How the Soviets Lost the Race to Mars

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  • Опубліковано 12 сер 2023
  • Links:
    - The Asianometry Newsletter: asianometry.substack.com
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КОМЕНТАРІ • 564

  • @mikemack3243
    @mikemack3243 10 місяців тому +208

    42 mins. Let's blast. 🚀

  • @MrJ3
    @MrJ3 10 місяців тому +212

    I am perpetually impressed by how frequently you can put out content like this.

    • @DeepTitanic
      @DeepTitanic 10 місяців тому +6

      It pays well to tell American's what they want to hear

    • @user-wt8vq6ce8k
      @user-wt8vq6ce8k 10 місяців тому +3

      ​@@DeepTitanicsad truth

    • @alfstewart22
      @alfstewart22 10 місяців тому +1

      Jon has a twin. Or clones.

    • @jaimeduncan6167
      @jaimeduncan6167 9 місяців тому

      Did you notice that he “forgot” to mention Mariner 2 in his timeline? It will be against his narrative. So either he did not research , or he did but is doing propaganda.

    • @hydrolifetech7911
      @hydrolifetech7911 8 місяців тому +1

      ​@@DeepTitanicit doesn't bode well for your mental health constantly whining about 'evil' Americans and Westerners. Make your own content instead of constantly crying in the replies

  • @lettucemonster
    @lettucemonster 10 місяців тому +23

    Some notes:
    * the R-7 wasn't a V-2 derivative. Earlier rockets like R-1 and R-2 were, but R-7 was a clean sheet design, much larger than a V-2 and using very different engines and propellant
    * Object D was not Sputnik 1, it was Sputnik 3. It wasn't ready when the rocket was so Sputnik 1 was constructed as a simpler stand in.
    * At 22:30 you show an image of a Proton but its not carrying a Mars probe, its carrying a prototype manned lunar flyby craft (confusingly also called "Zond")

  • @AlexKarasev
    @AlexKarasev 10 місяців тому +169

    Nedelin, Chief Marshal of Artillery, under whose jurisdiction fell the budding Soviet missile program, flew in to address the delays with the ill-fated rocket seemingly with no end in sight. It wasn't a matter of lack of people or materiel or funds - there were a lot of kinks with the new rocket, and fixing one uncovered yet another & another. Nedelin at that point decided not to berate anyone or have meetings - he let everyone do their job, however, requesting a chair be placed for him by the launch pad, in everyone's sight, where he calmly planted himself, telegraphing a sense of urgency: the Chief Marshal wasn't leaving till the job was done, and obviously the pad monkeys knew neither were they.
    Office politics being what they are, there was soon a small constellation of chairs of Nedelin's staffers sitting next to their Marshal.
    That added a fair bit of tension for the already fatigued and dismayed pad crew. A member of the launch control team read the next step in his procedure: ensure the manual stage igniter lever was in the initial position. It wasn't - it was at the other end. The lever's positions between initial and final activated backup manual ignitions in turn of the missile's respective stages. The guy returned the lever to its prescribed position as per the letter of his instructions. As it was being reversed to its prescribed initial position, the lever activated the upper stage (being fueled) firing into the top of the already fully fueled first stage within the whole missile's stationery stack being firmly held together by own weight and launchpad hardware. The rest is history.
    The young Brezhnev (years before his ascend to General Secretary of USSR) was assigned to lead the investigation. His report concluded that no disciplinary action was in order, as the event itself was lesson & punishment enough for all involved who hadn't perished.

    • @mrb692
      @mrb692 10 місяців тому +43

      To take a line from Yzma’s book, “Why do we even have that lever?” Like, in what universe would manually lighting the second stage of an ICBM make any sense, let alone be possible?

    • @tomblaise
      @tomblaise 10 місяців тому +21

      @@mrb692 Every doomsday machine needs a self destruct switch.

    • @AlexKarasev
      @AlexKarasev 10 місяців тому +25

      @@mrb692 both Saturn-V and N-1, owing to the urgency of the manned Moon race, had all-up tests. As in, launching the entire multi-stage stack. If the first stage malfunctions as it did on the N-1, it effectively denies any testing of the latter stages - a considerable waste.
      Some of the failure modes of the first stage may, nonetheless, allow an opportunity to fire the 2nd stage and thus fly it even if below its intended altitude. That can be useful.
      Another use is if Stage 1 works normally but the automatic ignition of Stage 2 fails.
      Another is a payload "escape system" having an upper stage take military payload away from the launch pad if there's a problem with the launch.
      Clearly this is something for a missile in development or initial stage of deployment - but there can be uses.

    • @ryanreedgibson
      @ryanreedgibson 10 місяців тому +15

      Yes, the Soviets didn't suffer from lack of knowledge. Their demise was ideological and leadership in nature.

    • @bobroberts2371
      @bobroberts2371 10 місяців тому +2

      mrb692 Said " To take a line from Yzma’s book, “Why do we even have that lever?” Like, in what universe would manually lighting the second stage of an ICBM make any sense, let alone be possible? "
      Well, in case there was some sort of failure and you needed to place a person wearing an oxygen mask in the 2nd stage to manually fire the engines. See also the ending of Dr Strangelove. . .

  • @user-bh6ey1ke4n
    @user-bh6ey1ke4n 10 місяців тому +85

    7:21 Nedelin was not a missile's designer. He was the head of Strategic Rocket Forces. He was a military, not an engineer.

    • @AlexKarasev
      @AlexKarasev 10 місяців тому +4

      His background was artillery.

    • @fffUUUUUU
      @fffUUUUUU 10 місяців тому +7

      Famous Soviet proverb says: *_"It grunts and buzzes but doesn't deflorate - what's that? The newest advanced and unrivaled Soviet deflorator!"_*

    • @sycodeathman
      @sycodeathman 10 місяців тому +17

      ​@@fffUUUUUUMy favorite is: What weighs nine tonnes, burns two liters of fuel per minutes, and cuts an apple into thirds? Soviet machine for cutting apples into 4ths

    • @fredmdbud
      @fredmdbud 7 місяців тому

      @@AlexKarasev his background was operational, not technical. for technical details, that's what his staff was for.

    • @AlexKarasev
      @AlexKarasev 7 місяців тому

      @@fredmdbud are you talking background or then-current role? As I expressed, his background (as in, schooling and career) were in artillery. His rank was a Marshal. Ofc he (and a few levels of stuff under him) were leadership/operational roles.

  • @Grescon_
    @Grescon_ 10 місяців тому +78

    Please do more discussion on space topics! Your narrative was excellent, would love to see more.

    • @richardbloemenkamp8532
      @richardbloemenkamp8532 10 місяців тому

      Actually I prefer he focuses on his usual historic company and business topics. There are already many YT channels with the historic and current-day details of spaceflight.

    • @davidflitcroft7101
      @davidflitcroft7101 10 місяців тому

      Not like this, there isn't. He discusses the topic from an unusual third perspective with little bias. Where else is the "race to Mars" even mentioned? And yet Russia/USSR was always competitive to the point of belligerence. @@richardbloemenkamp8532

    • @Striderly
      @Striderly 10 місяців тому

      Agreed, it would be better than astrum imo!

  • @Name-ot3xw
    @Name-ot3xw 10 місяців тому +29

    To bastardize an idiom, Soviets come from Venus, Americans come from mars.

    • @taxirob2248
      @taxirob2248 4 місяці тому +1

      Americans came from Uranus

    • @dillonbledsoe7680
      @dillonbledsoe7680 4 місяці тому

      ​@taxirob2248 better then ur mom

    • @user-bo4uc3el5t
      @user-bo4uc3el5t 4 місяці тому +4

      @@taxirob2248 ah, that explains their insufferable assholery.

  • @SpaceStickwithSpaceTick
    @SpaceStickwithSpaceTick 10 місяців тому +17

    Dude how do you make so many bangers this fast, don't burn yourself out please.

  • @AiOinc1
    @AiOinc1 9 місяців тому +6

    "Rapid, unscheduled disassembly" is now my favorite phrase for an explosion.

  • @abi3751
    @abi3751 10 місяців тому +27

    Well researched high quality Videos frequently with a long duration, this is the channel we needed🔥

  • @deadmanwalking6342
    @deadmanwalking6342 10 місяців тому +65

    Nedelin was the "cause" of the disaster , the whole debacle is described in a book based from old sovjet material. Brezhnev's comment on Nedleins behaviour causing the explosion is telling.

    • @blink182bfsftw
      @blink182bfsftw 10 місяців тому +6

      Ooh summary please?

    • @fractalmadness9253
      @fractalmadness9253 10 місяців тому

      They did very well with their copy cat nuke. Their spies probably didn’t deliver well enough for this.

    • @ptonpc
      @ptonpc 10 місяців тому

      @@blink182bfsftw Have a look at @AlexKarasev comment for the summary.

  • @cogoid
    @cogoid 10 місяців тому +85

    This video is very, very good -- but even with all the work that went into it, it is still not easy for one person to do justice to such a complicated subject. Decision making in the USSR was done in great secrecy, among the big bosses of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, and it is seldom known why a particular course of action was or was not taken, or why a particular person was promoted. Even when some information is available, it may not always be translated from Russian, or may only be published in some obscure conference proceedings for professional historians.
    In particular, even though there are many fantastic stories told about this, it is not really known why exactly Korolev was promoted from prison to the leadership of the space program. But we do know that Stalin had very little to do with this. Korolev was picked personally by Lev Mikhalovich Gaidukov, on authority of Dmitry Ustinov, the young People's Commissar of Armaments of the USSR. This did not start as a well thought out strategic plan. Rather, Gaidukov noticed how well a group of Soviet engineers led by Boris Chertok were working in occupied Germany on reconstituting the Nazi V2 program. This large work on V2 was more or less a grassroots project, not specifically authorized by the higher authority, beyond the general mandate to recover from Germany all equipment that could be useful. The progress that the engineers were making in Germany greatly impressed Gaidukov, who was doing an on-site inspection. The report went to Ustinov, who at that time had an enormous clout due to his very successful leadership during the war, and who then authorized a large scale missile program. It started with assimilation of German missile research and technology. Ustinov placed Gaidukov in charge of the overall project. Gaidukov then found and reassigned several recent prisoners such as Korolev and Glushko to lead different parts of project, based on their past work. Then Korolev met Ustinov and was somehow given the authority to serve as the chief technical coordinator of this large and diverse organization. The details of that are rather obscure.
    Regarding the Sputnik. It was launched not because Korolev could on a whim choose peaceful space exploration, but because there was an unintentional pause in the weapons program. Nuclear warheads burned up on reentry during the previous test launch. While the warheads were being reworked, there was nothing else to launch on the next missile, already being prepared for the test. Thus Sputnik was reluctantly announced as the Soviet contribution to the International Geophysical Year. Many countries had high profile experiments as a part of this loose international collaboration, and Sputnik was one of such projects. Only after the Sputnik caused an international sensation, Soviet leadership took notice, and authorized a larger scale space program which was not 100% weapons related.

    • @AlexKarasev
      @AlexKarasev 10 місяців тому +7

      Korolev was very well known to top echelons of power (incl to Beriya personally & firsthand) even as he was in prison. Nothing is what it seems in Russia / USSR and those so-called "sharashkas" weren't anything like ordinary prisons.
      By war time KGB knew full well better than 70% of those prisoners didn't deserve to be there - many being victims of coworkers' jealousy or desire to remove a competitor for a promotion or even apartment. (The same took place in Iraq btw, with Iraqis telling on each other to the US forces). KGB of the late-1930s provided an eager power gradient for those unscrupulous folks to leverage, since KGB was after fear and what better way to instill fear than randomly, irrationally, hastily, and unfairly, and with nary a recourse for the wrongfully accused. But the batsh*t craziness of all this was becoming obvious to even the staunchest disciplinarians within the upper echelons of power, and while outright walking back the entire thing, admitting systenic wrongdoing, and rehabilitating everyone took Khrustchev's b*lls years later, Russians had a classically Russian interim solution: if nothing could be done to the situation with Stalin still in power, KGB & everyone else would just pay it lip service. War further necessitated urgently saving, consolidating, and empowering the engineering cadre, and thense those "sharashkas" were born. Closest English translation is skunkworks (in Kelly Johnson sense). A semi-undercover, sort-of-independent crack engineering team doing leading work sort of off to the side of the bona fide industrial process. Many of those were formed with not just KGB's approval but facilitation. They'd searched the prisoner lists and dossiers for any engineers & while they didn't have the authority to free them all, they'd created these multiple skunkworks in minimal-security type conditions.
      Sputnik - the military payload wasn't going to orbit and it wasn't a mere matter of putting something else at the top & voila, it orbits. By then, a massive effort was already in a full swing for the manned program, with communication ships and radar & comms ground stations being built. Sputnik II and on with mammals onboard were vital, deliberate stepping stones to chip away huge swaths of uncertainty of what's involved in safely orbiting a human if that were at all possible. Sputnik was just the tip of the iceberg visible to the West of the massive Soviet space momentum already built up. "Space" as in, other than the ICBM use that don't go in orbit.

    • @AlexKarasev
      @AlexKarasev 10 місяців тому +2

      ... so while the extent to which Sputnik resonated with the Western public was, admittedly, a pleasant surprise to the Soviets (they were expecting the Western press to give minimal coverage, maybe same level as Luna-25 is being covered as I type this), they were going full steam ahead with the massive, multi-faceted program - not looking back at what the rest of the world was doing but defining how this brand new field of endeavor ought to be pursued. It fit right in with other Soviet pursuits, incl
      - mass literacy & free path to higher leraning
      - public health
      - electrification
      - industrialization.
      Space was like a red cherry on the very top, and even the way those space things looked was becoming the budding Soviet superpower. USSR would've been all-in even if the West pretended Sputnic wasn't there. But yeah, they were happy the West noticed.

    • @AlexKarasev
      @AlexKarasev 9 місяців тому

      @@doodlebug1820 It's an autobiographical novel, but a novel nonetheless - by someone who was no big fan of Stalin, obviously. Without confirmed numbers of folks who'd gone from sharashka's back to gulags, "failure or displeasure meant being sent to a gulag" is conjecture - outside of the obvious fact that at war time (of any nation) if one's failure exceeded a certain level of gravity and lives were lost, there'd be consequences to match. Not saying that never happened - but the devil's in the details. On the flip side, the actual physical locations of sharashkas aren't set up for prison type security, other than what'd be considered minimal security by the standards of the time and place at wartime.

    • @taxirob2248
      @taxirob2248 4 місяці тому

      All those other pursuits were far more important @@AlexKarasev. If space exploration was a prestige project, then they should have chosen a single target for a decisive "win." The whole thing is an example of what happens when you politicize engineering. The current folly of re-usability and controlled landing of launch vehicles is another example, in those cases with partially governmental and partially corporate politics driving them.

    • @AlexKarasev
      @AlexKarasev 4 місяці тому +2

      @@taxirob2248 >"If space exploration was a prestige project, then they should have chosen a single target for a decisive "win.""
      This was the strategy Kennedy had adopted with manned Moon landings - he asked what would be sufficiently spectacular to make up for Sputnik etc, and sufficiently far off to overtake the Soviets, and the answer was the manned Moon landing. And they sold that singular goal to the US public as "the space race".
      However that strategy isn't necessarily right for when you're in a genuine strategic leadership position, deliberately developing a broad field, which is what the Soviets had been doing - not trying to score temporary "wins". The Soviets weren't just going to the Moon (landers, 2 rovers, robotic sample return missions) and Mars - they also went to Venus (incl landing the only nation to have done so to this day ua-cam.com/video/UEmlOjKmL68/v-deo.html )
      >"The whole thing is an example of what happens when you politicize engineering."
      And science. 100% agree. Both are long-term fields whereas politics inherently is short-term.

  • @AhmedHassan-yc5fb
    @AhmedHassan-yc5fb 10 місяців тому +8

    It is important to note that Martian winds / storms do not matter in any sense of force. The air pressure is so low that no matter the wind speed, it would not exert any significant force on a lander or a rover.
    It only matters for visibility and solar energy generation, since martian storms are usually very dusty.

  • @jeffreyosborne7466
    @jeffreyosborne7466 10 місяців тому +7

    Loved the longer and very detailed video. Definitely one of your best ones to date and I’ve seen the majority. Keep it up, you are a great history buff and my small circle of friends loves your content

  • @holodoctor1
    @holodoctor1 10 місяців тому +23

    This is a fantastic video. All things Soviet-history interests me. Thank you for doing an incredible amount of research and making such an enjoyable video!!

  • @davidflitcroft7101
    @davidflitcroft7101 10 місяців тому +8

    Wonderfully done! To even mention the "Race to Mars" is all but unique, and yet wasn't it the race that mattered most? As grande as the Lunar landings were, I can still recall the unspeakable elation that I had when the Viking landers set down on the plains of Mars.

  • @IainShepherd1
    @IainShepherd1 10 місяців тому +2

    This is the one that finally made me sign up to your Patreon, but I should have done it long ago. Your takes on geopolitics, chips, and space are always fascinating and funny. Looking forward to more.

  • @cartmann94
    @cartmann94 10 місяців тому +17

    -To the Moon! To Mars!
    -Safety? Redundant, duplicate security systems? What’s that?

    • @Mastermind12358
      @Mastermind12358 10 місяців тому +1

      If you think going to the moon with the American rocket wasn't risky as hell you don't know what you're talking about. Its a miracle nobody died (except for the first Apollo crew that burned alive in their module, but that was on the ground) Then came the Space shuttle, an extremely unsafe vehicle. With two crews lost.

  • @thesquatchdoctor3356
    @thesquatchdoctor3356 10 місяців тому +5

    Love the long ones, Thank You for television well worth watching.

  • @eCoLL77
    @eCoLL77 10 місяців тому

    This must be the best videos you've made so far. Super interesting!

  • @filthyE
    @filthyE 10 місяців тому +2

    This is hands-down my favorite UA-cam channel. Thanks for the hard work.

  • @jimwilliams9225
    @jimwilliams9225 10 місяців тому +13

    Great video as always. Thanks for your hard work!

  • @helmseye8689
    @helmseye8689 7 місяців тому

    Excellent overview of the program and the technical issues
    Fantastic work!

  • @netizencapet
    @netizencapet 9 місяців тому +6

    Your review of modern Korean political economy won you a subscription. This review wins you a like. When you got to the part about the substitution of the gold transiators for aluminum, you had me wanting to volunteer to round up the culprits for 10 years hard labor in Siberia.

  • @1LEgGOdt
    @1LEgGOdt 10 місяців тому +59

    If I recall one Soviet Satellite was sent on a worldwide tour. And while it was in the United States, the CIA was able to get a chance to get their hands on it. And so during one night they had the truck driver deliver the satellite to another location and they then meticulously took it apart and studied every single component it had, but then they ran into problems as to putting it back together turned into a race against time as some of the parts wouldn’t go back together or they had to replace some of the components with US Made equivalents, and they also installed American Made screws. And when the Satellite made it back to the Soviet Union, the engineers had discovered that it had been tampered with when some of their tools didn’t work on some of the screws.

    • @mirasolovklose3888
      @mirasolovklose3888 10 місяців тому +12

      Damn, I misread it and was wondering how US captured a satellite and launched it without the Soviets discovering their satellite went missing.

    • @malithaw
      @malithaw 9 місяців тому

      ​@@mirasolovklose3888lmao

    • @Orange-po6qv
      @Orange-po6qv 9 місяців тому +10

      Source: Trust me bro

    • @RadikAlice
      @RadikAlice 9 місяців тому +3

      @@Orange-po6qv Can't recall in what video I heard this story, but can confirm it

    • @CAROLDDISCOVER-FINDER2525
      @CAROLDDISCOVER-FINDER2525 9 місяців тому +4

      So you can't recall what video you saw it in but you can confirm it. And where do you get your expertise to be the end authority to confirm that story? It's a Great fairy tail. But don't you think we have some extra Soviets screws lying around if we were able to intercept this satellite 📡?? But people just can't let it be that the US whip them in the total race for space 🚀. Yeah like my emojis.

  • @BrianKelsay
    @BrianKelsay 10 місяців тому

    A very nice review. I shared it with one of my rocketry groups on FB.

  • @smatthewson2613
    @smatthewson2613 10 місяців тому +1

    Thank you for your service. The detail and eclectism of your content is infinitely soothing.

  • @pisacenere
    @pisacenere 10 місяців тому +14

    I really like your videos no fluff just facts and some joke perfect

  • @rogerbeck3018
    @rogerbeck3018 10 місяців тому +1

    I thoroughly enjoy ALL your productions, thank you. Always something to learn. You always amaze me. Thank you again.

  • @bigjared8946
    @bigjared8946 10 місяців тому +14

    They won the race to Venus. The lack of landers to that planet irks me. Yeah it's a worse than hell place but if Soviet 70s tech could at least do it, we should be able to do something decent now.

    • @unownyoutuber9049
      @unownyoutuber9049 10 місяців тому

      there was no race to Venus, America decided it was too much effort and doing mars was easier and safer.

    • @EmyrDerfel
      @EmyrDerfel 10 місяців тому

      What would we learn by doing so though?

    • @bigjared8946
      @bigjared8946 10 місяців тому +5

      By this mindset: What do we "learn" with Mars landers?

    • @taxirob2248
      @taxirob2248 4 місяці тому

      so can you answer that question yourself or ?? @@bigjared8946

  • @davebuchanan1337
    @davebuchanan1337 10 місяців тому

    Love the topic & channel

  • @Marqk-
    @Marqk- 10 місяців тому +2

    They made it to Venus, significantly harder than mars

  • @guckesksk5895
    @guckesksk5895 10 місяців тому

    This video was so great I didn't even realised it was 40 minutes long. Thank for these videos.

  • @ImKinoNichtSabbeln
    @ImKinoNichtSabbeln 10 місяців тому +4

    Intentionally sacrificing specifically weak built walls is an old but life-saving standard "trick" in chemistry when dealing with potentionally unintentional explosions.
    Ask people from fluorine or explosives labs.

  • @alaingoyette3883
    @alaingoyette3883 9 місяців тому +1

    The quality of writing is astounding

  • @Reliant17010
    @Reliant17010 10 місяців тому

    thankyou.very interesting!love your work!

  • @TilmanBaumann
    @TilmanBaumann 10 місяців тому +2

    It's almost legendary how much it went wrong. The streak didn't even end with Phobos Grunt

  • @jonathanvinarskai6230
    @jonathanvinarskai6230 10 місяців тому +1

    Another great video. Good job.

  • @Numba003
    @Numba003 10 місяців тому +4

    I loved your episode about the Venus missions, so I was excited to see this one! Thank you for another excellent video.
    God be with you out there everybody. ✝️ :)

  • @user-pj3tu3jz2p
    @user-pj3tu3jz2p 8 місяців тому

    Great video as always. Thanks for your hard work!. Great video as always. Thanks for your hard work!.

  • @lahma69
    @lahma69 10 місяців тому +23

    I'm not really sure I agree about the failures having anything to do with bad luck.. It seems to me that while the design/engineering might have been sound (debatable), the hardware/components were inconsistent and unreliable, the political leadership only hindered success with the extreme pressure they applied due to unrealistic goals and timelines, and it seems as if the Soviets were always making these extreme gambles that rarely paid off instead of carrying out tasks with a methodical, ordered approach. For example, it just seems like absolute madness to place your brand new, extremely expensive space probe, that you've dedicated so much time and effort into, onto a brand new rocket that has never been tested/launched before. The pressures that cause this type of thing to happen are indicative of how broken the system is. It just isn't a logical, reasonable thing to do and there should be someone in the chain of leadership with the authority and influence to prevent such a silly thing from taking place.

    • @richardarriaga6271
      @richardarriaga6271 10 місяців тому +2

      Soviets sound like tech bros with kalishnikovs.

    • @vgamedude12
      @vgamedude12 10 місяців тому +5

      Agree. Soviets methods were just proven to not be as good. This is hardly debatable with hindsight.
      Americans ended up accomplishing more, much more safely and less wasteful than the soviets did. The soviets had their accomplishments for sure and that shouldn't be taken away from them but the cost was greater.

    • @TTFerdinand
      @TTFerdinand 9 місяців тому +3

      Isn't it much better if you can slow it down and smooth it out for everything to work properly... The thing is, the Soviet leadership had their ideas, with propaganda victories in mind, all the while oblivious to what it would take to send a probe successfully to another planet. They probably said something like "C'mon comrades, just do it! It's not rocket science!" They pressed the engineers to crawl out of their skin to deliver, but the rest of the industry didn't follow. Comrade Ivanov from 79th factory still would deliver a part that was manufactured from what was available because "A mne pohui" and then that part would fail at the most critical point of operation.

  • @Kapparie
    @Kapparie 8 місяців тому

    You did an incredible research. Great story. 😊

  • @rriveranotario
    @rriveranotario 8 місяців тому

    Amazing content, as always. I find it funny when you say these sadly failed. I'm so glad they did!

  • @user-kl7jm2dk6w
    @user-kl7jm2dk6w 10 місяців тому

    I absolutely love this content
    Its so good
    I really hope this would get more views
    I love videos about space race
    And rare asian scandals and details
    You have such an obvious name but
    Probably one of the most unique content on this platform

  • @davidhenry5128
    @davidhenry5128 4 місяці тому

    By far the best explanation of the Soviet mars missions I Have seen. great detail.

  • @okman9684
    @okman9684 10 місяців тому +2

    That fourth stage is some bad omen for the soviets

  • @Edwilldesign
    @Edwilldesign 10 місяців тому

    Brilliant deep dive, as usual. Can you by-chance pass on where you got that amazing video of the moon rotating, 14mins in?

  • @somewhere6
    @somewhere6 10 місяців тому

    Love the detail!

  • @paulmichaelfreedman8334
    @paulmichaelfreedman8334 10 місяців тому +2

    Nice Firefly reference bro!

  • @solonsaturngaming3727
    @solonsaturngaming3727 10 місяців тому

    love that Big Smoke line you did there XD

  • @juansilvestre5748
    @juansilvestre5748 10 місяців тому +17

    1:58 from my knowledge, Sputnik is not Object D, but rather a stopgap satellite to make the USSR the first nation to launch a satellite in the International Geophysical Year, since object D was too complicated. Eventually Object D was launched as Sputnik 3.
    Please correct me if I am wrong.

  • @mohamedaboelenein7727
    @mohamedaboelenein7727 10 місяців тому

    YES
    New space episode!
    Love you man

  • @kng_bg1616
    @kng_bg1616 10 місяців тому +3

    Great video as always. One minor correction "Object D" refers to Sputnik 3 not the original Sputnik a.k.a. Sputnik 1. Object D was not ready in time so they decided to proceed with a simpler satellite first.

  • @johnmiller4859
    @johnmiller4859 4 місяці тому +2

    I have to wonder how many people got your Firefly/Serenity Easter Egg? Shiny. Thank you for that.

  • @rickden8362
    @rickden8362 10 місяців тому +12

    No, someone stole the gold and replaced it with aluminum. Great work, as usual.

    • @cogoid
      @cogoid 10 місяців тому +8

      Actually, on both accounts it is just an Internet meme that sounds great.
      The more recent story that everybody repeats, goes as "precious metals were stolen from manufacturing of rocket engines, causing massive failure". In reality exactly the opposite has happened -- some dumbass used lower temperature precious metal based solder instead of high temperature manganese based solder. This was not caught, and a bunch of rocket engines were brazed with inappropriate material. Ruined. It is bad, and is an embarrassment for Russian space industry.
      Of course, since it is about Russia, it is a lot easier to make a viral story about precious metals that were supposedly stolen, rather than to explain that correct solder must be used for a particular purpose, no matter whether it is more expensive or less expensive!
      With the "aluminum transistors" the story is also a complete fairy-tale. It comes from a Russian planetologist who heard it from someone. Either he misremembered the story, or did not understand it in the first place. But after his account was published in a book, now everybody repeats it as coming from an authoritative source.
      In reality the leads of 2T312 transistors were never made from either gold or aluminum, but from a special NK29 alloy, similar to Kovar, to provide compatibility with glass insulation between the leads and the transistor case. The leads were gold-plated to increase corrosion resistance. Silicon crystal had aluminum metallization and required bonding specifically with aluminum bonding wire. *If* gold wire had been used, this would have caused a chemical reaction with a formation of gold-aluminum intermetallic compound -- an effect which plagued early US chips and was known as "Purple plague". Maybe that is what really happened, but it is impossible to know.

    • @rickden8362
      @rickden8362 10 місяців тому +1

      @@cogoid Well, that's just what happens when you have a system that has endemic graft.

    • @fistsofham8474
      @fistsofham8474 10 місяців тому

      @@cogoid Perhaps the replacement with aluminium part is indeed wrong, but it doesn't sound implausible (to my admittedly lay ears) that perhaps the gold plating for the leads was omitted by means of theft somewhere along the pipeline. The leads supplied may well have been the NK29 alloy, if mistaken for aluminium, but nonetheless still corroded without the gold.

    • @cogoid
      @cogoid 10 місяців тому +2

      @@fistsofham8474 The story comes from the book "Russian Planetary Exploration History, Development, Legacy and Prospects" by Brian Harvey, where it is attributed to the Soviet astronomer Mikhail Yakovlevitch Marov, remembering about it almost 50 years after the events. I think all we can be reasonably certain of is that there was a reliability problem with the transistors.
      If the Soviets were following American technology, then the most likely cause would have been using easier to use gold bonding wire instead of more difficult to use aluminum bonding wire. In the USA this has also caused widespread equipment failures, until Tom Longo and B. Selikson published an article explaining that gold wire was not compatible with aluminum metallization, and one had to use aluminum wire. There is a short discussion of this in the "History of Semiconductor Engineering" by Bo Lojec.

  • @CristySFM1234
    @CristySFM1234 10 місяців тому

    Im shocked you didnt mention more about the phobos 2 probe, that had a interesting story behind it

  • @williamhoodtn
    @williamhoodtn 10 місяців тому +6

    Solution: "Listen to the Engineers!"

    • @fffUUUUUU
      @fffUUUUUU 10 місяців тому +3

      Famous Soviet proverb says: *_"It grunts and buzzes but doesn't deflorate - what's that? The newest advanced and unrivaled Soviet deflorator!"_*

  • @charlesseymour1482
    @charlesseymour1482 10 місяців тому

    Great show

  • @michaelimbesi2314
    @michaelimbesi2314 6 місяців тому +2

    2:16 The Soviets knew perfectly well what kind of hubbub Sputnik would cause. It’s why they did it. The USA had announced an intention to put an artificial satellite into orbit to study space as part of the International Geophysical Year. That announcement is what spurred the Soviets to develop Sputnik. They wanted to beat the US to space. They figured out that they couldn’t make the planned research satellite with all of its instruments ready in time to beat the USA, which is why Sputnik was so simple.

  • @alexanderrose1556
    @alexanderrose1556 10 місяців тому +2

    More space topics man, this one went really well, maybe an insight into the chinese space program?

  • @ouahaahmed3902
    @ouahaahmed3902 10 місяців тому

    Amazing contant... Was waiting for similar video....

  • @alexweinberger8925
    @alexweinberger8925 10 місяців тому

    This is gonna be a banger

  • @ErectedGasCan
    @ErectedGasCan 10 місяців тому +20

    The Soviet space program always reminds me of what my dad said once many years ago.
    We were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee, out in the yard was my 1990 Lada 2104 and my fathers Belarus 350 tractor from 1983.
    He sat silent for a while and just said:
    "Well.. how the hell did the russians get to the moon?"

  • @user-ey4ob3oc6u
    @user-ey4ob3oc6u 4 місяці тому +1

    Salutations to you, Mr. Asiano'! I appreciate your work, on YouselessTube, immensely, so thank you! Your humour is not lost on me either, and yes, the deer... but where's the headlights? Something about the "space race" & the Soviets that is often not realised, is that they didn't do so well due to their poor ideological choice of Germanium semis', instead of Silicon! Germanium, lower "barrier" voltage sure, but leaks current notoriously by comparison! On earth, no biggy... but for spacecraft, (both senses of the word) that sure sucks on power sources! Again thanks, & keep it up, if you dare! Mogfets?

  • @voice_from_pizza
    @voice_from_pizza 10 місяців тому +1

    Mars 4 or 5 DEFINITELY looks like Dr. Wiley’s Space Capsule

  • @voice_from_pizza
    @voice_from_pizza 10 місяців тому +1

    The 1976 Viking photo might be the coolest digital photo ever.

    • @olasek7972
      @olasek7972 9 місяців тому

      I agree, it was revolutionary in many aspects.

  • @shlomomarkman6374
    @shlomomarkman6374 10 місяців тому +3

    The Mars program was over-ambitious relative to the capabilities the Soviets (or the US) had at it's time. Especially regarding the level of automation required to do a successful landing-you can't remote control the probes real time. The growing Soviet lag in electronics took it's toll here.
    The US Mars program (Mariners and Vikings) was more realistic with it's goals and they landed with the Vikings when they were ready (after the Soviets closed the Mars program).
    The Soviets tried the Phobos program but it required integration with western systems (the Soviet original electronics industry was near death at this stage) so it failed.
    You can see that all the Soviet missions had control or communication failures.

  • @jge123
    @jge123 9 місяців тому +1

    A shame, I still have two calculators from the 80’s, one with a membrane. I remember Sharp products as having good design.

  • @Lolig225
    @Lolig225 10 місяців тому

    "rapid unscheduled disassemblies" love it :D

  • @julians7268
    @julians7268 10 місяців тому +15

    This information is so very important, especially now. So many amazing stories probably exist buried in the minds of the Russian and ex-Soviet citizenry.

    • @fffUUUUUU
      @fffUUUUUU 10 місяців тому +1

      Amazing, yeah. Like the story of Serhiy Korolyov who's been repressed and put in GULAG camp, where red komissar broken his fingers and lower jaw during the interrogation.
      Or how GULAG system is responsible for the murdering of about 40 000 000 of USSR citizens. "Amazing" stories, мать його в йоб!

    • @fffUUUUUU
      @fffUUUUUU 10 місяців тому +1

      The public toll of Soviet space program: there's no toilet paper in USSR until 1969. So all those soviet heroes, incl. Gagarin, wiped up themselves with crumpled Pravda newspaper. No generally available color television sets nor freely available cars for average Ivan.

    • @AlexKarasev
      @AlexKarasev 10 місяців тому +1

      ​@@fffUUUUUUtop 5% of folks in the USSR were only enough for space, sciences, arts, sports, military gear. As for the avwrage folks, socialism indeed lacked capitalism's carrot & stick to make them work their tails of. So yeah, soviet consumer goods were meh & in a short supply - but it wasn't because of their space program.
      And since you've brought up bodily functions, it was Alan Shepherd who went up swimming in his own urine whereas Gagarin's far superior scaphander anticipated such a need & Yuri indeed used the feature, relieving himself before boarding, onto the bus's wheel.

    • @fffUUUUUU
      @fffUUUUUU 10 місяців тому

      ​@@AlexKarasevщо ти совкові байки тут травиш, лапоть? Думаєш я вестерн?😂 All the soviets economy was targeted towards one thing - military build up. And space program was the part of it. Since the economy wasn't a free market - its resources were planned and redirected from the Gosplan in Moscow. Hence, no family cars, home AC, color TVs, toilet paper for ivans. 'Cause Communist Party needs "dognat i peregnat Ameriku" 😆
      Lies about Shepherd. Then, if Gagarin's space suite was so well designed, why he had to pee on the road side and then hold it till the landing just 1 hour later? Soviet clown 🤡🤣

    • @swissbiggy
      @swissbiggy 10 місяців тому

      @@fffUUUUUU And sadly we do now see the same in the US with it's national debt of $ 34 trillion and 80 million people living underneath the povertyline. So despite the fact that we ended the cold war decades ago nothing much did change thanks to the brain death leaders on both sides. 😥

  • @scapaflow2535
    @scapaflow2535 8 місяців тому

    Such a great video

  • @atevensnderson5827
    @atevensnderson5827 10 місяців тому +4

    I wonder if anyone has tried to calculate the total cost of all these missions and infrastructure, which really seem to be propaganda first and science second.

  • @dudermcdudeface3674
    @dudermcdudeface3674 9 місяців тому +1

    This channel is a lot of fun.

  • @Christopher_Giustolisi
    @Christopher_Giustolisi 10 місяців тому +3

    imagine having a space program while a large portion of your population still has no proper toilet. #china #india

  • @moonshiner5412
    @moonshiner5412 8 місяців тому

    I have a facsimile image of the Viking's foot that you showed. I was in the USAF stationed in Oklahoma in a Mobile Communications Squadron. I was in the Weather van which had the facsimile machine. The image was sent out in the news and I captured it. A lieutenant saw it printing and said he wanted it. I told him it didn't print properly so I threw it away. Stupid lieutenant!

  • @rigel2112
    @rigel2112 10 місяців тому

    That joint Apollo Soyuz mission had one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, Deke Slayton.

  • @supremebeme
    @supremebeme 10 місяців тому

    EPIC. my favorite subject x my favorite tech youtuber

  • @mateobravo9212
    @mateobravo9212 10 місяців тому

    Simultaneously a great video and a huge disappointment that the USSR didn't match delivery with intent. The damn gold leads!! Enjoyed tbe long form video. Greetings from Spain.

  • @andynz7
    @andynz7 7 місяців тому

    Might have a spec of Mars dust in my eye at the end there :)

  • @voice_from_pizza
    @voice_from_pizza 10 місяців тому +1

    There’s some tubing on the M-69 probe that looks like the Roland Corporation logo, in reverse. Roland was founded in 1972 in Osaka, Japan. I actually bet this is not a mere coincidence. Japanese designers are very clever.

  • @danielmorris4676
    @danielmorris4676 8 місяців тому

    Excellent detailed descriptions and explanations of Soviet failureskis.

  • @todaystarr
    @todaystarr 10 місяців тому

    Very well done.

  • @davidholder3207
    @davidholder3207 10 місяців тому

    Most interesting. Well written .

  • @Merrinen
    @Merrinen 10 місяців тому +2

    This episode would be quite different in tone if it were made by the Paper Skies guy.

  • @curseoftheegglady
    @curseoftheegglady 10 місяців тому

    "leaf on the wind" - too soon, too soon...

  • @FlorinSutu
    @FlorinSutu 10 місяців тому +2

    Well, the Soviets were the first to transmit photos, sound and videos from Venus, including in color, and that was much more difficult than doing it from Mars.

    • @olasek7972
      @olasek7972 10 місяців тому +2

      but getting to Venus was a lot easier, only parachute required and then you just send a couple photos and it is a success 😅

    • @FlorinSutu
      @FlorinSutu 10 місяців тому +2

      @@olasek7972 - - You really have no idea what you are writing about. Do your homework about what's happening at the surface of Venus. Type in UA-cam "How the Soviets Landed on Venus", by Asianometry.

    • @dgdave2673
      @dgdave2673 9 місяців тому +1

      @@olasek7972- this clearly shows you have no idea whatsoever about Venus landing. Please educate yourself and try again. Parachute 😂 my @$$

  • @Behnam_Moghaddam
    @Behnam_Moghaddam 10 місяців тому

    Thank you! Kinda missed Leica though..

  • @davidt-rex2062
    @davidt-rex2062 10 місяців тому +2

    I didn't know much about soviet space history. We don't learn much about it in the uk. Sputnik and that's it. I knew about the abandoned Shuttle type crafts. These videos are fantastic.

    • @swissbiggy
      @swissbiggy 10 місяців тому

      Maybe that you are still young, but I am an old men now. The Soviets did beat the Americans in everything, first men in space, first women in space, first spacewalk, first satelite, first lander on the moon, first lander on Venus, first spacestation, etc etc etc etc. In fact there are only two things that the Americans did first : To put a lander on Mars succesfully and people on the moon. So if ever there was a race the score would be Soviet Union 200 vs the United States 2. But that is not what you will hear in the mainstream western media, we only mention two things. And this is one of them.
      But it is not even important.... far more important is that we should live in peace together and maybe stop listening to our brain death leaders....
      40 years ago Sting brought out this song and sadly not much has changed thanks to the leaders on both sides. 😢ua-cam.com/video/wHylQRVN2Qs/v-deo.html

  • @bigianh
    @bigianh 10 місяців тому +1

    Surely the Nedelin disaster was caused by the time on the 2nd stage failing to reset after a launch abort and firing int the now dormant but fully fuelled 1st stage. Also most of the casualties died from inhaling the fumes from its hypergolic fuel (Nitric Acid & Hydrazine aka the Devils Venom)

  • @fffUUUUUU
    @fffUUUUUU 10 місяців тому +7

    To sum it up - Famous Soviet proverb says: *_"It grunts and buzzes but doesn't deflorate - what's that? The newest advanced and unrivaled Soviet deflorator!"_*

  • @martinlisitsata
    @martinlisitsata 9 місяців тому

    24:45 the Kerbal way !!!

  • @floodo1
    @floodo1 5 місяців тому

    Was it pronounced “thermo nukuler” around 10:40?
    Fascinating vid none the less

    • @taxirob2248
      @taxirob2248 4 місяці тому +1

      That's the Texas pronunciation

  • @briandstephmoore4910
    @briandstephmoore4910 7 місяців тому

    Final Mars 69 rover looks like a short but Girthy boy

  • @antonsorokin3881
    @antonsorokin3881 10 місяців тому +1

    Ракета "Молния" в первую очередь была предназначена для запуска высокоорбитальных и геостационарных спутников связи (также называемые "Молния" и "Радуга")

  • @philen
    @philen 7 місяців тому

    @14:25 good motivational speak!

  • @manofsan
    @manofsan 10 місяців тому +4

    *Another channel told me Russia was investing in some new technological approach to achieve self-sufficiency in semiconductors. I was wondering if anyone on Asianometry might know what technology Russia is investing in for this? Any ideas?*

    • @cogoid
      @cogoid 10 місяців тому +4

      Russia has a few fabs, Belarus has some, and the rest they buy from China. The radiation hardened chips for the space applications come from the same Voronezh plant which is mentioned in this video as the producer of 2T312 transistors. It is a very low volume manufacturing and not very modern technology. They actually have a channel on UA-cam, there in the past they were showing practically the whole production process.

    • @freddy4603
      @freddy4603 10 місяців тому +2

      ​@@cogoiddamn, you know seem to know a lot about this stuff, I see you everywhere in the commene section, each comment being more interesting than the last!

  • @Khal_Rheg0
    @Khal_Rheg0 10 місяців тому

    Thank you!

  • @guitarmogul762
    @guitarmogul762 10 місяців тому +2

    Has anyone done a book of large photos of Soviet space probes? Would love to see it they look so odd.

    • @lagautmd
      @lagautmd 10 місяців тому +7

      They almost look like stuff cooked up by Hollywood for designs of rockets, robots, and such of the 1950s and 60s.

    • @fffUUUUUU
      @fffUUUUUU 10 місяців тому +5

      You can zoom them photos as far as you can, but they all were taken on poor quality soviet film with the mediocre cameras. So, here you are.

  • @nvy..
    @nvy.. 10 місяців тому

    Thoughts on using music in the background?

  • @nrafaco
    @nrafaco 10 місяців тому

    Thanks!