As a Russian, I'm ashamed to say that it's the first time I've learned about this program! Incredible. BTW, "K for korabl' or craft" - korabl' literally means ship. Kosmicheskiy korabl' = spaceship. Not that it's important, just in case someone is interested :)
As a Russian, I know most of it from Mark Wade's _Encyclopedia Astronautica._ BTW, craft: (countable, plural craft) A vehicle designed for navigation in or on water or air or through outer space [since the 17th century].
@@b1laxson unfortunately not if you pronounce korabl' properly :) not kurbl but closer to kuh-rub-bl' with the stress on the "rub" syllable...... oh well, it's impossible to explain this way
@@brettanderson6743 immagine if the us didn’t spend 600 billion a year on defence but instead on free healthcare or better public education.(their people) But you know, capitalists.
I remember as a young kid ( 6 and 1963) visiting a small museum in Wisconsin and seeing a piece of what they said was a Russian satellite that crashed in the town. I was a total space geek even then and I'll never forget that experience. I asked if I could touch it but they wouldn't let me.
@@sidv4615 I got to tour Cape Kennedy twice while a young Civil Air Patrol cadet in the early 70s. Once a Saturn V was on the pad. But I've never seen a live launch. Except for the hundreds of my homemade ones!
@@sidv4615 Didn't get right up to it. Hard to estimate how close we were as so young and many years ago. I thought at the time it didn't look as big as expected so maybe we were a ways away.
Can we take a moment to appreciate Scott's use of beautiful KSP-RO footage to illustrate so many of these? They look great! (and it's much better than stock lookalikes).
I love the Soviet/Russian approach to spacecraft: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. They might not have started as the most reliable spacecraft, but decades of upgrades and improvements to known good designs have been amazing.
It was interesting to see sputnik tumbling instead of in a streamlined orientation. I always wondered if the streamlined image most often seen in illustrations was in fact the way the spacecraft actually orbited.
It is a shame space agencies has to beg for spare hardware from the military. The US DoD space activites budget is about 3x the NASA one, and nobody calls them a waste of money... #FundNASA
I'm in the middle of reading Boris Chertok's "Rockets and People" and in the early days it seemed the one piece that never failed was the system that automatically destroyed the capsule if it was going to land outside of Soviet territory. When you first started talking about them intentionally landing a capsule off the east coast all I could think of was "...did we remember to disarm that..."
Wow! I cannot think of another video that has packed so much utterly new-to-me information into so little time. An amazing instrument described by an amazing communicator. Thanks, Scott! You make my world larger every time I watch.
Wow Scott very interesting history. You did an amazing job of research and detailing all of this. I find the differences in Soviet design versus American design most interesting
And certainly do not confuse it with Zenit (Зенит) cameras. The Zenit E (Зенит-Е) was probably the most famous (in my opinion). Built to withstand a drop from the 12th floor (involuntarily tested), be bullet proof and as simple as can possibly be, yet still a true SLR with the M42x1 universal thread. When paired with the Helios-44 lens, it could, in the hand of a skilled photographer, produce really high quality results. The only drawback I can see is that it did not come with its own motorized undercarriage and you had to haul it with your bare muscle power everywhere you went.
Ahhh😊, my first slr was an EM. I remember it with affection as it was as tough as you said but you needed to learn how photography worked to get good results from it, a fantastic teacher! I still use the skills I learned on that camera with my current dslr 😊.
@@andrewnewstead4367 My first SLR was also a Zenit EM. I got it for free (broken), repaired it and shot about 40 rolls of film before switching to Praktica L line (with the MTL5, later sold for a VLC2). If you learned to take good pictures with a fully manual camera, e.g. Zenit EM, you can take pictures with anything. I keep my old Praktica VLC2 and VLC3 out of nostalgia. And I also got another Zenit EM (the original one I sold, and this second I traded for some lenses) just to add to the collection as the first camera I had, although I had a fully black version, this one is the more typical silvery-gray and black. Also keep a few old M42 lenses. Once in a while, about once a year, I take out the old cameras and shoot a roll of BW film, develop it and scan the negatives. Just for fun. This year I will take the VLC2 with Pentacon lesnes out. My most recent addition to the collection is an Opema II with Meopta Belar f2.8 45mm lens, which I got for free from a friend, who found it. He did not want it, although I insisted that I will just clean and service it (the lens focusing was stuck) and give it back to him. He refused, now I consider myself as having it in long term lease. The interesting thing is that this camera has a picture format of 24x32, so you can get 40 shots on a 36 frame film. And since I managed to get 39 shots at 24x36 constistently, I expect to get 44 or 45 frames with the Opema II.
There are a lot of different products/vehicles/companies named Zenith in the English speaking world, I guess it's not too surprising that there are 2 different Zenits in Russia.
I love the Soviet history videos Scott. I must admit, I always thought the Zenit launch vehicle and capsule were one in the same. Learned something. Thanks!
I do like this platform-based approach where you don't design a purpose-built spacecraft for a payload, but the payload for the platform. Very cost effective, efficient and reliable.
The US did this early on with the Ranger platform. Ranger was just to crash into the moon. It didn't need to be complicated. But JPL wanted to design a core platform that could easily be adjusted for other missions. So while Rangers were still failing to crash into the moon, a differently outfitted version of it flew successfully by Venus as Mariner 2. The platform didn't have a long lifetime but Nasa and JPL learned a lot from it.
Great video. The US did the same thing with the Corona sats. They were announced as science sats. But were actually film based photo recon birds. They used a number of separate film re-entry capsules, rather than having to re-enter entire vehicle.
Technically the main vehicle did re-enter after all canisters were expended, it's just that unlike the film canisters, it didn't have to *survive* that re-entry so it didn't have heat sheilding or parachutes, and wasn't as particular about the re-entry location, since it was supposed to burn up. But using the small rcs thrusters that it would normally use to orient itself and to adjust timings so it would be over the intended target to take pictures, it would also be left in a degrading orbit on purpose. Not one that would re-enter immediately, but one that would re-enter eventually after enough passes. To get good film shots, the satellite was as low altitude as possible, so it didn't take much to make it scrape a little atmosphere to get the orbit to degrade.
If you go to the Air and Space museum in Washington DC (in the mall area), there is a Russian 'ball' spaceship on display. You can literally pop your head inside and see how the Russians sent their cosmonauts into space. I can tell you - who ever designed the spacecraft, the ergonomics of having a human inside this ball was truly an after thought.
I always assumed it was the other way around, that Korolev adapted the Zenit to be a manned capsule since it already had to have an environmental control system for the film. Interesting.
@@akulkis But from the point of view of standing alert and being combat ready, the R7 sucks. It's huge, requires LOX and needs to be sitting at the pad. for a long time. Easy to catch it on the pad with a bomber dropping a nuke on the site. I'll bet the 1950's prelaunch sequence was so long, Penkovsky could radio word of a pending first strike, and SAC would have a nuke on the site within 15 hours, catching it on the pad not ready for flight. Meanwhile Atlas was silo stored and only needed to be above ground 15 min before launch.
@@AndrewTubbiolo The Atlas was coffin-stored, not silo-stored (the silos were for the Titan I, which entered service slightly later), but the rest of your points are of course valid.
@@vikkimcdonough6153 Early Atlas was coffin stored the Atlas F was silo based. Stored and elevated vertically. Granted the F went operational in '61. I'm not sure when the R7 started standing alerts.
It would've been interesting if the USAF back in the 1960s, Scott, had decided to develop an unmanned spy-sat version of the Mercury capsule or the Gemini spacecraft.
Look up Manned Orbiting Lab MOL. It was to be a manned variant of a Gemini spacecraft with a small workspace where astronauts could operate spy telescopes. It was never built because remote control of spy satellites was advancing so rapidly having two astronauts on board was not necessary.
@@executivesteps There were manned and unmanned versions of MOL. MOL didn't die because of the development unmanned satellites, it died because the NRO could not justify the simultaneous development of a wide-area search system (KH-9 Hexagon) and a Very-High-Resolution system (KH-10 Dorian/MOL) coupled with the fact the Nixon desired a realtime reconnaissance system (which eventually became the KH-11 Kennan but a wide variety of options were considered). MOL also had the problem of offering very little in the way of improved performance for great investment. It was supposed to achieve a resolution of 4 inches/10cm, the maximum which could be achieved due to atmospheric interference, but KH-8 Gambit-3 turned out to be capable of already achieving these resolutions at low altitude.
16:30 I've been to the Museum of Flight dozens of times, going every year on my birthday since I got my drivers license. I've physically stood Under that module what felt like Hundreds of times and never new the story of the object itself! The displays and plaques just describe the advances of technology and the people that drove spaceflight forward, not that actual module, so this is a nice surprise!
750+ launches? Oh my God! When you, a Russian, learn from Scott Manley that Soviet Union was a technological superpower. And if the whole "ball" is returned, then there is an interesting question of how much they reused the equipment, that had already flown into space.
Such a technological superpower it’s first plant to produce toilet paper was built in 1969 😅 The Soviet government didn’t have the same level of income Western governments did, so while it was able to keep up militarily and in high technology, consumer technology was severely lacking in comparison with the West.
Not just early. The DoD has their own version of Hubble in the KH-11 and it's derivatives. It's hard to pin down how many there have been, but it's at least a dozen and likely several dozen. NASA has been given three KH-11 chassis over the years. One is Hubble, one will be the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and the third is in storage.
@@Hevach Hubble isn't a KH chassis. The influence the DOD had was in telling NASA "we reccomend these contractors who may or may not have some experience in building satellites and mirrors of approximately this size."
I went to the science museum in london today. I didn't know what to expect, but was delighted to find lots of rockets, and rocket paraphernalia hanging from the ceiling, including a replica of hubble and sputnik. And I never realised the lunar lander was so big; it's the size of a house lol.
Presumably, you mean the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), initially designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM). I live in a rather small house (approx. habitable volume 150 cubic metres), but I'm sure it's much bigger than the LM, so I find your comment puzzling. The habitable volume of the LM Ascent Stage was only about 4.5 cubic meters! The volume of the entire pressurized compartment was about 6.5 cubic meters.
@@robst247 The LM had a length (or height, depending on how you look at it) of 7.04 m, a width of 9.4m with the landing legs extended, and a diameter 4.22 meters, excluding the landing gear. So it had a base of about 88 square meters, with the landing legs extended. That's about the same area as my 3 room apartment. And my rooms are not 7.04 meters tall like the LM, they are only about 2.5 meters tall. So yes, it was about the size of a 2 story house, looking from outside. Nobody talked about habitable volume, or claim it had a lot of space inside. And, even if we ignore the landing legs, you could only fit it in a cylinder with a volume of about 100 cubic meters, so comparable to your small house. And if you think your house is small, you should read about the subdivided apartments in Hong Kong, they have an average area of 4.5 square meters per person, so you barely have have enough space for a bed and a desk.
@@VladimirNicolici The LM had two parts: the lower, octagonal part was the Descent Stage and the upper, more complex-shaped part was the Ascent Stage. The two astronauts were accomodated in the roughly cylindrical pressurized compartment of the Ascent Stage, which -- in terms of volume -- was only a very small fraction of the total you have calculated.
For all you OCD people who noticed there was no "g" ("г") in Scott's rendition of the Russian alphabet: it may or may not be the case for its omission here, but Russians use the letter as an euphemism for a certain very Slavic word that starts with this letter. So generally, you don't want to use it in naming, well, anything…
Tell me a letter in Russian alphabet, and I give you a common word that is a curse or private human parts. We wouldn't be able to name anything! Nah, most likely there was an side idea that got a letter but went nowhere.
@@vladimirdyuzhev (linguanerd glasses on) Ъ and Ь were bona fide vowels in Russian all the way into the XIII century, no matter how short they were. Even today e.g. the preposition *с* is pronounced in that ancient way in slow speech: */съ/* So using Ъ and Ь in names like that isn't exactly as absurd as it might seem. Of course, it's got nothing to do with Г being a very common and very recognizable euphemism for *говно*
I clearly remember as a child seeing the Echo satellite in the night sky. My father worked for a very well known aerospace company and told us when and where to look in the night sky and magically it appeared right on time!
If you want to see a Vostok in person, visit the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. You can also see Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules as well as redstone and titan rockets. And soooo much more. If you watch this channel, you need to put the Kansas Cosmosphere on your bucket list. No, I'm not joking.
Fun fact: in the Russian alphabet, after A, B, V comes G, and only then D. However, G is commonly used as a polite abbreviation for "govno", meaning "shit" (which has the same connotation for a low-quality piece of junk as it does in English), so they definitely wouldn't want to call the first satellite "Project G." That's why they skipped to D.
Would've been interesting to contrast Zenit with its Western equivalent in CORONA/Discoverer. CORONA underwent some pretty drastic changes over its short service life, while Zenit remained mostly the same save for its cameras and a few external modifications.
I get the feeling the Surveillance Community wasn't happy with CORONA, and hence the quick progression to GAMBIT and then onto HEXAGON (possibly via other spy satellite families/demonstrators).
@@vicroc4 There were some other things going on too though. And I recalled that the fact that satellites didn't " pick up" details/hints of the Soviet/Warsaw Pact build up for going into Czechoslovakia in 1968, which led to certain recriminations. Now that last bit is recalling to points that came out back in the late 1980s. So maybe issues around managing orbits, optics, resolution, other sensors came into play. I would have too look. But a pretty interesting history, and they must have moved forward enough to head the Manned Orbital Laboratory off at the pass (it got cancelled in 1969)....
Great video. 10:30 This is a hybrid craft - it combines.the return capsule of the Zenith (2K) and the i(modified) instrumentation module (lefthand) of the Yantar spy satellite.
My dad worked on imagery from the Corona program, which was the American counterpart of this. He wasn't able to tell me that until much, much later. Officially, he was working on geodesy--computing the shape of the Earth. He did work on that, but that was just the work he could talk about.
I'm betting they probably have pictures of me when I use to work on the ICBM's in Wyoming in the late 70's. They sometimes tell us when a satellite was passing over. One time we had to leave the launcher open so they could see the missile. A condition of the SALT Treaty.
@@rpbajb They were counting missiles, missile type which would give them a warhead count. They could tell by re-entry vehicle type on the tip of the missile. Ours had a silver shroud which housed 3 warheads.
@@rpbajb At every military installation that houses nukes, the base lodging has rooms that are used to house Salt Treaty Inspectors. The inspectors can show up unannounced at any time. So it's my guess that with subs the inspection is done when the sub is in port.
@@ammoguy76 That's interesting, thanks for the info. I always thought nuclear subs were surrounded by super tight security. That is, until recently a guy in a barber shop told me about the time he got a ride from Maui to Pearl in a fast attack sub (USS City of Corpus Christi). It was "family day", and his son was the weapons officer. Surprising to me, but I've never been in the Navy.
When Russians design a "project Objekt" they create mostly a concept, to be used for long, they can't afford to design a new hardware every time they need a job to be done. That is why they have the best money spend/ result ratio.
Wow! Wonderfully informative as usual, Scott. I knew the Soviet Union had spy satellites based on the same spacecraft as the Vostok, but I had no idea there were so many launched and in so many variants.
Actually the vostok space craft is still flying in the form of the Bion-M capsule derived from the Zenit,which was derived** from the Vostok manned craft.
Anyone else find the Zenit 6 (or Zenit 8, not really sure which it is) with those two big "eyes" for stereoscopic imaging, rotund little service module "body", and cute little "hat" kind of adorable?
I think it was. Note that the Vostok cosmonauts had to eject from the capsule before touchdown...which fact they covered up, because technically it meant that they had not completed the flight.
Best maps, because Soviet Union was planing to conquer the World, put everywhere red flag, make everyone speak russian and forget about any religions and gods.
If you're livin' in a bubble and you haven't got a care ♫ Well, you're gonna be in trouble 'cause we're gonna steal your air ♪ 'Cause what you got is what we need and all we do is dirty deeds ♫ We're the Spaceballs! Watch out, 'cause we're the Spaceballs ♫
The whole video is fascinating, but I was mostly triggered by the US payload on the bion-3 module. Amazing, in the midst of the cold war. For a moment I thought I saw a Dutch flag too, but that must have been Czech as the Kosmos 782 wikipedia page states ‘with participation from scientists in France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, United States and the Soviet Union.’
It does seem surprising, but Kosmos 782 was the same year as Apollo-Soyuz. I think there were two reasons it was possible. First was the US pulling out of Vietnam, which eased cold war tensions. The second was that the US had won the race to the moon, and so wasn't as concerned about possible technology leaks that might have happened during such missions.
Soviet had CCD sensors capable of 2 megapixels in early 80s in some of these spy satellites, whats known about them is limited but 2 megapixels just a few years after first CCD camera, its bloody impressive. Although the americans also had something similar in the mid 80s as well.
The Soviets won the space race. They won at everything. The Americans only got to the moon first (with people). In all other things, the Soviets were always pioneers.
Scott, you're not quite right. Initially, priority was given to photo-reconnaissance spacecraft. The return of the returned capsule was originally planned, since the USSR could not afford to lose valuable and unique photographic equipment. But, with the launch of the MISS program in the USA (what we know as the Mercury program), a political decision was made to give resources and priority to the development of a manned spacecraft in order to overtake the Americans. But the Zenit photo reconnaissance program was not put on pause, and in parallel with the Vostok aggregate compartment, a more advanced aggregate compartment was created that allows you to keep the exact orientation of the spacecraft in orbit.
Well, I learned something today. I had no idea that all those Zeniths and derivatives trace their origin to the same design as Vostok. And to think that most of them were launched on still active descendants of R-7 "Semjorka" ("number seven") ICBM... Well, Atlas V is also a distant descendant of the original Atlas ICBM, now using Soviet engines. Strange world...
When Scott tells you the Russian alphabet starts with ABV, there's no reason to question that, and plenty of reasons not to.. Soviet Russia: the highest ABV on the planet.
As a Russian, I'm ashamed to say that it's the first time I've learned about this program! Incredible.
BTW, "K for korabl' or craft" - korabl' literally means ship. Kosmicheskiy korabl' = spaceship. Not that it's important, just in case someone is interested :)
hmmmm and Kerbal sounds so much the same
thanks that's kind of cool
As a Russian, I know most of it from Mark Wade's _Encyclopedia Astronautica._
BTW, craft:
(countable, plural craft) A vehicle designed for navigation in or on water or air or through outer space [since the 17th century].
@@b1laxson unfortunately not if you pronounce korabl' properly :) not kurbl but closer to kuh-rub-bl' with the stress on the "rub" syllable...... oh well, it's impossible to explain this way
I always like hearing details like that. Thank you. :)
650 flights is an absolutely mind bending number when you consider how much effort, material and costs go into even one launch.
Now you know why nobody behind the iron curtain owned a refrigerator.
North Korea should start a space program
Imagine if they spent that money on their people.
But you know, communists.
@@alman5568 your lack of knowledge about the USSR is very cringy, and your assumptions are actually quite insulting.
@@brettanderson6743 immagine if the us didn’t spend 600 billion a year on defence but instead on free healthcare or better public education.(their people)
But you know, capitalists.
I remember as a young kid ( 6 and 1963) visiting a small museum in Wisconsin and seeing a piece of what they said was a Russian satellite that crashed in the town. I was a total space geek even then and I'll never forget that experience. I asked if I could touch it but they wouldn't let me.
Did you ever see the shuttle fly?
@@sidv4615 I got to tour Cape Kennedy twice while a young Civil Air Patrol cadet in the early 70s. Once a Saturn V was on the pad. But I've never seen a live launch. Except for the hundreds of my homemade ones!
@@terryboyer1342 wooow, you got to see the Saturn V on pad, thats awesome. how far were you from it? did it really seem 300ft+ tall?
@@sidv4615 Didn't get right up to it. Hard to estimate how close we were as so young and many years ago. I thought at the time it didn't look as big as expected so maybe we were a ways away.
@@terryboyer1342 do you remember where you were when challenger happened in ‘86? What was it like?
Can we take a moment to appreciate Scott's use of beautiful KSP-RO footage to illustrate so many of these? They look great! (and it's much better than stock lookalikes).
I thought that was Orbiter game play.
@@ByAnyMeansNecessary. it was orbiter gameplay up until about 7 minutes in.
@@ByAnyMeansNecessary. ah, Orbiter. A gem. It's a plan one day to make a functional delta glider in KSP
I myself like ksp stockalike graphics (scatterer+waterfall+restock)
Does RO stand for realism overhaul?
I love the Soviet/Russian approach to spacecraft: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. They might not have started as the most reliable spacecraft, but decades of upgrades and improvements to known good designs have been amazing.
It's their approach in all of their technology and it causes me to deeply respect them.
That’s a very good approach, if you ask me.
This might work but daring innovation done right is much better. Just compare SLS and Starship!
@@SteenLarsen SLS is just refurbish parts from Shuttle tho
@@LuigiToby That's exactly my point.
It was interesting to see sputnik tumbling instead of in a streamlined orientation. I always wondered if the streamlined image most often seen in illustrations was in fact the way the spacecraft actually orbited.
They had center of mass in a spot designed to orient it properly I believe. Maybe Scott can comment on that.
Was thinking the exact same thing, JombieMann!👍
The streamlined look was probably due to limitations of the _animation_ technology of the day!
It's amazing that they, with so much camera experiences, had all this lens cap trouble on Venus...
But probably not with cameras in an acid bath at several hundred degrees Celcius.
The Venusian princesses flew up on their dragons to put lens caps so their secret wouldn't be exposed.
When it got to Venus, it just couldn't handle the pressure.
It is a shame space agencies has to beg for spare hardware from the military. The US DoD space activites budget is about 3x the NASA one, and nobody calls them a waste of money... #FundNASA
Some balls are held for charity and some for fancy dress, But when they're launched to space they're the balls that I like best.
Our balls are always launching, to the left and to the right. It's my belief that our big balls should be launched every night.
I wonder how many people will get that reference.
I love how Russian space program engineers do everything they can to keep updating ancient spacecraft to serve for decades and decades.
"do everything they can" as in "do not have money for anything else" :)
@@randomnickify yeah, pretty much :D it drives innovation in a... "Russian" way
I do the same thing in KSP. Add a fuel tank here, delete an RCS pod or landing legs there, covers all the contracts.
not Russian, but Soviet. Korolev was Ukrainian by the way
It’s called an evolutionary approach, you make a good design, and keep refining and improving it.
Another informative fact packed episode! Thank you Scott!
I'm in the middle of reading Boris Chertok's "Rockets and People" and in the early days it seemed the one piece that never failed was the system that automatically destroyed the capsule if it was going to land outside of Soviet territory. When you first started talking about them intentionally landing a capsule off the east coast all I could think of was "...did we remember to disarm that..."
Wow! I cannot think of another video that has packed so much utterly new-to-me information into so little time. An amazing instrument described by an amazing communicator. Thanks, Scott! You make my world larger every time I watch.
Wow Scott very interesting history. You did an amazing job of research and detailing all of this.
I find the differences in Soviet design versus American design most interesting
And certainly do not confuse it with Zenit (Зенит) cameras. The Zenit E (Зенит-Е) was probably the most famous (in my opinion). Built to withstand a drop from the 12th floor (involuntarily tested), be bullet proof and as simple as can possibly be, yet still a true SLR with the M42x1 universal thread. When paired with the Helios-44 lens, it could, in the hand of a skilled photographer, produce really high quality results. The only drawback I can see is that it did not come with its own motorized undercarriage and you had to haul it with your bare muscle power everywhere you went.
Thanks for that. You have some deep subject matter knowledge I’d say.
Ahhh😊, my first slr was an EM. I remember it with affection as it was as tough as you said but you needed to learn how photography worked to get good results from it, a fantastic teacher! I still use the skills I learned on that camera with my current dslr 😊.
@@andrewnewstead4367 My first SLR was also a Zenit EM. I got it for free (broken), repaired it and shot about 40 rolls of film before switching to Praktica L line (with the MTL5, later sold for a VLC2). If you learned to take good pictures with a fully manual camera, e.g. Zenit EM, you can take pictures with anything. I keep my old Praktica VLC2 and VLC3 out of nostalgia. And I also got another Zenit EM (the original one I sold, and this second I traded for some lenses) just to add to the collection as the first camera I had, although I had a fully black version, this one is the more typical silvery-gray and black. Also keep a few old M42 lenses. Once in a while, about once a year, I take out the old cameras and shoot a roll of BW film, develop it and scan the negatives. Just for fun. This year I will take the VLC2 with Pentacon lesnes out. My most recent addition to the collection is an Opema II with Meopta Belar f2.8 45mm lens, which I got for free from a friend, who found it. He did not want it, although I insisted that I will just clean and service it (the lens focusing was stuck) and give it back to him. He refused, now I consider myself as having it in long term lease. The interesting thing is that this camera has a picture format of 24x32, so you can get 40 shots on a 36 frame film. And since I managed to get 39 shots at 24x36 constistently, I expect to get 44 or 45 frames with the Opema II.
There are a lot of different products/vehicles/companies named Zenith in the English speaking world, I guess it's not too surprising that there are 2 different Zenits in Russia.
My first camera when I was about 13 was a Zeiss Ikon, I desperately wanted a Zenit E but could not afford one. Life is cruel!
I love the Soviet history videos Scott. I must admit, I always thought the Zenit launch vehicle and capsule were one in the same. Learned something. Thanks!
He mentioned a while back the Russians tend to name their rockets after the first payload they carry.
It's a good day when Scott uploads ❤
I do like this platform-based approach where you don't design a purpose-built spacecraft for a payload, but the payload for the platform. Very cost effective, efficient and reliable.
The US did this early on with the Ranger platform. Ranger was just to crash into the moon. It didn't need to be complicated. But JPL wanted to design a core platform that could easily be adjusted for other missions. So while Rangers were still failing to crash into the moon, a differently outfitted version of it flew successfully by Venus as Mariner 2.
The platform didn't have a long lifetime but Nasa and JPL learned a lot from it.
Great video. The US did the same thing with the Corona sats. They were announced as science sats. But were actually film based photo recon birds. They used a number of separate film re-entry capsules, rather than having to re-enter entire vehicle.
Technically the main vehicle did re-enter after all canisters were expended, it's just that unlike the film canisters, it didn't have to *survive* that re-entry so it didn't have heat sheilding or parachutes, and wasn't as particular about the re-entry location, since it was supposed to burn up. But using the small rcs thrusters that it would normally use to orient itself and to adjust timings so it would be over the intended target to take pictures, it would also be left in a degrading orbit on purpose. Not one that would re-enter immediately, but one that would re-enter eventually after enough passes. To get good film shots, the satellite was as low altitude as possible, so it didn't take much to make it scrape a little atmosphere to get the orbit to degrade.
I always found old Soviet era spacecraft to look especially chunky yet quite charming in their own right.
Uncanny resemblance of the Zenet 4nk with low atmosphere shield configuration to Star Wars TIE fighters.
Petition to make SpaceNerd Points an official form of currency.
Petition to make sure it's doesn't work like cryptocurrencies.
Petition to make the coins shaped like astronaut wings, so Bezos' billionaire friends can't feel cool about their fake pins anymore!
Petition make it NFT so the NFT cunts can't monetize it.
They already are. You just have to save up enough space nerd points until you can cash them in for a salary.
If you go to the Air and Space museum in Washington DC (in the mall area), there is a Russian 'ball' spaceship on display. You can literally pop your head inside and see how the Russians sent their cosmonauts into space. I can tell you - who ever designed the spacecraft, the ergonomics of having a human inside this ball was truly an after thought.
I always assumed it was the other way around, that Korolev adapted the Zenit to be a manned capsule since it already had to have an environmental control system for the film. Interesting.
Korolev built a space launcher instead of a ICBM against direct party order, he indeed did have record breaking big balls.
Anything capable of being a space launcher is also capable of being an ICBM.
@@akulkis But from the point of view of standing alert and being combat ready, the R7 sucks. It's huge, requires LOX and needs to be sitting at the pad. for a long time. Easy to catch it on the pad with a bomber dropping a nuke on the site. I'll bet the 1950's prelaunch sequence was so long, Penkovsky could radio word of a pending first strike, and SAC would have a nuke on the site within 15 hours, catching it on the pad not ready for flight. Meanwhile Atlas was silo stored and only needed to be above ground 15 min before launch.
@@AndrewTubbiolo The Atlas was coffin-stored, not silo-stored (the silos were for the Titan I, which entered service slightly later), but the rest of your points are of course valid.
@@vikkimcdonough6153 Early Atlas was coffin stored the Atlas F was silo based. Stored and elevated vertically. Granted the F went operational in '61. I'm not sure when the R7 started standing alerts.
I think they chose the Zenit name because the photography was done practically from the zenith (straight down) to minimize the atmospheric effects.
Bears mentioning that the soviets manufactured 35mm film cameras branded Зенит, which translates into Zenith
IIRC the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System uses the terrain data from the Soviet Union. Which became available in the 1990s.
It would've been interesting if the USAF back in the 1960s, Scott, had decided to develop an unmanned spy-sat version of the Mercury capsule or the Gemini spacecraft.
Look up Manned Orbiting Lab MOL. It was to be a manned variant of a Gemini spacecraft with a small workspace where astronauts could operate spy telescopes.
It was never built because remote control of spy satellites was advancing so rapidly having two astronauts on board was not necessary.
Like the CORONA satellites?
@@executivesteps I'm aware of the MOL, what I meant is an unmanned Gemini spacecraft .
I'm sure McDonnell Aircraft (later McDonnell Douglas) would have been glad to keep building them!
@@executivesteps There were manned and unmanned versions of MOL. MOL didn't die because of the development unmanned satellites, it died because the NRO could not justify the simultaneous development of a wide-area search system (KH-9 Hexagon) and a Very-High-Resolution system (KH-10 Dorian/MOL) coupled with the fact the Nixon desired a realtime reconnaissance system (which eventually became the KH-11 Kennan but a wide variety of options were considered).
MOL also had the problem of offering very little in the way of improved performance for great investment. It was supposed to achieve a resolution of 4 inches/10cm, the maximum which could be achieved due to atmospheric interference, but KH-8 Gambit-3 turned out to be capable of already achieving these resolutions at low altitude.
16:30 I've been to the Museum of Flight dozens of times, going every year on my birthday since I got my drivers license. I've physically stood Under that module what felt like Hundreds of times and never new the story of the object itself! The displays and plaques just describe the advances of technology and the people that drove spaceflight forward, not that actual module, so this is a nice surprise!
Now I know what that roasted space ball that I saw at the museum of flight in Seattle as a school kid almost 30 years ago is. Thanks Scott.
You really are the man when it comes to space trivia that is not trivial.
750+ launches? Oh my God! When you, a Russian, learn from Scott Manley that Soviet Union was a technological superpower.
And if the whole "ball" is returned, then there is an interesting question of how much they reused the equipment, that had already flown into space.
It was not super cost-efficient by any means. The military tends to spend money like crazy. Same for US early space satellite program.
Such a technological superpower it’s first plant to produce toilet paper was built in 1969 😅
The Soviet government didn’t have the same level of income Western governments did, so while it was able to keep up militarily and in high technology, consumer technology was severely lacking in comparison with the West.
Not just early. The DoD has their own version of Hubble in the KH-11 and it's derivatives. It's hard to pin down how many there have been, but it's at least a dozen and likely several dozen. NASA has been given three KH-11 chassis over the years. One is Hubble, one will be the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, and the third is in storage.
@@Hevach Hubble isn't a KH chassis. The influence the DOD had was in telling NASA "we reccomend these contractors who may or may not have some experience in building satellites and mirrors of approximately this size."
the renderings really add a lot to the video especially combined with photos/videos!
Now I have a whole new degree of appreciation for the Zenit cameras...
I am astounded to learn we were still using film up there as recently at 1984. Well, seems recent to me, kids. 😉
What a great topic, Scott. You are a marvel at finding esoteric topics.
Great watch Scott, loving the use of ksp to simulate the versions in flight too.
Absolutely love how the four has a tie interceptor look.
"How do we make camera survive in space?"
"Put it into atmosphere?"
It works for people too.
😎
Manitowoc, Wisconsin is the town that Sputnik 4 crashed in. I always try to find the brass ring in the street. The replica is in the Rahr-West museum.
So these were all the UFO’s we were seeing back in the 60-80s when they were dipping down low. So damn interesting. Awesome video!
Thanks Scott. I couldn't help thinking of the resebelance to Starbug from Red Dwarf 😊
I can't be the only one who thought "TIE fighter!" when seeing the ZENIT-4M variants with the side solar panels.
I love learning about old Soviet space tech. Nice!
I went to the science museum in london today. I didn't know what to expect, but was delighted to find lots of rockets, and rocket paraphernalia hanging from the ceiling, including a replica of hubble and sputnik. And I never realised the lunar lander was so big; it's the size of a house lol.
Presumably, you mean the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), initially designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM). I live in a rather small house (approx. habitable volume 150 cubic metres), but I'm sure it's much bigger than the LM, so I find your comment puzzling. The habitable volume of the LM Ascent Stage was only about 4.5 cubic meters! The volume of the entire pressurized compartment was about 6.5 cubic meters.
@@robst247 The LM had a length (or height, depending on how you look at it) of 7.04 m, a width of 9.4m with the landing legs extended, and a diameter 4.22 meters, excluding the landing gear. So it had a base of about 88 square meters, with the landing legs extended. That's about the same area as my 3 room apartment. And my rooms are not 7.04 meters tall like the LM, they are only about 2.5 meters tall. So yes, it was about the size of a 2 story house, looking from outside. Nobody talked about habitable volume, or claim it had a lot of space inside. And, even if we ignore the landing legs, you could only fit it in a cylinder with a volume of about 100 cubic meters, so comparable to your small house. And if you think your house is small, you should read about the subdivided apartments in Hong Kong, they have an average area of 4.5 square meters per person, so you barely have have enough space for a bed and a desk.
@@VladimirNicolici The LM had two parts: the lower, octagonal part was the Descent Stage and the upper, more complex-shaped part was the Ascent Stage. The two astronauts were accomodated in the roughly cylindrical pressurized compartment of the Ascent Stage, which -- in terms of volume -- was only a very small fraction of the total you have calculated.
For all you OCD people who noticed there was no "g" ("г") in Scott's rendition of the Russian alphabet: it may or may not be the case for its omission here, but Russians use the letter as an euphemism for a certain very Slavic word that starts with this letter. So generally, you don't want to use it in naming, well, anything…
Tell me a letter in Russian alphabet, and I give you a common word that is a curse or private human parts. We wouldn't be able to name anything!
Nah, most likely there was an side idea that got a letter but went nowhere.
@@vladimirdyuzhev Это *г* , а не объяснение.
@@vladimirdyuzhev Ь
@@wilfriedklaebe You got me there. We should name our systems Объект Ь and Обьект Ъ, but nothing else.
@@vladimirdyuzhev (linguanerd glasses on) Ъ and Ь were bona fide vowels in Russian all the way into the XIII century, no matter how short they were. Even today e.g. the preposition *с* is pronounced in that ancient way in slow speech: */съ/* So using Ъ and Ь in names like that isn't exactly as absurd as it might seem.
Of course, it's got nothing to do with Г being a very common and very recognizable euphemism for *говно*
This channel has been popping off these past few months.
I clearly remember as a child seeing the Echo satellite in the night sky. My father worked for a very well known aerospace company and told us when and where to look in the night sky and magically it appeared right on time!
Excellent really gives traction to the number of launches the soviets completed
Scott, you simply have to do a remote episode from Sputnikfest 🤣
The zenit spacecraft! I made one in SR2 those things are cool looking
Once again, Thank you for everything you do Scott! Very much appreciate. Best content there is.
I'm a simple man. I see a Scott Manley video titled Soviet Space Balls, and so I click.
If you want to see a Vostok in person, visit the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. You can also see Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules as well as redstone and titan rockets. And soooo much more. If you watch this channel, you need to put the Kansas Cosmosphere on your bucket list. No, I'm not joking.
Fun fact: in the Russian alphabet, after A, B, V comes G, and only then D. However, G is commonly used as a polite abbreviation for "govno", meaning "shit" (which has the same connotation for a low-quality piece of junk as it does in English), so they definitely wouldn't want to call the first satellite "Project G." That's why they skipped to D.
Thanks for the tour yesterday!
Would've been interesting to contrast Zenit with its Western equivalent in CORONA/Discoverer. CORONA underwent some pretty drastic changes over its short service life, while Zenit remained mostly the same save for its cameras and a few external modifications.
I get the feeling the Surveillance Community wasn't happy with CORONA, and hence the quick progression to GAMBIT and then onto HEXAGON (possibly via other spy satellite families/demonstrators).
@@vicroc4 There were some other things going on too though. And I recalled that the fact that satellites didn't " pick up" details/hints of the Soviet/Warsaw Pact build up for going into Czechoslovakia in 1968, which led to certain recriminations. Now that last bit is recalling to points that came out back in the late 1980s. So maybe issues around managing orbits, optics, resolution, other sensors came into play. I would have too look. But a pretty interesting history, and they must have moved forward enough to head the Manned Orbital Laboratory off at the pass (it got cancelled in 1969)....
Russian spaceballs? I love that movie.
Great video.
10:30 This is a hybrid craft - it combines.the return capsule of the Zenith (2K) and the i(modified) instrumentation module (lefthand) of the Yantar spy satellite.
That's supposed to be the 1975 Kosmos 782 Bion satellite, I thought the Yantar instrument module was only recently used.
Dear Scott: You always make interesting videos, but this one is no doubt among the best.
you are a breath of fresh air in todays world mr scott! thank you your videos, its great to listen to you summarizing whatever youve researched!
"Space Balls? Oh shit, there goes the planet!"
My dad worked on imagery from the Corona program, which was the American counterpart of this.
He wasn't able to tell me that until much, much later. Officially, he was working on geodesy--computing the shape of the Earth. He did work on that, but that was just the work he could talk about.
Amazing! I can't believe we're still launching hardware with heritage back to Vostok.
I had no idea they flew so recently! Thanks for the video Scott!
Early model Tie Fighters?
I'm betting they probably have pictures of me when I use to work on the ICBM's in Wyoming in the late 70's. They sometimes tell us when a satellite was passing over. One time we had to leave the launcher open so they could see the missile. A condition of the SALT Treaty.
That's interesting. Did they actually have to verify that some silos were empty?
@@rpbajb They were counting missiles, missile type which would give them a warhead count. They could tell by re-entry vehicle type on the tip of the missile. Ours had a silver shroud which housed 3 warheads.
@@ammoguy76 Do you know how they verify the number of warheads in the Trident IIs on the boomers?
@@rpbajb At every military installation that houses nukes, the base lodging has rooms that are used to house Salt Treaty Inspectors. The inspectors can show up unannounced at any time. So it's my guess that with subs the inspection is done when the sub is in port.
@@ammoguy76 That's interesting, thanks for the info. I always thought nuclear subs were surrounded by super tight security. That is, until recently a guy in a barber shop told me about the time he got a ride from Maui to Pearl in a fast attack sub (USS City of Corpus Christi). It was "family day", and his son was the weapons officer. Surprising to me, but I've never been in the Navy.
We're the Spaceballs
We're the masters of space
Don't mess around with the Spaceballs.
Watch out!
Scott, how do you get anything done in that office! It’s utter chaos! Love your channel :-)
I like the Russian approach of recycling the same hardware for many applications.
When Russians design a "project Objekt" they create mostly a concept, to be used for long, they can't afford to design a new hardware every time they need a job to be done. That is why they have the best money spend/ result ratio.
@@gueigudze1759 I agree and it is very rational. In the so called capitalist world, a lot is wasted.
The Sputnik IV scenario would make a good set up for a sci-fi/horror movie... DIBS!
Well, it was involved in "Lost cosmonauts" hoax, so it already has a horror movies based on different aspects of that mission.
@@averageeclairenjoyer3010 i was thinking more like Andromeda Strain, or mutated space chimp. Maybe both
Wow! Wonderfully informative as usual, Scott. I knew the Soviet Union had spy satellites based on the same spacecraft as the Vostok, but I had no idea there were so many launched and in so many variants.
Actually the vostok space craft is still flying in the form of the Bion-M capsule derived from the Zenit,which was derived** from the Vostok manned craft.
**Some what
That was really interesting, thanks, Scott
Anyone else find the Zenit 6 (or Zenit 8, not really sure which it is) with those two big "eyes" for stereoscopic imaging, rotund little service module "body", and cute little "hat" kind of adorable?
I know the pressure vessel simplified the camera but the scale difference between hexagon and zenit makes it look like a brownie camera by comparison
I wonder was it the _other_ way around; Korolev essentially adopted original Zenit design from around 1960 to build the Vostok spacecraft.
I think it was. Note that the Vostok cosmonauts had to eject from the capsule before touchdown...which fact they covered up, because technically it meant that they had not completed the flight.
But the same design of entry module was used for Voskhod and the crew didn't eject.
@@scottmanley IIRC, that was when they introduced the retrorocket system for the last few meters of the landing.
This partly explains how the Soviets had the best maps of the world.
Best maps, because Soviet Union was planing to conquer the World, put everywhere red flag, make everyone speak russian and forget about any religions and gods.
And breed bears and give everyone free bothle of vodka every hour
Loving the t shirt Scott😁
Finally someone had drown sputnik1 the right way.
Rotating its antennae all the way around )
If you're livin' in a bubble and you haven't got a care ♫
Well, you're gonna be in trouble 'cause we're gonna steal your air ♪
'Cause what you got is what we need and all we do is dirty deeds ♫
We're the Spaceballs! Watch out, 'cause we're the Spaceballs ♫
Spaceballs. The greatest work of science fiction ever made. It's kind of funny too.
So, that is about half of all R7-derivative launches...
I have touched a chared heat shield from one. It looked like a burned glass fiber boat.
The fans now expect you to visit that site, and document its splendor for youtube.
Thank you for that thumbnail, Scott
Excellent video on a mostly unknown subject, Scott, thank you.
I kept noticing your swing arm lamp aligned with the Canadarm in your Shuttle model. 🤔
They picked that solution a lot: Having a bubble under standard conditions so they wouldn't have to design specialty electronics for more exotic ones.
I was looking at the thumbnail on youtube homepage and thought this video was about SovietWomble's obsession with ball-shaped Space Engineer rockets.
The whole video is fascinating, but I was mostly triggered by the US payload on the bion-3 module. Amazing, in the midst of the cold war. For a moment I thought I saw a Dutch flag too, but that must have been Czech as the Kosmos 782 wikipedia page states ‘with participation from scientists in France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, United States and the Soviet Union.’
It does seem surprising, but Kosmos 782 was the same year as Apollo-Soyuz. I think there were two reasons it was possible. First was the US pulling out of Vietnam, which eased cold war tensions. The second was that the US had won the race to the moon, and so wasn't as concerned about possible technology leaks that might have happened during such missions.
Scott's T-shirt is so much top kek i want it badly
Soviet had CCD sensors capable of 2 megapixels in early 80s in some of these spy satellites, whats known about them is limited but 2 megapixels just a few years after first CCD camera, its bloody impressive. Although the americans also had something similar in the mid 80s as well.
The Soviets won the space race. They won at everything. The Americans only got to the moon first (with people). In all other things, the Soviets were always pioneers.
I like how the TIE fighter is stuck on the end..
I like how Scott just said "a town in Wisconsin" versus trying to pronounce "Manitowoc".
Scott, you're not quite right. Initially, priority was given to photo-reconnaissance spacecraft. The return of the returned capsule was originally planned, since the USSR could not afford to lose valuable and unique photographic equipment. But, with the launch of the MISS program in the USA (what we know as the Mercury program), a political decision was made to give resources and priority to the development of a manned spacecraft in order to overtake the Americans. But the Zenit photo reconnaissance program was not put on pause, and in parallel with the Vostok aggregate compartment, a more advanced aggregate compartment was created that allows you to keep the exact orientation of the spacecraft in orbit.
I remember this as being Vostoc. Freaky ejection seat landing?
Well, I learned something today. I had no idea that all those Zeniths and derivatives trace their origin to the same design as Vostok.
And to think that most of them were launched on still active descendants of R-7 "Semjorka" ("number seven") ICBM... Well, Atlas V is also a distant descendant of the original Atlas ICBM, now using Soviet engines. Strange world...
Hi Scott. Great video. As always. I got the awarded points for knowing. Yay me.
Bro the video released 50seconds ago, and is 18min long. How did you see it so fast😅
When Scott tells you the Russian alphabet starts with ABV, there's no reason to question that, and plenty of reasons not to..
Soviet Russia: the highest ABV on the planet.
And 100 gram shots.
What a load of balls!! Interesting as always Scott.