There are many interesting projects in the history of technological progress. They were expected to have a great future, they were worked out - but then they were closed. And closed at various stages. We decided to recall interesting space projects that are now gathering dust in the archives of unrealized or unreasoned ideas.

Super heavyweight

Perhaps we should start with the project of the super heavy-weight launch vehicle H1 , which has been developed since the early 1960s. 105 meters long, with a starting mass of 2,735 tons, the H1 could take up to 90 tons of payload into space (up to 100 tons in the forced version).


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^{Comparison of the H1 (right) with the American super-heavy Saturn-V rocket}

The rocket was supposed to:

• to put into orbit the modules of a heavy space station,
• deliver to the space shipyard the components of a manned spacecraft for expeditions to Venus and Mars,
• launch a manned ship to the moon.

That is, it was expected that H1 would become one of the key components of several landmark space programs at once. Alas, each of the four test launches ended in failure, and then the USSR refused to participate in the lunar race, the project was closed. Because of this, as domino knuckles, the projects that depended on H1 also fell. For example, two Mars rovers were not launched to Mars to collect soil samples. The refusal of H1 influenced the program of creating the third Mars- rover Mars-79 . The project of a heavy interplanetary spacecraft , which was supposed to deliver Soviet cosmonauts to Mars in the 1970s, died out.

Urbanization of the Moon

Speaking of the moon race. The plans of the Soviet designers went much further than the flight to the moon with the landing of cosmonauts. There were at least two projects to create lunar bases - "Star" and "Volcano". The first project began to develop in the 1960s. The base, in addition to the most stationary building with accommodation for 12 people, included a lunar rover with a habitable trailer for long-distance expeditions. It was assumed that the " Star " will solve scientific problems, to experiment, the astronauts will be engaged in detailed mapping of our natural satellite. Moreover, it was planned to establish regular flights to the moon with a change of astronaut watches.



Alas, but this project was buried under the rubble H1: no other launch vehicle was suitable for manned flights to the moon and the construction of the base.

But this was not the last project to conquer the moon: in the mid-1970s, Vulcan began to be developed. An umbrella brand, as marketers would say today: the project created a heavy launch vehicle, cargo and expedition ships, a lunar rover, a residential complex, a laboratory-production module and a radioisotope power generator. After the final deployment (after three launches of the Vulcan), they were going to produce oxygen at the base. However, the country was not ready for the implementation of such a large-scale project, probably all for the same political and economic reasons. The Commission of the Academy of Sciences considered that the implementation of Vulcan should be postponed to the 21st century ...

By the way, the United States also planned to create lunar bases. True, the projects were frankly militaristic in nature. For example, Horizon was supposed to be a full-fledged launch facility for nuclear missiles aimed at the USSR.



Moreover, it was supposed to equip the base with rockets and special anti-personnel mines to protect against ... the Soviet lunar landing.



Also, the US Air Force in the framework of the project Lunex proposed to build an underground base, designed for 21 astronauts. Given who was the initiator, it is unlikely that these astronauts would only be engaged in scientific research.

Eye in heaven

Of course, the Soviet Union also developed quite a few military space projects. For example, the program of reconnaissance orbital stations " Almaz " initially involved the creation of both automatic and manned vehicles equipped with missiles to protect against American satellites and shuttles. But in 1978, the manned version was abandoned. The American program was similar to the Manned Orbiting Laboratory .



Fortunately, the world held off from an arms race in space. Although we and the Americans continued (and continue) to develop military space projects, yet the scope is not at all what it could be. And the cosmos is still a peaceful territory.

Space hostel

The next project can be considered canceled, but not completely. Today, even children know what the ISS is, but many have already forgotten that the first multi-module orbital station was Mir , which was flooded in 2001 in the Pacific Ocean. Soon after its commissioning, the USSR began to develop a modernization project - "Mir-2". It was planned that with the gradual replacement of modules, the station will grow significantly. And the key role in this will be played by the booster rocket “Energy” , which once put into orbit “Buran”. Alas, the collapse of the USSR and the collapse of the economy put an end to both Energia and Mira-2: by the time Mir was removed from orbit, the World was outdated and it was too expensive to keep this technology museum in working order.

However, they did not lose the groundwork for Mira-2: the basic module, which was supposed to be the core of the updated station, called the Zvezda , was adapted ... to the ISS. There he serves now.



^{The ship "Progress" (black) docked to the "Star"}

It's funny that the fate of the American Freedom orbital station was similar. An international project under the auspices of the United States was to be the answer to the Mir station. But for financial reasons, construction was abandoned, and the developments formed the basis of the American segment of the ISS.



^{The latest version of the station Freedom, never built}

With a tour of the solar system

As you remember, recently the European Space Agency successfully implemented a unique project: an approach to the comet Churyumov - Gerasimenko with the landing of the descent vehicle "Fila" . But even in the first half of the 1980s, there was a joint Soviet-French project " Vesta ". It was planned that two spacecraft would fly past Venus, drop probes on it, then go around Mars, and then fly around four large asteroids and, if lucky, two more comets. Such a multi-way voyage with photography, measurement of radiation spectra and sampling of dust and gas in those years was a very difficult scientific and technical task. Alas, politics intervened with the economy, and the project was canceled at an early stage. But after such an expedition, the flight of the “Rosetta” to the comet would look like a simple imitation.

In the mid-1960s, a curious project of a manned flyby of Venus was considered in the USA. Some of the equipment was not just developed, but even manufactured. It was planned that the astronauts would collect detailed scientific data on the Venusian atmosphere, on the distribution of hydrogen in interplanetary space, on the solar spectrum - and even on Mercury, which approached Venus in the period planned for flight. However, the project was probably closed for financial reasons.

Under the hood of a spaceship

One of the main problems of interplanetary manned flights (not between the Earth and the Moon) is the propulsion system. The main drawback of chemical engines is the need to carry with them a huge amount of fuel. As one of the solutions, a nuclear rocket engine was considered (and is being considered). In the USSR, they worked on it for about 30 years , until the mid-1970s. At about the same time, the development of the American project NERVA also stopped.



In both cases, the reason is simple: the superpowers were not ready to shell out for long-term and very expensive projects of sending a man to Mars and other planets. Countries preferred competition on the fronts of the Cold War.

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This is just a small selection of space projects that could change the history of space exploration and become its bright page. There were a lot of them, unfulfilled plans and achievements of science and technology. Probably, it’s not too soon that humankind will undertake to develop astronautics as actively as in the 1960-1980s. But who knows what breakthrough technologies and projects are being done now in laboratories and research institutes.