General Machinebuilding - Lunar Program

The Soviet Union did not have a high-level managerial organization that could rationally select the most urgent tasks and distribute them.

Reports and surveys — “white TASS” articles reporting on the Americans’ successes — appeared. In August 1966, the U.S. press reported on the second successful flight of the Saturn IB carrying an experimental model of the Apollo. Ustinov appealed directly to MOM Minister Sergey Afanasyev and to USSR Academy of Sciences President Mstislav Keldysh with a proposal to review the state of affairs with the lunar program and to determine why the USSR was lagging behind the Americans and failing to meet the deadlines stipulated by the resolutions of the Central Committee and Council of Ministers. Ustinov assigned TsNIImash chief Yuriy Mozzhorin to prepare a detailed and objective report. Even with the most heroic efforts, it would be impossible to implement the project in 1968. It would be possible to assign tasks for the beginning of flight-developmental testing in 1969, but this would require new decisions to dramatically increase funding for this project. The existing plans and timelines for the N-1 at this time were unrealistic.

Mozzhorin’s report caused an explosion of outrage. For the first time at such a level, officially, a leader of a head institute had, in no uncertain terms, declared that plans dictated by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were unrealistic. Ustinov was more indignant than anyone. Airing a report like this to the Politburo threatened his personal authority. They might ask him: “And where were you all this time, Comrade Ustinov? After all, you were both minister of the defense industry and VPK chairman.” Mozzhorin was nearly branded an enemy of the people, as in the old days.

According to established practice, enterprises made everything cheaper on paper so as not to frighten the minister of finance and Gosplan. Everyone knew about this practice but pretended that no one was being deceived. Keldysh proposed reviewing Ministry of Defense expenditures on spy satellites and other military space needs and reducing them in favor of the N-1. However, Mozzhorin had foreseen these proposals. He showed on each poster that the total funding for all the space programs taken together was just one-fifth of the amount that needed to be added on to the expenditures for the N-1. Even if funding were found from other sources, at this time it was not really possible to trim the cycles of construction, production, and subsequent reliability testing. If there were full funding and the necessary funds were transferred for construction and production, the USSR would be looking at the end of 1969 or more likely 1970.

But Sergey Osipovich Okhapkin answered: ‘Dmitriy Fedorovich, if they help us, then we will fulfill the work within the deadlines set by the Central Committee.’” Turning to Afanasyev, Ustinov proposed that the minister get to the bottom of the “unhealthy attitude” of the director of the industry’s head institute. Mozzhorin was not so naïve that he had not familiarized his minister with the figures beforehand. Afanasyev gave his word that he would “get to the bottom of things” with Mozzhorin. Afanasyev and Mozzhorin understood that Ustinov and Keldysh were playing up their indignation. In actual fact, they had a better grasp of the general situation than the others, but out of “instructional” considerations they could act no other way.

If the actual status of the programs stipulated by the decrees of the nation’s higher political leadership did not coincide with what they desired, then even individuals with extensive experience in technology like Ustinov could bring down their wrath on the one who dares speak the truth.

Afanasyev, who headed the State Commission on the N-1, was also appointed chairman of the Lunar Council by government decision.

Chertok later recalled that "In keeping with longstanding practice, instruments, cables, and all the other production accessories were delivered first of all for the flight vehicles and then—much later, after the developers had howled hysterically — for the experimental test units and rigs on which the developmental tests for these very instruments were supposed to be performed. Everyone considered this procedure to be faulty, but no one could change it. The dates for the deliveries of the standard instruments for the flight rockets were under the strict control of the entire administrative staff. All other deliveries were almost considered to be the developers’ whims."

After the Apollo 8 moon flight, on 23 December 1968, "Uncle Mitya" summoned the leadership of the "yellow house" - this is how management called Ustinov and the Ministry of General Machine Building [MOM] headquarters building on Miusskaya Square. By the echoes that reached us by evening, the conversation was reduced to standard questions-instructions: "How will we respond to the Americans?"

Deputy Minsiter Viktor Litvinov, who came to the gathering after meeting with the Central Committee, said: "... the Americans have borrowed from us the main method of work - the planned management and network graphics. They have bypassed us in management and planning methods. They pre-announce the schedule for the preparation of the launch and strictly adhere to it. They actually implemented the principle of democratic centralism - free discussion, and then the strictest discipline in implementation. We, according to Ustinov, have blossomed. We returned to the times of feudalism. Each ministry is its own feudal principality. Chief designers instead of friendly work take an aggressive position in relations with each other, even stop listening to their ministers."

Chertok later recalled that by 1969 "The N-1 No. 3L rocket was modified in response to all possible comments by the time of the January session of the State Commission. All that remained were deviations permitted by the technical management. On the second stage (Block B), contrary to the design, Kuznetsov’s main engines did not have high-altitude nozzles. The control system’s on-board digital computer, developed at NIIAP in 1969, produced so many malfunctions and such errors that it was impossible to clear it for flight. Deviating from the design, they made the decision to begin flight testing on an analog control system, which did not require an on-board digital computer. This impaired the parameters of the control system and of the rocket as a whole, but it was not possible to wait any longer for the on-board computer to be ready."

At a meeting on 25 December 1968, Chertok recounts Pilyugin saying "Grechko [Minister of Defense 1967-1976] is completely against it. He now believes that our association with the Moon has been on the whole all for naught, and he’s outraged that at the expense of the Ministry of Defense budget, they’re paying expenses for naval telemetry ships, Crimean tracking stations, all the preparation at Baykonur, and cosmonaut training. Grechko believes that this is Ustinov’s policy, and supposedly he stated flat out in the Defense Council that the Academy of Sciences and interested ministries should pay for space. He, Grechko, does not need the Moon.... The other day Tolubko [First Deputy Commander in Chief of the Strategic Rocket Forces] was sitting in my office here. He said that the generals were riled up: Afanasyev is now in charge of all rocket production, and they are diverting him to lunar problems. Let Keldysh deal with that.... Someone needs to find the courage to say that we are not hurrying to the Moon, but instead we are going to settle down there in around five years the right way. But who is that brave? Nobody."

On 27 January 1969 MOM Minister Sergey Afanasyev convened a small meeting of the Council of Chiefs to discuss the lunar landing expedition program. Keldysh took the floor and said what neither Mishin, the minister, nor any of them could bring themselves to say: “The status of operations on the N1-L3, in my opinion, is such that we need to postpone the date for the Moon landing to 1972 and make a decision in this regard as soon as possible.... The assignment was decreed, it was written in a government resolution, no one is canceling it, but we need to take a sober look at things.... Today we have two missions: a lunar landing and a flight to Mars.... I am for Mars. We can’t make a complex [launch] vehicle like the N-1 for the sake of the vehicle itself and then look around for a purpose for it. The year 1973 will be good for the unpiloted flight of a heavy spacecraft to Mars.... In 1975, we can launch a piloted Mars spacecraft using two N-1 launch vehicles with a docking in orbit. If we were the first to find out whether there is life on Mars, this would be the greatest scientific sensation. From a scientific point of view, Mars is more important than the Moon.”

Academician Vasily Mishin later recalled "Korolyov never said anything about the Moon. We could never have landed there before the Americans.... The fact is that America is a rich country, Americans could outdo us a long time ago. But they needed to return the lost prestige - after the first satellites and Gagarin. And Kennedy spoke in 1961 before the congress and asked for this event $ 40 billion in order to land Americans on the moon and return them to Earth before the year 70. The US at that time could have gone to such huge expenses, and our country, weakened after the war, could not allocate such funds at such a time. That's all."

By 1972, the extreme lack of interest of the country's top leadership in the study of the moon by man was revealed. After the successful implementation of the Apollo American program, the lunar program lost its prestige. The staff headed by Mishin bore primary responsibility for compensating for the psychological damage inflicted on domestic and world public opinion, which had sincerely believed in the absolute priority of the socialist world in space.