I’d be curious to know more about the development of the docking mechanism here. They clearly anticipated being done with spacewalking between vehicles
Yes, and even docking was to be avoided is possible.
One thing I found very interesting about the source article was that I had not realised that an Apollo style docking gets less and less effective the longer the crew are on the Moon.
A direct ascent return becomes more and more attractive, despite the weight penalty.
There's another architecture developed under Mishin with rendezvous on the way in, (crew connecting with a big braking stage), and direct ascent return. Two N1 launches
That is interesting, Nick. Is that because the size and weight of the lander becomes a relatively larger portion of the combined two-vehicle configuration? At some point, I’m guessing, the orbiter (ie LOK/CSM) gets so small you might as well combine it with the lander (LK/LEM) to reduce overall complexity?
So it's kind of the other way around. The orbiter needs loads of fuel, and gets heavier. If you load up the lander with that fuel, and eliminate lunar orbit rendezvous, you have a simpler, safer mission.
You can take off at any time you want, (no need to synchronise with the orbiter), and you don't need to stay near the equator.
One of the elements in the last article was the need to possibly take off quickly - which could make rendezvous in lunar orbit VERY expensive in fuel.
I'm going to do a follow up on the orbital mechanics.
There's a lovely example though - the second lunar subsatellite PFS-2 unexpectedly had a wildly irregular orbit, it nearly crashed in 2.5 weeks, and actually crashed after 35 days.
Mascons mean that many orbits are chaotic - a very few are reasonably stable, (by luck PFS-1 was close to one).
So if you're planning on staying in orbit for a few weeks, (let alone several months as the expeditionary ships would have to), you'd better have plenty of fuel and/or be in a high orbit.
The effects are so strong that an astronaut with 50 pounds of kit would weigh an extra quarter pound directly above a mascon, (lunar gravity), and at the edge of a sea, the difference from vertical would be able 1/3rd of a degree.
A video was produced covering all aspects of the N1 project, it hasn't been seen for a LONG time. But... That frame scan was from someone who had access a long time ago, and there's a serious effort underway to unearth an existing copy.
That's the holy grain of N1 video.
The film was very probably 16mm, so don't get excited by the 4k resolution of the scan.
I’d be curious to know more about the development of the docking mechanism here. They clearly anticipated being done with spacewalking between vehicles
Yes, and even docking was to be avoided is possible.
One thing I found very interesting about the source article was that I had not realised that an Apollo style docking gets less and less effective the longer the crew are on the Moon.
A direct ascent return becomes more and more attractive, despite the weight penalty.
There's another architecture developed under Mishin with rendezvous on the way in, (crew connecting with a big braking stage), and direct ascent return. Two N1 launches
That is interesting, Nick. Is that because the size and weight of the lander becomes a relatively larger portion of the combined two-vehicle configuration? At some point, I’m guessing, the orbiter (ie LOK/CSM) gets so small you might as well combine it with the lander (LK/LEM) to reduce overall complexity?
So it's kind of the other way around. The orbiter needs loads of fuel, and gets heavier. If you load up the lander with that fuel, and eliminate lunar orbit rendezvous, you have a simpler, safer mission.
You can take off at any time you want, (no need to synchronise with the orbiter), and you don't need to stay near the equator.
One of the elements in the last article was the need to possibly take off quickly - which could make rendezvous in lunar orbit VERY expensive in fuel.
I'm going to do a follow up on the orbital mechanics.
There's a lovely example though - the second lunar subsatellite PFS-2 unexpectedly had a wildly irregular orbit, it nearly crashed in 2.5 weeks, and actually crashed after 35 days.
Mascons mean that many orbits are chaotic - a very few are reasonably stable, (by luck PFS-1 was close to one).
So if you're planning on staying in orbit for a few weeks, (let alone several months as the expeditionary ships would have to), you'd better have plenty of fuel and/or be in a high orbit.
The effects are so strong that an astronaut with 50 pounds of kit would weigh an extra quarter pound directly above a mascon, (lunar gravity), and at the edge of a sea, the difference from vertical would be able 1/3rd of a degree.
That N-1 drawing is amazing!
It gets better...
A video was produced covering all aspects of the N1 project, it hasn't been seen for a LONG time. But... That frame scan was from someone who had access a long time ago, and there's a serious effort underway to unearth an existing copy.
That's the holy grain of N1 video.
The film was very probably 16mm, so don't get excited by the 4k resolution of the scan.