This was Zvezda, the ambitious Soviet project to colonize the Moon (and win the game against the US)

More than 50 years have passed since the American astronaut eugene cernan left his footprints on the Moon as part of the Apollo 17 mission. Since then we have not set foot again our natural satellite, but the interest in reviving and even surpassing those space feats is more alive than ever.

NASA’s Artemis program and your international partners, despite its repeated delays and cost overruns, continues its course with a firm step. The United States, however, is not alone in spearheading current lunar exploration efforts. Countries like India, Japan, United Arab Emirates and Russia they are also in the race.

beyond earth orbit

For those who are passionate about space, any type of mission that involves exploring celestial bodies may be of great interest. And everything seems to indicate that in the coming years we will see achievements as important as reaching a long-term presence on the Moon. What we often forget is that this is not a new idea.

At the dawn of the space race, both the Americans and the Soviets launched a variety of initiatives that revolved around colonizing our rocky neighbor. As usual in a scenario of daring competition between countries, the details of some of these remained secret for a long time.

The drastic opening of the largest state in the world promoted by Mikhail Gorbachev, known as glasnost, played a very important role in declassifying old projects related to the conquest of space. Among them was the permanent moon base Zvezda, whose name in Russian “zvezda” means star.

It’s no secret that the 1957 Sputnik launch was a “waterline missile” against the United States. The Soviets scored a major achievement and started the well-known space race. In 1961, as if that were not enough, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to reach space and return safely to Earth.

That same year, Washington made a move and as many of you know, John F. Kennedy addressed Congress and set the goal of the arrival of the human being to the Moon as the main space priority of his country (and an important advance “for humanity”). The space race was taking on enormous dimensions.

The Soviet Union certainly did not want to be left behind. After all they had been pioneers in this most hostile field. One of the keys to achieving this was the program N1-L3. In a similar way to how things were raised in the Apollo program, it established the sending of cosmonauts to carry out scientific tasks on the Moon

The program went even further. One of its most important components was to get long-term Soviet presence on the natural satellite. Sergei Korolev, the head of the USSR space program, delegated to the barmin design officeheaded by engineer and designer Vladimir Barmin, the Zvezda project.

After the feasibility study, the engineering team established a series of objectives for the development of the Soviet lunar base. These included the start of initial operations, the construction of a second stage, the start of sustained operations, the construction of the third stage, and finally permanent operations.

dropdown modules

Zvezda would be composed of nine deployable and mobile modules (they would have wheels). First, they would reach the surface of the Moon in a compact size of about 4.5 meters in length (to save space) and then unfold to 8.6 meters, providing a living space of about 22 square meters.

The idea was that each of the modules was dedicated to specific issues. On the one hand, there would be the rooms, a place where the cosmonauts would rest and have their personal space. On the other hand, the command module, the laboratory, the kitchen, and also a gym that would serve as a medical space for the crew.

Zvezda moonbase concept

You may wonder how all these elements would get to the Moon. Barmin had it in his eye. The Soviets were working on a powerful launch system called N-1, which was considered ideal for transporting the modules. Also considered, however, were the UR-500 and RLA-130A launch systems.

Zvezda also had other very interesting aspects. It was contemplated that some of the modules would be located under the lunar regolith, an effective way of dealing with some of the threats of the satellite, such as micrometeorites and radiation. For this, a drilling system would also be sent to complete the construction tasks.

Zvezda Articulated Vehicle

Since the settlement would not be located in the same landing zone, the cosmonauts and all the equipment would have to travel an unspecified distance between one place and another. For this, and to favor lunar exploration tasks, a articulated vehiclelike a kind of train that would move with wheels instead of rails.

One of the most interesting parts of this project is how it was planned to solve the energy and food needs of the human colony. A solar plant and a nuclear plant would be set up. In the case of the latter, it was contemplated to extract helium-3 in situ to make it work. And there would also be a greenhouse to grow food.

Concept of expandable modules

And the project was serious. Just as NASA is now working on simulation habitats for a human mission to Mars, the Soviets carried out several simulation experiments. At the Department of Biophysics at the Kirensky Physics Institute in Krasnoyarsk, an isolated ecosystem called BIOS-3 was built for this purpose.

There several simulations were carried out with a crew of between two and three people for periods of up to six months. BIOS-3 had three individual spaces in addition to the bedrooms: a kitchen, a control room, and a hygiene area. There was also an area for growing food.

Zvezda, as we can see, was a really ambitious project with which the USSR wanted to once again win the game against the United States. However, the project suffered several setbacks. The continuity of the N-1 rocket was affected after its first four launches between 1969 and 1972 failed.

In addition, the completion of the Apollo 11 mission was a blow that is believed to have put a damper on Soviet efforts to continue devoting resources to the space race. The feasibility studies of that time would have been in favor of the Soviet project to colonize the Moon. Would this really have been possible? It is a question that remains to be answered.

Images: cyclowiki | malcolm reynolds | Barmin Design Bureau of General Engineering

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