Teaching the History of the Space Race: A Soviet AAR

[CV60]

Q3 1969

Expenditures/Budget(Current Funds/Expenditures/Quarterly Balance)

$ $404,468.9 $14,161.2 $29,588.8

Actions

Launch unmanned LK-700 circumlunar flight
Launch Venera 7

Events
At the end of Q2, the UR-700 booster is at 98% reliability, the LK-700 is at 98%, the Krechet-94 spacesuit is at 96%. Venera 7 is at 87%. Venera 9 is at 81% reliability and Mars 2 is at 83%. The overall UR/LK-700 system reliability is 95%
The unmanned circumlunar flight is successful. However, the Venera 7 probe failed to deploy properly, so the mission was a failure.

Analysis

The Venera 7 mission was a high risk mission. Because there has not been any orbital Venus missions, it will take a -30% penalty. Moreover, it is being manned by “second string” mission controllers. However, the lunar flight schedule will not permit a gap, if it is to beat NASA to a landing.
The unmanned lunar flight involved a different sort of risk analysis. By flying it, a -5% reliability penalty is avoided for the first manned lunar flight. However, at this point, my mission controllers, and flight crews are well trained, and the UR/LK-700 system is very reliable (98% reliability overall). A good argument could be made that the penalty is a no worse that the delay that would result if there was a failure on this test mission. In other words, the risk to the program might be as great from flying this mission, despite it being done for risk reduction purposes. Historically, George Mueller made a similar argument when he argued for “all up” testing of the Saturn V rocket. Despite the logic of this position, I will use von Braun’s more incremental testing approach, as the Soviet program is not under the same financial pressures as Apollo was when Mueller made his argument.

[CV60]

Q4 1969

Expenditures/Budget(Current Funds/Expenditures/Quarterly Balance)

$ $419,103.3 $14,161.2 $29,588.8

Actions

Launch unmanned LK-700 lunar orbital flight

Events

At the end of Q2, the UR-700 booster is at 97% reliability, the LK-700 is at 97%, the Krechet-94 spacesuit is at 96%. Venera 7 is at 85%. Venera 9 is at 83% reliability and Mars 2 is at 84%. The overall UR/LK-700 system reliability is 96%
The unmanned LK-700 lunar orbital flight is successful.
NASA completes the Pioneer 6 solar probe mission
NASA opens the Mariner 10 Mercury flyby mission

Analysis

NSTR

[CV60]

Q1 1970

Expenditures/Budget(Current Funds/Expenditures/Quarterly Balance)

$ 435,137.6 $14,161.2 $29,588.8

Actions

Launch manned LK-700 lunar orbital flight

Events

At the end of Q1, the UR-700 booster is at 97% reliability, the LK-700 is at 97%, the Krechet-94 spacesuit is at 97%. Venera 7 is at 86%. Venera 9 is at 85% reliability and Mars 2 is at 86%. The overall UR/LK-700 system reliability is 97%
The manned LK-700 lunar orbital flight is successful.

Analysis

There is a minor (-3%) penalty for not having completed a manned circumlunar flight before launching the planned manned orbital flight. However, this penalty is relatively minor, especially given the high (97%) reliability of the LK-700 system.

One other more concerning issue is that one controller is marginally trained (77%) for their position. However, to raise them would take at least 3 quarters, a cost in time that I am unwilling to pay. This lack of training is a reflection of my decision several years ago to have minimal mission control staffing. Although I had a small surplus of mission control personnel, I lost a highly trained individual due to a random event. The surplus personnel were not as well trained, and the schedule has not allowed additional training. One other problem with the small MC staff is that I have been unable to fly any of the planetary missions at the same time as the manned flights. In retrospect, I should have hired a total of 20 mission control staff in the 1963 time-frame. That would have allowed both planetary probe missions, as well as manned mission and a small surplus of staff, and my current budget certainly allows for this expense.

The success of the LK-700 lunar orbital flight paves the way for a manned lunar landing flight in the next quarter.

[CV60]

Q2 1970

Expenditures/Budget(Current Funds/Expenditures/Quarterly Balance)

$ 446,400.9 $14,161.2 $29,588.8

Actions

Launch manned LK-700 lunar landing flight

Events

At the end of Q2, the UR-700 booster is at 97% reliability, the LK-700 is at 97%, the Krechet-94 spacesuit is at 97%. Venera 7 is at 87%. Venera 9 is at 86% reliability and Mars 2 is at 87%. The overall UR/LK-700 system reliability is 96%.
NASA successfully completes the Pioneer 12 Venus orbiter
The manned LK-700 lunar landing flight is successful.

Analysis

The success of the Soviet program comes a year later than planned, due to the failure in the early LK-700 test flight. In this game, NASA remained far behind the Soviet program. Interestingly, when the lunar race was lost, the computer-led NASA appeared to adopt a “Venus” strategy, emphasizing robotic probes of Venus, the one part of the solar system the USSR did not dominate. This is a reversal of the actual historical actions of the USSR, which adopted the Venus strategy after the American Apollo and Mariner successes.

[CV60]

Aftermath 1-Costs

The Soviet program in this AAR cost a total of $475,607.7, and $434,679.6 from 1958-the completion of the lunar landing in June 1970. For comparative purposes, NASA historically spent $253,254 million USD in constant 2014 dollars from FY 1958-1969. In my erlier NASA AAR, I estimated that by applying a 0.66 multiplier to the game budget, a player could get a rough comparison between their game budget and the historical program (adjusted for 2014 dollars). Applying this multiplier to the Soviet program results in a lunar program budget of $286,888.5, which while slightly more expensive than Apollo is in line with historical US program costs. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA ).

[rommel222]

Greetings to All,
An excellent finish for the soviets and the implications for the U.S. Apollo missions. I would think the U.S. would have continued to reach the moon with a lunar landing. This would be in line with the U.S. always one step behind the U.S.S.R. in space but still going forward. I am curious that the program had the U.S. adopt a "Venus strategy" after the soviets beat them to the moon.
I would love to see the race for space stations and shuttles between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. as DLC addon or as BASPM II.

[CV60]

Aftermath II
At the beginning of the AAR, I set out the following teaching goals:

• Learn about the history of space exploration in the context of the "space race."
• Learn about basic principles of program management
o The difficulties in planning in the absence of an overarching goal
At the conclusion of the game play, the student deliverable would be to compare and contrast the BASPM campaign with this historical USSR space program, addressing the following questions:
• How did the lack of a clear goal by the USSR leadership effect your BASPM campaign planning and execution?
• How was the strategy you chose different from the historical USSR strategy? Why did you select this strategy?
• What was the outcome of your strategy? Did your strategy accomplish your goals at a reasonable cost?

While this AAR accomplished these goals, I think my house rules for the Soviet AAR were not sufficient to recreate the organizational chaos that Korlev historically had to contend with. In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, he was faced with flying missions with nearly impossible schedules (developing Sputnik 2 in 1 month) or flying incredibly risky missions (Voskhod 1) As the Soviet player I could develop the programs that I felt were important and fly them more or less on my schedule, albeit with additional planning and resource allocations. Despite this shortcoming in the house rules, I think a student could still write a paper addressing the above goals. For instance, as the Soviet player, the lack of a clear goal forced me to fly the Zenit missions, interfering with my flight schedule. I also developed the Proton K to take advantage of the house rules emphasis on military flights. However, I think the house rules need to be modified to better reflect the challenges faced by the Soviet program. I’ll return in a couple of weeks with a revised proposal for a Soviet scenario for teaching purposes.