The Doomed Soviet Moon Program | 1955–1991 | Time Travels

The year is 1961, and across the globe, a technological race of epic proportions is taking place

The lonely, vast gulf of space. It's infinite and mostly empty, but today, in this particular patch of void, a spacecraft is flying through

It's on its way to fulfill a special mission, to put a human on the moon for the very first time

It silently zips towards the lunar surface, and on its side is the flag of its mother nation, the Soviet Union

Of course, this didn't actually happen. The first person to walk on the moon was an American

But if I told you that fact way back in the early 1960s, you would have been shocked

because initially it looked like it was the Soviets who would be the first to pull off the feet

They'd had a huge run of successes, and America had fallen behind in the race for interstellar dominance

So how did the USA beat the Soviets to the moon? Well, hello time travellers, I'm your friend Mike Brady

And today, let's find out what doomed the Soviet moon program. At the end of the Second World War, the world was divided into two spheres

The capitalist Western world, led by the United States, and the communist Eastern world, led by the Soviet Union

The ideological conflict between the two had been temporarily put aside for the sake of

defeating the Nazis. The relations collapsed almost as soon as the war was over, as both sides wanted to rebuild

the world in their own image. The competition between the two spilled over into all areas of life – the economics

political, military, and of course, scientific. In the 1960s, this competition had morphed into what has become known as the Space Race

where both the Soviet Union and the United States attempted to land on the moon

in order to cement their scientific dominance and secure the future in space

Now, the quest for space exploration sounds like a noble undertaking that all of humankind could benefit from, sure

But you might be surprised to know that the origins of the Space Race could be found in the rapid development of weapons of war

During the Second World War, attempts were made by all sides to develop self-guided missiles

This eventually morphed into finding ways to guide atomic weapons. And once the Soviets had nukes as well, the race was on

The explosion, pun intended, of missile and rocket technology after the war soon brought hidden benefits

The missile systems could be used not just to carry weapons of war, but to put man-made

objects into space to orbit around our planet. To be the very first to do so would bring scientific glory to the nation that could pull

it off, and both the US and the Soviet Union were keen to snatch the victory, so the space

race was afoot. Out of the gate, the Soviet Union won early success

One of their earliest converted missile platforms was the R7 Semyorka, which was the world's

first intercontinental ballistic missile. Now this thing was an absolute beast, 37 meters or 121 feet

tall and coming in at 280 tons. It was such an influential piece of technology for the Soviets

that it launched its own family of rockets and some are still in use to this day. It could carry

a five megaton nuclear warhead some 8,800 kilometers or 5,500 miles but with a little

modification, the Soviets realised it could carry a very different payload straight up and into

space. In 1957, the Soviet Union succeeded in what would be humanity's first step among the stars

and would usher in the dawn of a new era. A modified R-7 rocket was loaded with a small

chrome ball and blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. That wasn't just any

old chrome ball, though. It was the first satellite, Sputnik 1, and its launch created a sensation

back here on Earth. Although some aspects of the launch failed, the satellite was able to successfully enter low Earth orbit

and stayed in space for over three weeks. Now, the point of Sputnik was to prove

that technology existed to place a satellite in orbit to test the conditions in the atmosphere

and to test radio communication and tracking to a man-made object up in the sky

Now, the satellite could be seen traversing the sky all across the world, and anybody with a radio could tune in

and listen to the beep beep that it was sending back to Earth. The launch of Sputnik put a panic amongst the American government and population

because it was apparent that the Soviet Union was pulling ahead in technological development

On the day of the launch, an NBC announcer played the broadcast of the satellite's radio signal

calling it the sound that forever separates the old world from the new

The space race had truly begun and the Americans would be scrambling to catch up for almost

the next decade. The next great Soviet success in space came from the launch of Laika the Dog, who became

the first living creature to make it into space and the first to complete a full orbit

of the planet. She was launched on the 3rd of November 1957, only shortly after the successful launch of

of Sputnik, and the capsule that had been designed to hold Laika was completed on a

political rather than scientific schedule, and so it wasn't able to successfully keep

Laika alive for more than a short period of time in orbit. But nevertheless, Laika was

the first living creature to successfully orbit the planet and though she was killed earlier in the effort than expected the mission was considered another success for the Soviet Union and the USA bristled Now Laika a stray dog from the streets of Moscow became the first real space traveller to come from Earth

And while the Soviets were ticking off achievements, the USA was doing its own thing

In January 1961, NASA sent the first primate into space, a chimp named Han

This was obviously a test for future human spaceflight missions, and it was crucial that Ham could get back safe

So unlike Laika the dog, Ham the chimp survived the ordeal and splashed down in his capsule after a 16-minute long spaceflight

It was a milestone for the US, but the Soviets were about to attempt something remarkable

that would completely overshadow Ham's achievement. The Soviets had learned a lot from their missions

and now they would attempt their next big logical step. They would put a person into space

A 27-year-old Yuri Gagarin had been born in a tiny rural village

and trained as a factory worker before joining the Air Force. Now this lad from rural Smolensk had trained as a cosmonaut

and been picked from 157 applicants to attempt the first manned spaceflight

He was loaded aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft. On the launch pad, you can only imagine his thoughts

as he sat inside a capsule strapped to a rocket packed with hundreds of tonnes of fuel

On the 12th of April 1961, Yuri made his last transmission home

Off we go until we meet soon, dear friends, he said. And Vostok 1 roared to life

Soaring up into space, Gagarin completed a 108-minute flight in which he orbited the Earth and returned home alive

This made Gagarin the first cosmonaut and the first man into space

Gagarin immediately became a hero within the Soviet Union and a household name internationally

He was the perfect poster boy for the Soviet Union. Young, with a charming smile and great media presence

became a worldwide celebrity, and the success was a massive, massive victory for the Soviet space program

Now, it rocked NASA to its core, and the American public were upset

One man in particular took the news badly. He smashed his fist down on a table so hard

that a nearby NASA public relations officer feared he might have shattered his hand

That man's name was Alan Shepard, an American astronaut who had been training to complete the first manned flight into space

but the flight had been scheduled for April 1960 and then postponed six times to May 1961

Gagarin and the Russians beat NASA and Shepard to the prize by just 23 days

At this point in the space race, the Soviet Union was firmly in the lead over the United States

and discontent within the American government was growing. If the Soviet Union continued to dominate in space

the scientific developments that resulted might end in a communist victory for the whole Cold War

So something drastic had to be done, and the concern went all the way to the top

The result in America was that the new President Kennedy began organising an effort to surpass

the Soviet Union in whatever areas of space were left unconquered. It was determined that a space laboratory would be too difficult to complete before the USSR's

station was built, and orbiting the moon before the Soviets would likely be too difficult as well

So instead, Kennedy made the decision to land on the moon itself

Although it would be the most difficult and expensive option, it was also the one that

the Americans had the best chance of beating the Soviets to, which would arguably be the

most symbolic victory. In May 1961, he gave a speech to Congress in which he argued that the

United States should land a man on the moon and get him home safely before the decade was out

Our support was mixed until September 1962, when he gave a now-famous speech in Texas

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things

not because they are easy, but because they are hard. because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills

because that challenge is one that we're willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win and the others too

The Americans had committed but the Soviets were still in the lead

On the 16th of June 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman ever to fly to space

further cementing the Soviet lead in the early days of the space race

She flew a mission that lasted over three days and served as a symbol of the Soviet Union's dedication to the advancement of women as well as men

By the middle of the decade, these small forays into space were no longer the scientific breakthrough as they had been at the beginning

Both the United States and the USSR began exploring the possibility of sending more people into space in multi-crew missions

The Soviets began the Vokshod program, in which a spaceship would carry multiple cosmonauts

on extended space voyages. One particularly notable innovation was the inflatable airlock

which allowed the first human to actually leave their vessel and conduct a spacewalk

On the 18th of March 1965, the Soviet Union again founded to stellar glory when cosmonaut

Alexei Leonov left his ship and spent 12 minutes in the cosmic void. In many ways

this would be the last great triumph of the Soviet space program

There would be future successes, such as landing robots on the moon and space stations

but this would be the last time that the Soviet Union was in a position that was clearly superior to their rivals in the United States And while the Soviet Union had enjoyed its successes in the space race so far it just did not have a match for America economic might The possibility of the Soviets reaching the moon first

and therefore cementing the idea of communist dominance in space, had frightened the American government into action since the early 1960s

At the same time that the Soviets were conducting experiments with its Vokshod spacecraft

the Americans were conducting the Gemini program. The goals were similar to those of the Soviet Union

in that they wanted to design a spacecraft that would be capable of holding multiple crew for an extended period of time

$1.3 billion was spent on this program, and the results were excellent

Building on the success of the Mercury program that had taken American astronauts like John Glenn and Alan Shepard finally to space

the Gemini spacecraft were designed and constructed by 1963 and were ready for manned missions by 1965

In June that same year, Ed White became the first American to conduct a spacewalk

only two months after the Communists had done it. The gap had been closed, and it was now clear that the Americans were pulling ahead in the space race

After the Gemini program came the Apollo program, which was intended to take men beyond the Earth's orbit and to the moon itself

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was still planning on its own moon mission. Faith in Soviet scientists never disappeared among the people and the political class in the USSR

The unmanned space probe Luna 9 was able to successfully land on the moon

proving that the capability existed for a safe landing. A cosmonaut, Alexei Leonov, the same man that had conducted the first spacewalk

was selected by the USSR to be the first man to land on the moon

and confidence was high that he would be able to achieve it. In 1967, he was recruited to train for the lunar landing

Despite the optimism that it existed in the political sphere, he was not so confident that the Soviet moon mission would be a success

He would later say that our people were convinced that we would be the first to land on the moon

because they were used to the fact that we were always the first. But only we, the cosmonauts, and especially the moon crew

understood that this was not going to happen. It was not character, it was funding that played a role here

We knew that the US had invested $25 billion. We had invested 2.5 billion rubles in the entire space program

for both manned and unmanned flights. This was 10 times less. The cosmonauts had not necessarily given up

It was still understood that the Soviet Union had the capability to orbit their men around the moon

and could have done so more than six months before the Americans were able to reach the surface

This wouldn't have been a moon landing, but it would have at least kept the Soviet Union in the race

and cemented their ability to launch further missions. Unfortunately for the cosmonauts, this would never come to pass either

Now the mission to orbit the moon did not take place and the American Apollo 8 would be the first spacecraft to reach the moon in 1968

Its three-man crew of Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were the first men to orbit the moon

and they paved the way for the lunar landings that would take place the next year. The now famous photograph, Earthrise, was also taken during this mission and became popular across the entire world

Leonov blamed the lack of progress on the chief designer of the spacecraft, Vasily Pavlovich Michin

Certainly, he said, it was only the indecisiveness of our chief designer at the time that caused us to fall behind in this program

I can say with complete confidence that if Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was alive

we would have flown around the moon six months ahead of Apollo 8. Korolev was the chief Russian rocket scientist who had worked on the R-7 rocket, amongst many others

and his death in 1966 was a major blow to morale. On top of this, previous mission failures had caused an attitude of caution among the Soviet space program officials

In 1967, the Soviet space program was rocked by another disaster. Cosmonaut Vladimir Kamarov's Soyuz 1 module re-entered Earth's atmosphere

and smashed full speed into the ground when parachutes failed to deploy in time

Kamarov and his friend and fellow cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had both protested the Soyuz's

shoddy construction and design, but they were overruled by the Soviet leadership and Kamarov was essentially sent to his death

Gagarin and a research team had found 203 defects and faults in the Soyuz's construction

but the mission was never postponed. The disaster frightened the leadership of the Soviet space program

and they slowed down their mission schedules. The moon seemed as far away as ever

They had the men, and they had the technology, but as always, it was budgets and bureaucracy that were getting in the way

Gagarin had lost his good friend, but the Soviet Union as a whole had lost something too

They just didn't know it yet. They had forfeited the chance to get to the moon, and the Americans weren't going to let them catch up

Then, in 1968, the Soviet lunar program and the Union itself were dealt a major blow

Yuri Gagarin himself was killed in a routine training flight. The USSR had lost its poster boy

On the 16th of July 1969, the US launched the Apollo 11 mission that would finally put men on the moon just a few days later

This is probably one of the most significant dates in human history, as it marks the first time that human beings had walked on an interstellar body that was not our own

The Americans had come back from behind in the space race and achieved the dream of every human that had ever looked up at the night sky Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the lunar surface That one small step for man one giant leap for mankind

While Michael Collins orbited above in the capsule. Back on Earth, 500 million people across the world watched the moon landing live on their

televisions or listened on their radios. while the Soviet Union knew that they would not be able to land on the moon first

there was a last ditch effort to obtain the consolation prize three days before the launch

of Apollo 11 the unmanned Soviet lunar 15 probe was launched to the moon it was intended to land

softly on the moon collect a sample of the surface and then launch back to earth this way even if the

USSR couldn't land a man on the moon first, they would have obtained a piece of it before the

Americans could. But unfortunately for the Soviets, the mission was a failure, and Luna 15 slammed

into the moon's surface full speed and was totally destroyed. So not only had the Americans put a man

on the moon first, but the mission that would have offered some degree of victory was a complete

failure, adding insult to injury. The reaction to the American moon landing and the Soviet Union

was mixed. On the one hand, mankind as a whole had just achieved something spectacular that would

advance our species and our scientific development by untold margins. But on the other hand

national pride was severely stung. Mankind as a whole hadn't necessarily achieved this

the Americans had. There was no suppression of the news. A Soviet citizen was just as likely to

know about the moon landing as anybody else, but there was a downplaying of it. The landing was

shown on TV in the USSR, but most people didn't have access to one yet, so that didn't really

matter. And as for the newspapers, the landing was reported, but not emphasised. There was a small

article on the first page of Pravda, the Communist Party's official newspaper, and three columns on

the fifth page, but it was an embarrassing, disappointing moment for communism, especially

after the early lead that the USSR had in the space program. For most citizens of the Soviet

Union though, the reaction was one of surprise that they had been beaten, but then life just moved on

Without the massive cultural presence of the cosmonauts on TV and in the parades, it was

fairly easy to ignore the situation. Most of the people had too many problems in their own lives to

worry about the Americans putting a man on the moon. The Soviet government sent a short congratulatory

message to the American government and then moved on, probably muttering about how it didn't even

want to go to the moon in the first place. After the moon landing, the desire to rapidly advance

lunar spaceflight in both the American and Soviet governments just about dried up. The rockets that

were intended to take Soviet cosmonauts to the moon never functioned properly. The program was

quietly cancelled in 1974, and the hope of landing a communist on the moon died with it

The simple fact of the matter was that despite the extraordinary accomplishments of both sides

during the space race, it was a massive, massive sink of money. The national pride and the desire

to outdo the competition could paper over that fact for a while. Once the space race was

over, there seemed little reason to continue expanding such massive resources on a project

that would offer little immediate return. Even the American economy, which was far stronger than that

of the Soviet Union, was having trouble affording the cost of this space race by the end of it

The Soviets pulled back and decided to focus instead on space laboratories. These were very successful. Over the next few decades, five would be launched and used by

Soviet crews all the way up to the collapse of the Union in 1991. Additionally, the end of the

space race brought about a period of cooled tensions between the two sides of the Cold War

In space, this was best seen in the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, when a Soviet and an American

spacecraft docked together and a famous handshake was shared between the two crews. Overall, the loss

of the space race was a great disappointment to the Soviet government, but not a killing blow

Communist prestige had been damaged and the Americans were superior in space, but the situation on the ground remained roughly as it had been

In truth, there was probably a degree of relief from both sides when the race was over

Relation from the Americans and disappointments from the Soviets, but relief from both

Now, although the first space race ended decades ago, in recent years, a new space race has begun

The idea of private spaceflight is a tantalising one, and some of the world's richest figures have dedicated billions of dollars to chasing this dream

SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have engaged in what many have called the Billionaire's Space Race

a unique race between three private companies to send manned craft into orbit

The developments and mission statements of these three companies could see Mars colonized

and affordable spaceflight become available to the public in the near future. It's an exciting time for technological development

but for decades now many have asked if mankind would ever return to the moon

Now the last manned lunar mission was Apollo 17, all the way back in 1972

And it will be in 2025, over half a century later, that mankind will finally return to the moon aboard the Artemis III mission

It's an exciting time for space exploration, but spaceflight is still full of risk and danger

In 1970, NASA almost lost an entire crew when their craft was rocked by a catastrophic failure and explosion

That was the infamous Apollo 13 flight. But that, dear time travellers, is a story for another day

Thank you