Russia's mighty N-1 moon rocket

Seeing as planetary exploration is popular subject, I thought I’d mention one of my favourite rockets, the awesome Russian N-1 moon rocket. It was bigger than the American Saturn V, the biggest operational rocket of all time. The N-1 had an even bigger orbital payload, in excess of 30 tons. Had it been used on a moon mission it would have broken all records. Only three were ever test flown. Funding for the soviet mission was pulled after the success of the Apollo mission. The Russians were wise enough to realise there’s little of scientific value in moon missions. Although all three N-1’s exploded in flight, not unlike the early Saturn rockets, it would have been an impressive sytem if funding had been continued.
The Russian moon landing envisaged a single cosmonaut. Not suprisingly, it was an unpopluar mission for those in training. The single cosmonaut would have had to deal with the whole mission himself for six days and nights. Most cosmonauts regarded the moon mission as a suicide mission and were pleased when it was scrubbed.

Seeing as the Russian space program (sorry US Agent) is the only functioning manned program around these days. Here’ s a pic of the might N-1…