I'm watching "For All Mankind" and realized I'd never really thought about the psychological and propaganda impact of not being first to the moon. Did the Soviet leadership see it as a major loss? Do we know what the mood was in the Kremlin? How was it communicated in the Soviet media?
Cannot speak to the former as well, but the latter is well known. The Soviets DID have a moon program, however it never got off the ground in the same way. While the Soviets did have an early lead in rocketry with the R-7 rocket hurling Sputnik and Gagarin into space, America was quick to catch up, and produced stronger and stronger rockets. Even before the launch of Gagarian, the United States had started development of the precursor to the Saturn V that would send Americans to the Moon. JFK on the day before he was assassinated hailed the launch of the Saturn I as the day the Americans had finally beat the Soviets in launch capacity
After starting behind, America poured far more of their GDP into the program, and had incremental but increasing success, and had the Saturn V in full development, with their first flight in 1967, and would send Apollo 8 to the moon in December 1968.
The Soviets had a more troubled development. The problem is that there were MULTIPLE competing lunar programs demanding funding and attention, and the nature of the Soviet space program saw various design firms compete with each other for attention from the Soviet government, while the American program put out contracts and chose a supplier. There was the Zond program which planned to do a fly-by on the Proton rocket (which in further evolutions is still used to this day) and the massive N-1 rocket which would land a single cosmonaut on the moon, and was comparable to the Saturn V.
Unfortunately for the Soviets, there were a variety of factors that would prevent that. Nikita Khrushchev was one of the main boosters of the Soviet space program, but he was deposed in 1964 in favor of Brezhnev, who was not as enthusiastic about the space program as Nikita as a way to build Soviet power. Furthermore, in 1966, Sergei Korolev-who was the chief designer of the Soviet space program and the lead designer of the N-1 rocket-passed away due to complications from a surgery. Without the influence of Korolev-who was deeply instrumental in almost all of the Soviet space victories to that day-put a hamper on both the rocket and the program. With the Americans gaining steam, a smaller focus from leadership, and a huge shake-up in the program itself, the development of the N-1 faltered. It was plagued by technical issues, and only made four launch attempts-all four of which ended in explosions. Eventually the program was scrapped, and the Soviets chose to refocus on space stations.
I will admit at this point it is pure speculation, but if the issues with the N-1 were resolved the Soviets MAY have been able to follow up the Americans to the Moon, but it is very unlikely they would have gotten there first. There is a possibility they could have beaten the Americans to a circumlunar flight using the Proton Rocket and the Zond capsule-they had sent unmanned flights with animals on board successfully in 1968, but developmental and safety issues prevented them from any attempts with humans on board before Apollo 8. And Zond+Proton was simply not sufficient to land a man on the moon-it was just not powerful enough, and a lander had not been fully developed.
USSR's Reaction to Apollo 11
For the first question, the Soviet hopes had shifted to robotic exploration of the moon after Apollo 8. So the likely propaganda line was that "America sent men who could only stay for a few days, while the Soviets sent robots who would explore for weeks."
Unfortunately, the robotic missions all failed before Apollo 11. The Soviets actually attempted to land a sample return mission before Apollo 11, but then it took too long to find a landing site that it attempted to land during Apollo 11's stay on the moon. In the end, it lost control and crashed into the moon's surface.
The Soviet press downplayed any significance of Apollo 11 as much as possible. For example, it was announced on the TV by a normal news presenter between two volleyball matches and no video of the landing was played. Any use for a Soviet manned mission was "to give more choice between which rock to bring back" according to one Soviet scientist.
Soviet leadership was unhappy for sure, though it seemed they had been convinced that a pivot to a space station was a good the next step. The Soviet leadership was always quick to talk up space accomplishments, but pretty stingy with funding at times.
Soviets on the Moon
In short, a lack of money and the general disorganization of the Soviet rocket industry doomed any chance of a Soviet manned lunar first. I can't find the numbers, but the budget difference between the Soviet and American moon programs was closer to 10x than 2x.
The lack of money on the Soviet program meant that while the Saturn rocket stages were exhaustively tested before they were stacked on the launchpad, the Soviet rocket had to launch on untested engines. Several Soviet programs cut testing in response to budget pressure and found repeated early failures as a result.
The Soviet engines couldn't be tested because there wasn't enough time or money to build the testability into the rocket engine, so they would pull an engine or two from each batch to test fire, then throw away. It was simpler to use one-time use valves instead of creating valves that could be closed and open multiple times.
Plus, the Soviet stages were assembled in one place, then partially disassembled and shipped on railcars to the Soviet launch pad, then reassembled. American rocket stages would ride on barges or an airplane from assembly to testing to launch.
At the same time, the Soviet rocket industry was a lot less organized than Soviet propaganda would claim. During the early 1960's, NASA was choosing contractors and speccing out the Saturn V design, but the Soviet rocket industry was locked in a three-way fight for programs/funding.
You had the Korolev OKB fighting the Chelomei OKB fighting the Yangel OKB for funding and programs. An OKB had some features of American rocket companies like North American Aviation or Boeing and other features of a space program like NASA or the Air Force. So don't think of this as just contractors fighting for the same contract.
Each OKB had their good and bad side. Korolev's OKB had the most experience, especially with manned programs, but was in a major disagreement with the top rocket engine designer (Glushko). Chelomei was favored by the Soviet leader of the time (Khrushchev), but had less experience and was working on a bunch of different programs. Yangel had more experience than Chelomei and was working with Glushko, but had accidentally killed a "Hero of the Soviet Union" during a test launch of a new missile. Truth be told, it wasn't Yangel's fault, he was being hurried beyond any reasonable timeline.
Glushko was adamant on building new rocket engines using "storable propellants". These are very useful for ICBM's that would stand ready for years, able to launch in minutes after the go-ahead was given. Korolev only wanted cryogenic propellants, which were easier to work with, though they would take hours of preparation before launch. Korolev disliked the difficulty of working with the storable fuels plus the fact that toxic byproducts would be emitted on each launch. Glushko wanted to focus on one fuel type that would work for both ICBM's and regular rockets. Eventually, Korolev found a jet engine designer that would try to make him some cryogenic rocket engines.
Then in 1965, the Soviet leader changed and every space program was back in play. Chelomei saw most of his programs cancelled, though two specifically were retained. A large rocket (Proton) and a manned lunar flyby program (Zond). At the same time, Korolev was given the manned lunar landing program. Then Korolev died without a clear successor.
Some time later, the Korolev OKB got back on track, but there was no way they could catch the American program. Even before Korolev died the chance was slim, they were years behind, they didn't have a large rocket engine like Saturn 5's F1, and they way less money to build the rocket.
Chelomei's lunar flyby program started testing before the Apollo 8 mission (America's first manned lunar flyby), but repeated failures on test missions meant that the Apollo 8 mission beat the Soviet lunar flyby. Plus, the Soviet lunar flyby program was being run separately to the Soviet manned lunar landing, while Apollo 8 was just a test mission within America's manned lunar program.
After Apollo 8, the Soviet lunar flyby program was as well as cancelled. The manned lunar landing program kept going, but the lack of testing of the rocket led to repeated failure on launch. This is when the Soviet leadership realized that unless the Americans really messed up their next few launches, the Soviet lunar landing would be second.
The Soviets attempted to pivot to unmanned programs, but the late start made it very difficult to "scoop" the American program. It didn't help that the only Soviet rocket capable of launching those unmanned probes had a 50% failure rate for those years. That rocket was Chelomei's other major program. #ThanksChelomei
Yeah, For All Mankind takes many, many liberties to get the Soviets to land first. It's in the same vein as imagining how the Nazi's could win World War II.
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