US/Soviet Rocket Evolution in Schemes

[K. A. Pital]

Exploring the evolution of US rocketry, I stumbled on a good and beautiful scheme [I also upgraded it ]

I decided to put together a similar, but probably a little more extensive scheme for the USSR.

Legend:
- yellow, "V-2 design",
- orange "design and construction improvement",
- dark yellow "using constructive and technical solutions",
- light green "kinship by developing team (same people on the team or same chief engineer)",
- blue "common construction elements" (passing into multiple rockets),
- purple "similar technical requirements and predecessor/similar designs study" - technically the weakest type of kinship, usually mere similarity.

Enjoy.

[K. A. Pital]

More goodies - payload progress. Payloads on the Y axis, in kg. I plotted Soviet rockets on some US graphs to show more directly where the competitors stand or stood before.

USA

Delta

Titan

Atlas


USSR

R-7. Red: LEO, orange: GTO or Molniya orbits

UR-500 (Proton). Grey: LEO, red: GTO, orange: GSO.

R-36 family. Top chart: LEO payloads in kg. Bottom chart: liftoff thrust, kN

Kosmos carriers (R-12 and R-14 based). Orange: LEO, red: SSO.

[joe blifstik]

I am interested in rocket evolution. Can you send me a list of your references you used in putting the figures together?
Thanks

[K. A. Pital]

Can you send me a list of your references you used in putting the figures together?

I used some key monographies (Gubanov's Energia chronicles and Chertok's monography "Rockets and People"), but other than that, I mostly used accessible data on rocket payload capabilities, either from the producer's booklet (if the rocket is new) or from a history book or internet page. This list may not be 100% accurate, but I did re-check the payloads against engine thrust to make sure the figures are consistent and real. Even if there are errors, they are minimal.

[joe blifstik]

Thank you for the information. However I was interested in the references for the US/Soviet Rocket Evolution in Schemes.
Thanks

[K. A. Pital]

Oh. Well, that would be lots and lots of books. I probably wouldn't even be able to name them all properly.