Moon Race: USA vs USSR - Secrets and Successes - Essay Sample

Introduction

The race to the moon is a fascinating historical encounter. The competition involved two well-developed superpowers, especially in the aeronautic industry. United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) were the countries that were involved in the race of reaching the moon. Most of the Russian's progress on the mission of landing the moon was a secret (Collins & Martin, 17). The secrecy was maintained because they did not want any data leaking as it would subject the Americans to too much pressure, which would then make them make substantial progress and start wars or competitions. However, the information on the mission leaked, and this resulted in the race.

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The election of a new president, John F. Kennedy, and the leaking of the information about the Russians plan, changed the plot of the story. The United States had its primary goal as landing the moon before Russia did. In July 1969, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) accomplished the dream of landing to the moon and bringing a person back to earth from the moon. The achievement fulfilled the anticipations of both the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). The dream of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic to land the moon first as they always wanted, was curtailed for many reasons. The subsequent discussion below entails an elaboration of the factors that hindered the achievement of the dream.

One of the factors was the lack of proper organization structure that would help in executing non- military space programs (Schefter & James, 26). There was a continuous and significant lack of coordination and agreement between the aeronautical industry, the Ministries, and the Academy of sciences. The lack of cooperation, proper organization, and coordination, made it difficult for any achievement to be gained as no progress would be made. Lack of agreement is detrimental to development, and in this case of the Union of Soviets Socialist Republic (USSR), it contributed to them failing to reach the moon.

Lack of a recognized authority to give orders to all the involved organizations to coordinate and complete tasks assigned to them was another factor that led to the failure. The absence of jurisdiction to the five hundred organizations and 28 departments that were involved in producing the equipment required for N1 made it that only nine out of 28 departments produced the equipment. Moreover, many factories that were tasked with other tasks of making the N1 successful did not complete their tasks, making it a mess (Abdurasulov & Abdujalil, 4). Lack of Soviet quality control was another major factor that is associated with a lack of authority. Only a few workers working in the factories were qualified to do the tasks assigned to them, which led to the production of poor results that did not meet the expected quality. Even though there were explanations offered to explain the failures of the Russian industrial system, the main point of lack of authority contributed hugely to the failure of Russia to reach the moon first.

There existed incorrect management and development practices. In comparison to the American's management and development practices, the Soviet space program was inferior. The Russians used test flights rather than using extensive ground tests. They continually used artillery development practices that were so complex and were outdated. This led to them failing to reach the moon and giving space to the US to do it.

The project suffered a lack of support. There was no agreement within leadership to give support to the human-crewed spaceflight, let alone the mission to the moon. There was a lack of comprehensive long term space program. The Russians, aimed at beating the Americans rather than aiming at having an orderly program that would lead to improvement of earth orbit infrastructure and a lunar base. There lacked a direction and a disciplined execution of decisions made regarding the project. Moreover, the military of the USSR was not interested in the space flight, and they refused to spend any funds on building a test stand at Tyuratam, which led to further delay of the project, thus failing to reach the failure.

The lack of sufficient financial support to fund the project to achieve the mission was also a challenge that prevented Russi. Compared to the United States of America, Russian funding could only amount to a tenth. Lack of funds made it impossible for N1, N11, or other requested elements of the development program of the project to take place. As a result, the N1 and N11 were launched without reassembling as it was impossible to perform engine test assemblies. Moreover, the state-supported other military programs that were termed as higher priority programs such as the 7K -L1 circumlunar Version, and the Temp mobile ICBM, which contributed to Russians failing to reach the moon.

The inability of the N1 to achieve payload for a single launch lunar orbit rendezvous mission was another factor that led to the failure of the Russians to reach the moon. The USA Apollo translunar injection payload was forty-five metric tons. The Russian N1, which was meant for the same mission, only achieved less than thirty metric tons. Additionally, Korolev Sergei Pavlovitch, who was a Russian spacecraft designer, had only sold the lunar landing mission to the leadership for the sake of getting the N1 built. He could not admit that he had miscalculated the minimum payload mass needed, which would result in the death of the whole mission.

A series of disputes on what kind of propellants and designs to use for the future moon rocket was also another factor that led to the failure of Russia to reach the moon. Apart from disputes on propellants and designs, there emerged other strategic disagreements within the industry, and this led to further delay of the Soviet Lunar program. It was until 1964 when the Soviet engineers gained the go-ahead from political leaders to join the race to the moon against the Americans. Unfortunately, it was too late, and the Americans had already made many steps ahead. Consequently, Russia could not reach the moon.

The death of Korolev, who was the designer of the space crafts, was a huge blow to the project. His death pulled off all the proverbial drive, prestige, and determination that he had towards the project. His absence led to the lack an authority that would out rule the testing of the machine and also recommend the change of engine vendors in case there arose a need. Korolev's presence in the ongoing project would have seen the N1 project more than successful. Moreover, the appointment of Vasily Mishin as a replacement for Korolev was a colossal mistake. Mishin could not cope with the large projects that were assigned to him (Harvey & Brian, 26). He had weaknesses in sticking to unrealistic schedules of leadership, and he could not work with bureaus. Additionally, Mishin could not cope with the development works that were taking place during his time of appointment. Consequently, the Russian's dream continued to delay.

Another significant contribution to the failure of Russia reaching the moon first was the world war. The Soviets Union had been beaten to ashes by World War II, just like other European countries. The people, economy, and industries had been disabled following a beating from civil wars, maniac rulers, and a fraudulent economic foundation. On the other hand, the United States of America contributed less to the war and was not affected much as the USSR (Reeves & Robert, 90). America was still left with an economy that primed for post-war expansions, and consequently, America had enough to invest in the landing of the moon project compared to the USSR, and this led to the failure of the USSR to reach the moon.

The US space program was public and centrally controlled. Kennedy challenged the nation to go to the moon because he was sure that it was not easy. He had the project supported by the prevailing vital and diverse economy, which was capitalist, which further propelled the project forward very fast. On the other hand, the Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev saw the space program as a propaganda value than a national adventure and a unifying tool. As a result, the program was undercut by personal and political conflicts (Reeves & Robert, 69). Also, the program was secretly planned and received fragile support. As a result, the program failed and saw the soviets not reaching the moon.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic had a higher chance of reaching the moon before the United States of America. They had made steps ahead of America, and they had had it all. However, due to circumstances such as insufficient funds, poor leadership, death of the spacecraft designer Korolev, who was always able to pull a cut anytime, there was a problem. Other reasons, such as lack of proper organization structures and disputes over design and propellers of the project, killed the dream of Russia, making them fail to reach the moon.

Work Cited

Collins, Martin J. Space Race: The US-USSR Competition to Reach the Moon. Pomegranate, 1999.

Schefter, James. The race: the complete true story of how America beat Russia to the Moon. Anchor, 2010.

Harvey, Brian. Soviet and Russian lunar exploration.Springer Science & Business Media, 2006.

Abdurasulov, Abdujalil. "Russia: Fly Me to the Moon." Transitions Online 05/12 (2009).

Reeves, Robert. "Reaching for the Moon."The Superpower Space Race.Springer, Boston, MA, 1994.45-99.