N.A. Eismont
Tu-114 phylosophy or Dutch desease.



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I. The beautiful spring of 1961.

  1. The first blow to the bolshevik command system- manifestation to the Red Square without authorities permission.Suspendable MiG-15 tank as a mockup of space ship secrets. Effectiveness of secrets storage.
  2. Gagarin flight - as a sign and fact of goals change of rocket space technology: being element of military power and threat rocket and space technology simultaneously becomes the most important constituent of propaganda ("Despite... we are producing rockets..." - from the popular V.Visoysky song).
  3. Together with the overseas Gagarin tour this desease(see point 2) spreads towards West- to the USA. Americans formulate the national super goal: man landing on the Moon. In the USSR the first phase of Dutch desease of rocket and space technology (RST) finishes. What is Dutch desease?
II. Sources of the Soviet RST successes.
  1. the thirties- the first steps of RST in the world, Germany and USSR (Tsander,Korolev,Glushko,Lulka,Dushkin,Braun).
  2. Results of RST activity in thirties in USSR and in Germany. Peculiarities of the national competition in the conditions of totalitarian regime:tyran as the absolute arms in the competition strugle. Dushkin wins Korolev and Glushko but unfortunately for him they survived in the concentration camps.
III. End of World War II and begin of the cold war as the condition and the cause of birth and development of RST in USSR and USA.
  1. There is no prophet in the own motherland: return of Korolev, Glushko, Lulka to the continuation of their "harmful" activity.
  2. Nuclear racing: USSR lag in nuclear racing as a reaso and base of the USSR lidership in rocket space rasing: too big nuclear bomb demands extreemely big rocket or giant aircraft for its delivery to the target.
  3. Competition of aircraft, crise missile and ballistic missile. Development of Tu-16, Tu-95, M-4 (bombers), Storm (Burja cruise missile) and Seven (ballistic missile).
  4. Hot phases of the cold war (Corea,Vietnam,Middle East). Spy's war and the benefits of mistakes in analysing of spy materials. The case with F-86 (variable thicknes of construction sheets). The rocket and space technology independance from spies and American research and development results. Heroes of Space and Corean war as the same persons (Neil Armstrong, Robert Farquhar).
IV. Race on the Earth and in Space.
  1. Phylosophy of Tu-114. Industrial spying of Americans as a costituent of Khruschev visit to USA in 1960. Conclusion of expert Werner von Broun on the results of spy materials analysis: the reason of Russian successes in RST- is phylosophy of Tu-114. The essence of this phylosophy is refusal from optimisation, ignoring the thin features of construction and technology, the fast progress towards the final goal as a principal criterium in options choosing. Example of implementation of such a phylosophy is Tu-114- the biggest aircraft in the world at that time. Despite not the best in its overall characteristics. But having such aircraft as a prototype it is easy to develope the biggest and at the same time the best one, what was done later in further modifications.
  2. "Seven" and "vostok" as an ideal implementation of Tu-114 phylosophy. Advantages with respect to the American approach at that time (Atlas ballistic missile)- is refusal from solving difficult problems with unclear perspective of the possibilities of their solution. As a rule reliably checked not new materials have been used, well proved production technologies have been applied; solution of some unclear questions was done by flight tests (what was by the way the first symptomof the Dutch desease). One example of such approach: the spherical shape of the reentry capsule "Vostok" has been chosen because there were the most broad and reliable experimental data on aerodynamics of such shape bodies. Result: "Seven" was the biggest rocket in the world at that time (launch weight about 300 metric tons), its possibilities to launch payload up to 7 tons onto low circular orbit allowed to send man to space onto Earth satellite orbit and to send big spacecraft onto interplanetary trajectories; and to do it was much easier than for Americans. The second result of the "Seven" success was the gold rainfor the RST and as a consequence- development of the Dutch desease. To compare: American Atlas had the launch weight 110-120 tons and put onto low Earth orbit about 3 tons payload. But this rocket was overoptimised, for example the thickness of the tanks walls reached 0.2 mm, in order to keep their structure stable it was necessary to maintain some pressure inside tanks constantly. Atlas is flying up to now as well as "Seven". But now with use of Russian rocket engines RD-180.
  3. Russian rocket engines are the best in the world now, there were the best in the past, the level of their pricipal characteristic will be never overcome. Paradox of the competition inside Soviet (Russian) RST without reasonable borders but sometimes - with good results, sometimes - with deadly results. Saturn5-Apollo and N1-L3. From the Russian side the NK-15 engine has been used, from the American side F-1. Specific impulse of NK-15 (vacuum) is 333 s, specific impulse of F-1 is 303 s. Pressure in the combustion camera is 200 and 70 atmospheres respectively.
  4. History of NK-15 (NK-33) development, seeming simplicity of rocket engines and cosequences of the underestimation of their real complexity. NK-15 was developed for the first and second stages of N1 in disagreement with rocket engines designer general Glushko, who was in hostile relations with Korolev. Due to seeming simplicity of the rocket engine in comparison with the turboprop engines (the standard product of the company chosen for the development of NK-15) it was promised to develop, to manifacture and to test rocket engine in one year, to throw it into swamp for 10 years, to take it from swamp and after that the engine will be operational. Almost that really happened. Manufactured in 1974 engine has been delivered to the USA in i995, was installed in test facility and was successfully fired in nominal regime. Stories demonstrating how sensible are rocket engines manufacture: - Manufactured at the experimental production line rocket enginehas successfully went through tests but seriesly prodused ones (i.e. under more strict regulations and in framework of more precise production technology) blew up.The reason: on the experimental line burrs in sprayers were not removed contrary to the series line. - After the change of resine elements (seals) supplier the engines began to blow up. The reason was: new supplier used oil during thermal processing of the seals to be installed inside liquid oxigen pipes. As to NK-15 engine, its development took much more time than it was initially planned; the difficulties of this development were one of the failure reason of the Soviet mammed Moon N1-L3 program.
V. Peculiarities of the national planetary and other space research.
  1. Attempts of missions towards Venus and Mars. Difficulties with the fourth stage so called L-block. Price of one kilogram of payload: one kilogram of spirit.
  2. Episode of planetary program: carte blanche to the just graduated engineers with full succcess results- L-block became reliably operational after 2 days overclock work to correct and improve initial design and to execute in hardware thenecessary modifications.
  3. Mistifications,mistificators,spongers, and the role of the Soviet science in planetary research and RST. L.Sedov as a false fasad of the Soviet RST. Awarding of spongers as the result of the early Soviet PR actions.
VI. From "Raskat" to sunset.Soviet program of man spaceflight to the Moon.
  1. Soviet Moon program as a peek of Dutch desease of RST: two parallel projects.
  2. Deviation from Tu-114 phylosophy as principalproject failure reason.
  3. Episodes from the professional life of participant of Moon race: adding propellant to the tanks of the successive stage taking it from the preceeding one as an effective and easy optimisation tool; what money have been rewarded for this idea and whom. Other proposal to raise the payload mass.
  4. Ultimate victory of V.P.Glushko.(end of N1-L3 project).
VII. Expenditures for RST. Comparison of Russia and USA expeditures in the adequate units: minimum allowed cost of labour per month (MACL). USA government spends for civilian tasks of RST abour 13 billions of dollars per year, what is roughly 8.7 8.7 million MACLs. Russian government spends for the civilian purposes of RST about 6 billion roubles equal 60 millions MACLs. (In the USA MACL (per month) is $1500), in Russia MACL (per month) is 100 roubles).

VII. The answer on the question: Why we have been ahead in RST earlier but not we are behind?
  1. As to RST we were and we are really.
  2. As to space research, i.e. science, we have never been ahead, but at the last years there are some achievements: Granat and Interball projects.