the LM were mostly running the final approach software. (The computers were modified ICBM flight guidance modules... with MIT developed software)., USA set a goal (with unlimited funding).... it was an unprecedented time in America... social turmoil, but incredible tech advancement.

[@mako88sb]

It was tested 3 times in orbit. All unmanned missions I believe. Definitely not a contender. Just like the Soviets bragging about how advanced their rocket engines were compared to the F-1. Yet the N1 failed 100% of the time vs the 100% successful launches of the Saturn V.

[@NolanEgbert]

The LK did fly 3 unmanned test missions meaning it was far beyond the prototype stage. It could be argued that, besides Soyuz, it was the most tangible product of the Soviet lunar program

[@malcoexclamation]

Thank you for this video. I've recently been interested in the comparison between the USA & Soviet lunar landers and your video has a lot of interesting facts to consume. I am most interested in why the Soviet lander only had one main engine (with a backup) while the USA had a dedicated descent engine and a dedicated ascent engine and a completely separate ascent module. The decision making for each design would be a fascinating topic. Keep those videos coming!

[@sonnyburnett8725]

Always as interesting to read the comments as watching the show. Simply put, I’ve always liked the simplistic expression if it looks right it’ll fly right, not so true for spaceflight maybe but seems to hold true.

[@larrybremer4930]

I would say there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the Russian mission profile, other than the N1 rocket itself. Yeah the need to EVA to change vehicles is not great, but saved them launch mass and that was truly the overriding factor for both the US and Russia. Keep in mind the Apollo airlock was more than an airlock, it was a connection that had to support rocket impulse in the CM + LM stack, so it was also highly structural. Elminimating a heavy structure that also needed to handle a large, airtight connection point saved them a ton or more of launch mass over using a structural container without an airlock interconnection.

[@Hobbes746]

Even the N-1 wasn’t that bad. Everybody focuses on the 4 test flight failures. They were part of the plan: at one point 14 test launches were planned before the first operational mission. They did this because it allowed them to save time: they skipped having to build test stands large enough to run full tests of each stage, and did those tests in flight instead.

[@larrybremer4930]

@@Hobbes746 I understand that they were using the fly and fix method to shake it out just like SpaceX, but I think Russia saw they were not going to win the moon race and just gave up and saved the resources they would have used on it for something else. N1 was probably too ambitious for the time and as I recall it the engines (and there were lots of them) could not be pre-tested prior to flight (probably because of the use of hypergolic fuels), so they were built and put on the rocket without pretesting each engine first. They always had problems with some number of them malfunctioning in some manner like fuel line ruptures, pressure chamber and pump ruptures (engine had very high chamber pressures). or pogo oscillations (probably a similar combustion instability problems that we had with the F1 engines for Apollo). The point is they still had a long way to go with the N1.

[@Hobbes746]

@@larrybremer4930 The N-1 was definitely ambitious: their budget was something like 1/20 of what NASA had for Apollo. The NK-15 engines could not be pretested because they used pyrotechnic charges to operate some of the valves: fire those and you have to strip the engine and replace those charges. The NK-33 switched to motors to operate the valves, enabling them to be tested without having to disassemble them afterward.

[@i-love-space390]

No contest. And since the American LM actually WORKED 6 times in actual lunar landings, it is really an argument in a vacuum anyway. And on top of working for its main purpose, the LM also functioned as a lifeboat in Apollo 13. It was classic when Grumman Aerospace sent a bill to North American for "towing" with an extra line item for "battery recharging". Bottom line, the Russian LK was much more primitive, with less backup systems, and could likely have crashed on the moon due to lack of hover time to deal with last minute terrain issues. The Russians might have made it to the moon, but they might have a dead cosmonaut. Not a good propaganda "look". Maybe that is why they finally cut the program and focused on something they had the capability to achieve, a space station.

[@garrold7123]

awesome and very interesting video with nice visualisations. Thanks for sharing!

[@dougball328]

Since the Soviets never landed men on the moon, the question is moot.

[@mikemesser4326]

This was interesting. If you wanted talk Mir, I might have a clue what I was talking about. (It’s been 35+ years, so maybe not.) But I never really looked at earlier Soviet missions.

[@user-xz9hu4rd2v]

A requisite for the question ‘which was the best lander’ is to actually land it on the Moon. Since one of the landers never did land on the Moon, the question is irrelevant. It’s like comparing an Olympic-class sprinter with some very fast runner that never got to compete at the track.

[@MrMa1981]

The LEM was a MASTERPIECE.

[@shaindaman13]

The Soviets kicked out ass at space exploration for more than 10 years. It’s really surprising that they didn’t beat us to the moon. They had many firsts. The first satellite, the first Man, the first spacewalk. But that’s EXACTLY how you know the Moon Landing was no hoax. Because as soon as the USA made it the Soviets credited NASA and stopped trying for the moon.

[@AMC2283]

that is? something wrong with the US' word?

[@jeromethiel4323]

Indeed. The Soviets were a lot further ahead, and the US had to play catch up. The simple fact that the US did indeed catch up then surpass the Soviets does not in ANY way diminish what the Soviets managed to accomplish. And the second point you made, is an argument i have used for many many years to shut up the people trying to claim the moon landings never happened.

[@Hobbes746]

The Soviets were a few months ahead of the US. Then the US started to spend 20 times more on its space program than the Soviets did on their space program. The USSR eked out a few more firsts, with very sketchy setups (like the Voskhod, and the first spacewalk), instead of doing proper development.

[@johansten7976]

Don't forget they were first to Venus as well!

[@NoahSpurrier]

The best lander was the one that landed on the Moon.

[@firefly4f4]

As only one ever actually landed, this discussion is moot. That said, I'd still argue that the answer is no, they did not. Of the Apollo Landers that actually went to the moon, all performed as expected, with one even being able to serve as an unexpected life craft when the main capsule had a severe failure. That's impressive in a way that no amount of speculation about the "competing" design can account for.

[@johnpurington6659]

I dunno. I’m in favor of the one we used. It’s more eye appealing. It had 2 engines! It was good enough to save the lives of 3 astronauts. Yeah. Pretty cool lander. 🎉❤

[@DanyalAdam-n3n]

The N1 looked really cool but how are the fuel tanks properly fueled? Because of that V shape?

[@rwdavidoff]

They were spheres suspended inside the conical outer structure--unlike Saturn, the tanks weren't structural. According to Siddiqui's book "Challenge to Apollo," the engineers said this was because they couldn't source aluminum sheeting thick enough to machine tank walls that were both carrying their pressure loads and the weight of the vehicle above them. It made it rather inefficient, as the stages ended up with higher dry mass.

[@Ethan-b9l]

Love videos like this! Also, historically USSR's space program was no doubt the more dangerous one!

[@ewkerman4185]

11:18 and if the last stage did not fire right the pilot would only have 5 to 10 minutes to fix it.

[@jvegazorro]

12:55 So... the Soviet Union lost the race to the moon just because its brother of rocket Saturn V, didn't work... Ok.

[@enscroggs]

A silly, worthless, absurd question to ask. It's like comparing an Olympic 100-meter dash gold medalist to someone who never ran a race.

[@glennchartrand5411]

I get a kick out of Russians A lander that never landed a crew on the Moon is the "better lander" A medium tank that nobody , not even the Russian Army, wants to buy is the "Best Tank in the World".

[@christopherpardell4418]

Well, one was real, and the other just a mock-up. Might as well compare it to Blue Origin’s lunar lander.

[@Hobbes746]

More than a mockup. The LK was far enough along to be tested in orbit.

[@christopherpardell4418]

@@Hobbes746 You’re right, My bad. Test flown several times, without a crew and two years too late. Never left earth orbit. Never landed on anything nor took off again. So which lander was better? The one that actually did the job.

[@Starman20290]

May you please do SLS vs Saturn V? There were actually ppans to possbly use upgraded F1 and J2 engines on SLS, but they were dropped.

[@betaorionis2164]

I don't agree that the American lander was better because it DID land on the Moon. The Soviet lander didn't have the chance to go to the Moon because of external reasons (most notably, the N-1 rocket), so we can't know how it would have performed.

[@mako88sb]

Having only room for one cosmonaut is a definite detriment safety wise. Then the added hazard of having to do two EVA’s adds even more to the hazard. As if there wasn’t already enough of that just getting to the moon. Plus it could only carry a fraction of the lunar samples as the Apollo LM.

[@betaorionis2164]

@@mako88sb Ok, but what I was criticising is the notion that the American lander was better BECAUSE it landed.

[@MinerBat]

1:36 *first WITH CREW. uncrewed landers had already been used

[@ShadowZone]

You are absolutely correct. The Soviet Luna probes had been to the moon a lot earlier.

[@montylc2001]

Ah...the landers that landed before any crewed mission were just probes and not even close to being able to be occupied.

[@grazynazambeanie5963]

Only one made it to the moon and back , let's call that one the best

[@hagerty1952]

Excellent summary. A few comments: 1) The Blok D you modeled is the later version used with Proton. The version that was part of the L3 Complex had a stressed outer skin to carry the thrust loads rather than a truss. 2) There was a load-bearing shroud around the LK to connect the Blok D with the LOK/Soyuz. The cosmonaut had to open a hatch in the shroud to get access to the LK hatch. If that weren't there, then all of the Blok D thrust would be conducted *through* the LK, every time it fired. 3) A fascinating detail of the L3 mission that you left out is, to save mass, the LK was *unpressurized* for most of the mission, so that they only had to provide enough gas for the cosmonaut's helmet. There was only enough gas to pressurize the cabin once so that he could remove his suit to eat, take a bio-break and maybe a short nap before returning. The cabin had to be vented before the ascent to lunar orbit.

[@DavidFMartin]

Considering only one of them actually got to land on the moon I’d say it’s obvious which was a better system.

[@AddisonSmith-f7y]

That’s why they would do it in secrecy

[@danielseeh]

Love you’re content keep it up! Grüße aus Deutschland

[@emmgeevideo]

Silly question: Who built the better lander? The better lander was the one that actually landed.

[@jjojo2004]

The fact the Russian lander was a one man show makes it a loser from the start. 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

[@davidsandy5917]

L1 looks very Kerbal.

[@a-nus]

one put men on the moon, the other never left earth. easy choice

[@derjaeger3321]

How can you compare units when one did its job and the other never got off the ground? It is like saying my car is better than a Ferrari, that is if I can ever get it on the racetrack.

[@AddisonSmith-f7y]

And he’s gonna be your first man to be on the moon in for all mankind

[@Allan_aka_RocKITEman]

Great video...👍

[@JasonGarber-n9y]

The lander that landed on the moon wins !!!!! 🏆

[@mazack00]

no subtitles/captions and the Voskhod 2 video mentioned isn't linked at all :\

[@brianarbenz1329]

Of course the Soviet one was better. It never failed. When you don't actually put something to use, it's always better than what is tried out in the real world.

[@frankdatank5002]

It’s not true, the USA lunar module only used hypergolic on the ascent stage!! They only did that because of how important that engine was. If it failed to fire then 2 astronauts would die on the moon and they didn’t want that.

[@rwdavidoff]

No, both stages used hypergols, the same Aerozine 50 fuel, a 50:50 mix by weight of hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH), and Nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer.

[@KSparks80]

Ours made it. Theirs didn't. We win.

[@JoseFernandez-qt8hm]

soviets did one man band stands while Americans did teamwork... It was plodding American collective versus inspired soviet individualism... Khrushchev against Bureaucracy....

[@AddisonSmith-f7y]

I have a question do you believe Apollo 10 can learn on the moon

[@TaterRaider]

Could you do R7 v. Falcon rocket families, weighting for era used?

[@bettyg7710]

Does it really matter, the USA won the moon race with a successful trip to and from the moon. All mission goals were met. The Russians may have gotten to space first, but the Americans got to the moon first and came back alive with moon soil and rock samples. So wondering which moon lander is better is just apples and oranges since the Russian lander never put a human on the moon.

[@steigleder]

You may try it the soviet stuff with the Raydernik mods

[@davidmajors514]

Not really much point to this. The LM landed on the Moon and the the L3 didn't. Case closed. Now I do have to confess that the logic at the end does tell me the Soviets built the better Command Module. After all - the Apollo CM was abandoned after the Apollo-Soyuz proem in 1975 and the Soyuz continues to fly.

[@peatmoss4415]

Let me guess, the one that made it was the best...! Solved it..!

[@sheilah4525]

ONE QUESTION….. WHICH ONE LANDED ON THE MOON? END DISCUSSION.

[@richardbailey3343]

Well here is another moot point the soviets could land probes on mars and Venus but could not land a man on the moon hellow😮.

[@johnwalker8417]

Well, the US actually landed astronauts on the moon and the Soviets never did. So guess what, the US won.

[@PhillipLineberger-h8o]

Ours worked

[@Rushtown_mayor_gaming]

8:27 song here?

[@MdRejowan-kf6pm]

Imagine yourself alone on the moon. 😅😅

[@arctic_haze]

Did the Soviet build at least one working prototype of the lander?

[@thatGUYbehindthemask]

even though we americans won the race, i still think it would have been impressive if the soviet union or russia had continued development and made it happen. too bad. USA #1

[@alexxbaudwhyn7572]

He who Does, wins. Usa Did it 6x times Lem wins

[@thodkats]

Shouldn't you say Soviets in the title ? By saying "Russian" you are being unfair of the countless of engineers and scientists from the other republics that contributed to the Soviet space programme...

[@ShadowZone]

Very true, thanks for reminding me. Title changed.

[@TotesRandom]

Nitpicking. It was the U.S.S.R The united soviet states of RUSSIA. it's no different than interchanging USA with America.

[@thodkats]

@@TotesRandom USSR = Union of Soviet socialist republics.

[@johnp139]

@@thodkatsUNION!

[@johnguilfoyle3073]

It was odd to see the Kerbel LM Descent Stage move after the Ascent Stage left. It's inaccurate to Apollo and took extra steps to animate the movement. The Shocks on the Apollo LM were designed to absorb the shock of impact by crushing the material inside. There were no springs or any way to un-crush the material.

[@Ethan-b9l]

A limitation to the game, The landing gear is generic to the game's base parts, and aren't historically accurate. The springs in the landing gear are there by default, meaning a lack of movement would actually take an additional finagling with a custom dampening and spring slider post-landing and pre-ascent. The animations are simply the engine adjusting to the weight change on the built in springs.

[@Warriorking.1963]

Love your Soviet Lander model, is it LEGO?

[@ShadowZone]

Lego compatible. I got it from Bluebrixx for 25 Euro.

[@Warriorking.1963]

@@ShadowZone I have to get me one of those! 🤣

[@Carson-to4zr]

Well only one ever made it so I think this is a dumb question

[@rickanderson8088]

The Soviets took much bigger risks than the U.S. did, that is why they were ahead in the Space Race until the Moon Landing. That is not to say they didn't effectively engineer everything, and until Saturn V, they did have much heavier lift than we did. Nor that we didn't have risks and setbacks as well. But engineering what we saw as the proper safety did slow us down compared to the Russians.

[@Starshipsforever]

Not really. When you look at the "space firsts" of the Soviet Union, it was pretty much a bunch of stunts with only a modest amount of useful practical benefit towards real human spaceflight. Even several Soviet designers and engineers admit this. They quickly fell behind during Gemini as the USA's greater unity under NASA and the vast amount of resources pushed past them in almost all aspects. By the end of Gemini, the USA was ahead in most areas with longest duration, fuel cell development, EVAs, rendezvous, docking, and more. It wasn't until the late 60s that the Soviets started to turn things around for themselves, but by then it was far too late. They acquitted well themselves later with Salyut, but that's another story. The skills and vehicles for a manned Moon landing was done and the race was lost.

[@AddisonSmith-f7y]

26 June 1969 for all mankind

[@johnp139]

What?

[@luckycobble935]

The americans did, they were the only ones to actually do it.

[@xray86delta]

😂 Silly question. The Americans actually landed on the moon, the Soviets did not. So, which Soviet lunar lander are you referring to?

[@PyrateGraphics]

Wouldn’t the best one be the one that actually landed on the moon

[@_apsis]

well that’s the fault of the n1 rocket, not the lander

[@bdub1934]

really dont matter Africa could have built the best one but only AMerica's was used

[@Murdervator]

Don't care. 100,000 subscribers.

[@wildaviation5528]

If the Soviets ever did actually reach the moon, there was a high chance of having a rough landing like Apollo 15. In which the descent engine bell hit the ground due to the lander having two of the legs hit the ground first and listing over. The engine was a write off. The soviet design would have stranded the lonely astronaut on the moon. Left to die.

[@Nghilifa]

Not entirely correct. The Engine bell on Apollo 15-17 was larger, so that it could provide more thrust due to the fact that the LM was heavier (more consumables for longer stays on the surface, more experiments and the rover). They knew it was a big chance that the bell might hit the surface (which it did on 15 as you mentioned), so they designed the nozzle extension (which provided the extra thrust needed) to "collapse" so as to not completely destroy the DPS and potentially the LM altogether. The astronauts also shut the DPS down IMMEDIATLY upon getting contact light when one of the 3 probes on the lander-legs touched the surface, so the DPS was already off before the LM settled on the surface (unlike on Apollo 11, where the DPS was still firing by the time the LM settled on the surface of the moon).

[@rwdavidoff]

I commented on this earlier, but the Soviet plan from 1967 to 1972 actually included an entire backup LK which would launch on a separate N1 and land under automatic control using radio guidance beacons mounted on rovers to have a pre-emplaced backup LK if needed. See Siddiqui, Challenge to Apollo, p517 "The Lunar Flotilla" and this description of the state of the project from the same source on p643: "The repeated additions and modifications to the N I-L3 plan in 1965-67 also complicated mission design. Even after the ink was dry on a final draft plan for a particular element of the L3 complex, months later, engineers would propose modifications based on new anticipated needs. This not only made it impossible to manufacture flight models of the spacecraft, but also added layer after layer of complexity to the N I-L3 mission. By 1968, the following components were part of the entire program: • Ye-6LS (two robot probes to map lunar gravitational anomalies) • Ye-8LS (two robot lunar satellites to photograph the lunar surface) • TIK-T2K (automated and piloted flights of the LOK and LK in Earth orbit) • LIE (automated test of the Blok D stage in Earth orbit): • NI-LI (two lunar orbital LI flights as test payloads for early N I launches) • Ye-8 (two lunar rovers to serve as transport for cosmonauts); • NI-L3 (one N I launch with the backup LK) • NI-L3 (one N I launch with two cosmonauts to land on the Moon)"

[@MinerBat]

where does the kerbal go in your KSP LK recreation?

[@ShadowZone]

Command seat clipped inside the Stayputnik probe core.

[@pointman2]

weren't the LM ascent stages crashed into the moon?

[@ArchivalQuality]

The Apollo Lunar Module wikipedia article lists the status of each. Looks like a mixture of being left in lunar orbit, impacting lunar surface, or entering earth's atmosphere.

[@DougVanDorn]

@@ArchivalQuality Basically, they started crashing stuff into the Moon the moment they had a continuously working seismometer on the surface. While Apollo 11 deployed a seismometer, it operated off of solar panels and only worked for the remainder of the lunar day during which the landing happened. But starting with Apollo 12, it was planned to impact each LM ascent stage on the Moon, to create a seismic signal that could tell them about the Moon's structure. And starting with Apollo 13, the Saturn S-IVB third stages were also crashed on the Moon, for the same reasons. Now, that plan had two exceptions -- obviously, Apollo 13's LM didn't have any part of itself touch or crash onto the Moon, because of the abort on the outbound trip. The other exception was on Apollo 16, where the plan was to crash the ascent stage, but the timelines got all messed up because of the 6-hour delay in the landing on that flight. So, instead of going through their normal procedures, they were told after returning to orbit and docking with the CSM to move everything out of the LM that was coming back, and then button everything up and delay the LM jettison until after a sleep period (the LM crew had been up for like 26 hours by that time). They went back in the next day and thought they finished the config properly, but after LM jett they found that the ascent stage was in free drift and not responsive to attitude control or propulsion control from the ground. That was chalked up to poor management of the procedures by Houston to try and get the LM crew to sleep, but after the flight all three crewmen said they thought the better thing would have been to just follow the regular procedure and get rid of the LM before going to sleep. But there was a lot of complaining done about how Houston tried to rewrite the flight plan from scratch after the landing delay on 16, so losing the ability to crash the LM ended up being one of the more minor of the resulting issues.

[@Vaughnage25]

Considering only one of them actually made it to the surface and landed, makes the question moot.

[@georgen.2959]

Спасибо вам за видео!

[@jeffreyrobinson3555]

Well, tge Soviets may have made a great design but they never got there, so by default the Americans were better

[@mako88sb]

One manned spacecraft and 2 EVA’s required is not a great design. Yeah, it kind of looks better but that’s about it.

[@jeffreyrobinson3555]

@@mako88sb Soviets never got to the moon and went six times proving their design

[@benvandermerwe4934]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻⚡🚀🥃