Goethe's wisdom / Boston marathon / The Soviet Moon-program / Good things in USA, part 5

Goethe's wisdom

as sent by S

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

Obey this, and nothing is too hard for you. I have tried it, and it works everytime. It is also one of the cornerstones on Lean studying.

Boston marathon

By a strike of good luck, I happened to be with Kumar close to the route of the Boston Marathon. We saw the winners of running, and they were indeed fast after running some 40km. Quite stunning. I also saw the wheelchair winners, who were even faster the runners.

The Soviet Moon-program

Now, I started to work again. I read some 500 pages of "Challenge to Apollo: the Soviet union and the space race, 1945-1974.". The history of the Soviet space and Moon programs are rather fascinating. It was not that the central planning would have destroyed the programs, quite the contrary. The US Apollo-program was much more centrally run, and almost dictatorial. In Soviet Union, the number of independent designers and companies/institutes was much higher, and nobody was really in charge. In addition, the country/communist party did not really consider the space race as important and USA did, at least not in the beginning. Instead, they were more interested in developing more and better intercontinental ballistic missiles, and this military interference was really detrimental to the space program.
Of course, there were other issues. The Soviet could not allocate enough money for the Moon program, since their economy was in bad shape (they were forced to import grain from USA and elsewhere, which was using up their resources). And they had some technological difficulties, especially with computers, and they did make some unfortunate early architectural decisions (especially when deciding the size of rocket engines: they chose too small ones, and had to have 30 in one rocket, which was too complicated for them). And all the time, there were many parallel programs going on, with some of them getting fund today, some others next year etc.
In addition, just like Americans, Soviet were not able to choose the mission mode that easily. First, they were opting for EOR, since they did not had big enough launch vehicles. Their EOR would have required up to 5 launches, with some considerable rendezvouz difficulties. At that point, they were about to have 3 cosmonauts. Then, at some point in 1965, they decided to go for LOR, and thus single launch. The reasons for this change are not clear, but apparently they were copying ideas from USA, and also considered a single launch cheaper. But this decision presented a new problem. Their N1 was only able to lift some 70 to 95 tons, which would not be enough for sending 3 cosmonauts to the Moon. So, they decided to send only 2! This is interesting, since this was a conscious decision, and even documented. On the contrary, the US decision to have 3 astronauts has not been documented, and seems accidental. Anyway, the N1 rocket was a disaster: it never really worked, and exploded in several trials. It seems that having 30 engines was just too complex for the Soviets (and most likely would still be for anyone).
One more thing: I think that the common idea that the Soviet Moon-program died when Korolev, the chief designer, died in 1966, is not correct. I think the crucial mistake were made much earlier, and that no single person, or even a group of persons, could have saved the program. I think, that there were about similar amount of decisions without any plan-B, or back-up plans, both in the US and in the Soviet moon programs. Once one decides the engines, the mission mode, the way of building rockets, the way of transporting rockets, and many other important things, one cannot undo the decision. One just has to live with the decisions, and try to make the most out of them. If the decisions turn out to be fundamentally flawed, as they did in the Soviet program, one just has to accept the shame and embarrassment. The fact, that the US-program succeeded so well, is also partly due to sheer luck: for example, the F1 engine could have been proved to be too hard a challenge at the time. Fortunately for USA, it did not.
This is what I learned today. I just need to write it down in somewhat more polished manner, and with appropriate references etc. It should be quite easy, and take less than 4 hours.
I also worked on out PDD-project by putting together our assignment. It looks good, and I have to give credit to the whole group. They really worked well this time. Great. Later, around midnight, I wrote some pages of comments for the other air policy teams. It was fun.

Good things in USA, part 5

48. Patti Smith. 50. Walking by the Charles river. 51. The Indian food market in Cambridge - it is authentic enough to make me believe I am in India - and they serve decent food there too. 52. Non-smoking bars (most of the time). 53. Gorillas in Bronx zoo.
More tomorrow. Now too tired to figure out any more. But I have already 53 good things in USA - so I am not totally anti-American. Or am I just an imposter?

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs April 2005".