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Details of the Soviet Moonshot were kept intensely secret until the arrival of '' Glasnost ''. The plan was hindered by the death of Sergei Korolev in 1966 and the disaster of Soyuz 1 in 1967. Following the success of Project Apollo in 1969 materials and personnel were switched to other programmes and the whole project was cancelled in 1974 . HISTORY Although the Soviet leadership had made public pronouncements about landing a man on the orbiting flight. Chelomei's project had the lead until 1964 when a change of Soviet leadership swung behind Korolev. The problem was that Korolev's N1 as originally designed did not have enough power to send a manned landing mission. Korolev carried on for a year with the hope of improvising a solution but his death ended this. Korolev's final plan for a manned landing adopted the same method of Lunar Orbit Rendevous as Project Apollo . A variant of the Soyuz craft the LOK (Lunny Orbitalny Korabl) with a two-man crew would be launched on top of the N1 booster behind it would be the '''Lunnaya Kabina''' or LK mounted to a new rocket stage the 'Block D'. Following the coast to the moon one Cosmonaut would spacewalk to the LK and enter it. The Block D engine would be used to place the two spacecraft into lunar orbit, the Soyuz would then separate and the Block D would burn again to send the LK towards the moon. After discarding the Block D the LK's own engine would be used by the pilot to land on the lunar surface. As originally planned an earlier unmanned probe of the Luna programme would act as a beacon for the LK. After a day on the lunar suface the LK's single engine would fire again using its landing leg structure as a launch pad. The LK and Soyuz would perform an automated docking in Lunar orbit and after transferring crew and material the Soyuz's own engine would return the crew to the Earth. In 1966 two cosmonaut training groups were formed. One group was commanded by Vladimir Komarov and included Yuri Gagarin , and was to prepare for qualification flights of the Soyuz in Earth orbit and a Proton launched cis-lunar mission. The second group was led by Alexei Leonov and concentrated on the landing mission. As a result, Leonov has the strongest claim to have been the Soviet's first choice for first man on the moon. After Komarov's death in Soyuz 1 in 1967, Gagarin was taken out of training and the groups were restructured. Despite the Soyuz 1 setback, the Soviets successfully rehearsed the automated docking of two unmanned Soyuz craft in earth orbit in 1968 and with the manned Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 joint mission in early 1969 tested the other key mission elements. The success of Project Apollo in putting American astronauts on the Moon in 1969 put the United States ahead in the Space Race , and that was the deathblow to the Soviet moon program, although plans were drawn up until the early 1970s. Four N1 launches were attempted but all were failures. The second launch attempt on 3 July 1969, just 13 days prior to the launch of Apollo 11 , was a catastrophic failure which destroyed both the rocket and the launch complex. Subsequently, the Soviets decided to concentrate on the development of Space Stations , gaining several "firsts" in the process, and also a long term Mars program, which continues to the present day {Link without Title} {Link without Title} The LK was flown twice unmanned in 1971 in earth orbit and proved its design. A replica of it now stands in Euro Disney . SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS |
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