THEY'RE ALIVE! I KNEW IT! well, we still aren't sure, we've only seen the outside of the ship and data being sent to Earth, that could be somewhat automated. BUT YOU KNOW AT LEAST ONE PERSON SURVIVED. Then it wouldn't be a piece of cinema. I can't wait to see what happened to them and how the f* did they survived the fire incident.
Rant over
Okay, so this is a strong copium from my side after watching Venera 7 go up in flames. I refuse to believe that the mission is over. All that buildup to one episode where everything goes bad, not even that far from Earth.
I believe/hope the crew survives the fire (as of how, I'm sure they have thick plot armor) and continues the mission towards Venus even without communications. I just want them to fly by Venus, that's all I need. Maybe they'll get the comms to work and send back some data.
That's where the phantom cosmonauts theory comes in. Maybe Venera 7 will be a sort of precedent for secret future soviet mission, that we might see in Star city season 2. This is a wild idea, but I love that the show isn't just soviet retelling of racing towards a moonbase. I hope we'll see some unannounced mission in season 2, even though it's not the main premise.
This is my collection of thoughts I had after watching episode 5.
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1)I'm so happy they launched. While unrealistic in many aspects, I'm glad they managed to get the mission to fly. Can't wait to see Venera in orbit! Would be shame to end this subplot before they got off the ground.
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2)Interesting crew makeup. Valya was quite an unexpected addition, though a welcomed one.
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Also Lakshmi is gonna become not just the first cosmonaut to not come from the USA or USSR, but she's also gonna become the first woman to enter deep space (if everything goes right).
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And with her fly two men with broken hearts, whom she barely knows, great conditions for 9 months in isolation.
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3)What does Chief engineer plans to do now? Use mission control for crew flight to contact his weather satellite, or communicate through some secret or at least less capable ground control?
I can't wait to see Venera mission flying. Whether it ends badly or something else happens, I want to see how it'll look like once finished. Sure, we got blueprints and prepared hardware, but I need to see it flying in space. I'm a big spaceflight nerd, and to fair I can't recall any space show/movie that depicts realistic mission to Venus. I just can't wait to see how it goes!
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Now, as much as I'm stoked about it, I can't stress enough how stupidly dangerous it is. I don't want to focus much on the whole "keep it secret" thing, as it's already unrealistic as it is to build *interplanetary crewed spacecraft* from what I presume are spare parts, and have one functional N1 rocket in stock ready to fly it, just laying around, collecting dust I guess.
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No, I want to focus on why it's a bad idea to do Venus flyby in year 1970 (to 1971). First of all, 9 months. In deep space. No way to get back if something fails. I don't think the FAM and SC timeline diverted enough to our own yet (except for the whole lunar landing, of course), therefore longest anyone spent in space was roughly 2 weeks by this point. That means no experience with effects of longer exposure to zero gravity on human bodies.
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In June 1970 (in our timeline), Soyuz 9 launched with a crew of 2 and spent roughly 18 days in space orbiting the Earth. When the cosmonauts returned, their bodies were weakened significantly. Their hearts reportedly shrunk up to 20%. They could walk unassisted only after a week. Since then, Salyut space stations had on board exercising devices to prevent this from happening ever again. 18 days. Now imagine what 9 month mission can do.
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There's actually way more to this absurd mission, like the (presumed) lack of experience growing algae in weightlessness, but in no way will that stop me from enjoying the show, and the Venera mission itself. The song "Venera" on spotify is super dramatic and I can't wait to hear it in the show.
I've been thinking about what the "future plans" of crewed spaceflight in Star City are gonna be like. So far, we know that there's a conflict between Chief designer and the officials about what the next goal should be. The interplanetary mission is being secretly worked on, favoured over the lunar base.
Now, there are some variables, but we know from FAMK S1 that Zvezda base will be established way later, in 1974, after Jamestown. We also know that in 1970, an unknown cosmonaut dies while reaching lunar surface.
Based on that I think that the series spaceflight will go something like this:
Chief designer and group of his loyal employees will work more on the interplanetary mission, still in secrecy, while claiming that they're working on the lunar base. There might be some hiccups along the way, whether it will be the KGB or Korolev's health issues. But nonetheless, they'll get pretty far with the limited resources they have at their disposal. Then, the tragedy happens.
In search for lunar ice, Luna mission is sent to the moon's south pole. However, due to the poor lighting conditions and rough terrain the lander (and the cosmonaut, maybe Sasha Polivanov) crash into the surface. The Soviets won't admit to this failure.
After the recent failure, the Chief designer (or his people) propose once again the interplanetary spacecraft, this time with more hardware and ideas. Pressed with masking the failure and making sure USSR is still leading, they approve of this plan. A lot of resources and time are spent to finish the ship, eventually sending it to the deep space (likely Venus, as it's easier and shorter to do a flyby around it than Mars). However, that also fails.
By now, USA is leading in moon activities, and so the Soviets have nothing else to do then to return to the idea of a moon base. They are beaten to that milestone when Jamestown base lands on the Moon in 1973.
TL:DR
Secret work on interplanetary mission continues.
Luna mission crashes.
Interplanetary spacecraft as a solution for hiding failure.
Also fails, it's too late to beat americans to the first lunar base.
The mission uses NASA Reusable nuclear shuttle mark II, larger and more powerful than RNS mark I, used in the 70's for establishing a Lunar Base.
Two RNS2 were used to send Phobos and Deimos base in advance, before arrival of the crewed mission. Pictures 3 to 7.
After sending payload to Mars, they returned to Earth and joined another RNS2 to make a Mars transfer ship.
The crewed mission was launched together with a Viking-style probe, landing in Utopia Planitia. Pics 8 to 10.
I used AEP continued and BR-Apollo mods, and part clipping.