Soviet Space Substack

Used to be the Revue newsletter, Soviet Crewed Lunar Vehicles

Welcome!

With the closure of Revue I’m moving the old Soviet Crewed Lunar newsletter over to substack. There are going to be changes, which I hope you will approve of.

This will NOT be turning into a paid newsletter.

Not just promoting the new book…

That was the purpose of the old newsletter, but this one is going to be a bit more general, and I hope more interesting. I’ll be sharing the results of my research and graphics work on the Soviet Space Program in General, so more content, less promotion.

I’ve got some info in the queue, including Glushko’s rocket family program that came after the N1 and before Energia / Buran.

Now for the first article!

What came before Vostok? Volga.

The Vostok capsule, used to send Yuri Gagarin didn’t come out of nowhere, the Volga balloon program preceded it. Just take a look at this photo of the Volga gondola. Rather familiar?

Even down to the small spherical tanks around the base.

However, the role of Volga is not as direct as the image would suggest. The main role of Volga was the development of spacesuits / pressure suits by OKB-42. (now the State Unitary Enterprise Dolgoprudny Design Bureau of Automation). You will recall that the Vostok cosmonauts were ejected from the capsule at high altitude, and high velocity. And the high altitude balloon program was key to this.

On November 1, 1962, a manned flight with parachute jumps took place. Test officers E.N. Andreev and P.I. Dolgov had to try equipment for rescue systems by making parachute jumps from the stratosphere. While leaving the gondola at 26.8 kilomeytres altitude, the helmet visor of Dolgov's pressure suit hit part of the gondola, and the suit depressurized, killing him.

This seems to be the basis of the rumours that Dolgov was one of the mythical cosmonauts who died in unsuccessful Vostok flights.

Meanwhile, back at the substack…

Substack frequency…

I’m not going to publish unless I have something to say, expect an email every 2-3 weeks on average.

2 way communication?

No guarantees, but I’ll try and answer questions, plus I’m always interested in what you’d like to see from me.

That book…

As you probably saw on the last “Revue” newsletter, I now have someone to handle the words for the book “Soviet Crewed Lunar Vehicles”, Jeremy Stern. He’s a historian with an exceptionally clear writing style, and a keen interest in Soviet Space, so he’s pretty much perfect for the role. It does mean the book is likely to take longer, but it will be a LOT more comprehensive, and not just a collection of illustrations.

Here’s the current version of the cover.

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