Why did the Russians never reach the moon?

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

First artificial satellite.

First animals.

First man in space.

First woman in space.

I seem to recall something about Russian rockets being more power than American ones too.

First probes of Venus.

So why did they never reach the moon?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Well they did, but I assume you mean manned landings.

The reasons are many fold and complicated. They are both technical and political. I will attempt to answer you more fully tomorrow, but at the moment I have imbibed far too much fine English ale to give you the answers you deserve.

[Mark One]

For the same reason that US gave up on it.

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

First artificial satellite.

First animals.

First man in space.

First woman in space.

I seem to recall something about Russian rockets being more power than American ones too.

First probes of Venus.

So why did they never reach the moon?

Here is a quick overwiev on the reason why the Soviets didn't beat the US to the Moon: http://www.astronaut...es/whynrace.htm

There is no single reason for their failure, but I think that the death of Korolev (1966) had a big effect on the programme. Their previous successes had been under his leadership. https://en.wikipedia.../Sergei_Korolev

Edited November 1, 2015 by Noteverythingisaconspiracy

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

For the same reason that US gave up on it.

That there is nothing there to enable easy habitation?

[+OverSword]

First artificial satellite.

First animals.

First man in space.

First woman in space.

I seem to recall something about Russian rockets being more power than American ones too.

First probes of Venus.

So why did they never reach the moon?

Why did the Russians never put a man on the moon? Money. They couldn't spend that kind of money and keep up with the American war machine. At no point in the cold war did the Russian GNP exceed that of California. Eventually that's what collapsed communist Russia, trying to match America military spending. Edited November 1, 2015 by OverSword

[Lilly]

Yep, OverSword is correct. The USA got there first so the big contest between the USSR and USA was essentially over. It would have cost them way too much to just be second place.

[+Noteverythingisaconspiracy]

Why did the Russians never put a man on the moon? Money. They couldn't spend that kind of money and keep up with the American war machine. At no point in the cold war did the Russian GNP exceed that of California. Eventually that's what collapsed communist Russia, trying to match America military spending.

Money was certainly part of the reason, but not the only one. Afterall they did later manage to succesfully develop and test the Energia rocket, which was more powerfull and expensive than the N1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energia

[+DieChecker]

Yet the Russians are still one of the primary nations launching stuff into space.

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_chr/lau2015.htm

[Derek Willis]

Because they were too slow to fully committing to designing a big rocket. And when they did, the N-1 simply wasn't very good. Mainly because it had too many engines with complex plumbing.

Edited November 1, 2015 by Derek Willis

[Derek Willis]

Yep, OverSword is correct. The USA got there first so the big contest between the USSR and USA was essentially over. It would have cost them way too much to just be second place.

The Russians were still attempting to launch their N-1 moon rocket in November 1972, so despite having lost the race to the moon, perhaps they were attempting to recover some pride by actually sending men there.