Another bundle of references

Structured collected information from RGANTD with translation.

Nov 24, 2023

For those who want access to the source, I’ve gathered up a second volume of references from RGANTD. These are available on my Gum Road store, at a launch price of $10. This will increase to $12 on the end of 3rd December, the sale price will note be extended.

I’ve also lowered the price of Volume 1 for the same period:

And, for those of you who missed Volume 1, you can buy volume 1 and 2 combined, for the cheaper price of $18.

Buy both volumes at a saving.

Anyone who buys during the same period will get about 290 Mb of bonus material, sent as a download link. Again, note that this will NOT be extended.

The documents are arranged in a folder structure that matches the RGANTD reference names. This makes it easy to merge in future releases, and build a more complete reference.

Fond (фонд) = literally 'fund', but more accurately "Collection"
‘Opis' (опись) = literally 'inventory', which means a group listing of files within a Fond
Delo (дело) = literally 'file', (as in a folder containing documents within an Opis
List (лист) = 'leaf' or 'page'

Details:

For the best information, please visit the links above, but I will summarise here.

These collections consist of raw scans from the RGANTD state archive, and cover various space projects of the Soviet Union. The documents are in Russian, I have provided Yandex image translations for all documents with text.

Sample source page, (left) and translated image, (right).

Image translation means that the labels are in the correct places for diagrams. Here’s an example from Volume 1:

Source and translation of a diagram showing different lunar mission options.

Please note, these pages are released almost at random! Sometimes a few pages from a book, sometimes more, but never yet a complete book. Not even close.

For this reason, these scans are more likely to be of use to the serious researcher. Though the many illustrations will, I think, be of much more general interest.

These thumbnails give a good idea of the illustrations in volume 2.

Those purchase links again:

Volume 1.

Volume 2.

Volume 1 & 2 combined.

This editions cool link:

https://aviaforum.ru/threads/kosmos-istorija-i-lichnosti.47812/page-17

“Grasshopper” transporters, used for the N-1 and Buran

This link is to Russia Aviation forums, which has some good stuff, including on the linked page, some very good photos of the Grasshopper transporters.

This editions cool graphic:

A restored and translated (by me), infographic showing Object 1KP used for the first Vostok test flight.