Russian R7/Luna
What's a space race without a little cold war competition?
Dr. Zooch and his human
scale alter-ego Wes Oleszewski
offer this model of the Russian R7/Luna. The R7 is a booster with four strap-on
boosters surrounding the core booster. Each booster contains four liquid
oxygen and kerosene powered engines for a total of 20 engines. Please don't
make us use the word booster again in this paragraph. The R7's primary designer
was Sergey Korolev. The R7 program began in the mid 50s and was intended
to deliver drop shipments of big-ass atomic bombs to the United States.
Upon delivery these bombs would go boom. Fortunately for all of us the cold
war stayed as cool as a vodka and cranberry cocktail. Beginning in 1957
The R7 has been used to launch satellites and manned spacecraft. This particular
model represents the R7 booster topped with a capsule which released the
Luna 1 probe. Launched on January 2, 1959 Luna 1 flew past the moon.The
imposing dull finish and 1.08 million pounds of thrust emanating from those
20 nozzles scared Americans more than the word "borscht". We started
running and didn't look back until our booster power exceeded that of the
R7 in 1961 with the launch of the Saturn I which boasted a thrust of 1.5
million pounds. The reliable R7 continues to launch cosmonauts and payloads
to this day.
As a building experience, Dr. Zooch models
are not rated on a "skill level" scale. You need to have some
experience, sharp tools, patience and the shoe slamming fortitude of Krueschev
to put them together. Best of all, you don't need to say "Da svidaniya"
to a lot of rubles to get your hands on one of these.
THE Dr. ZOOCH R7/LUNA TAKES IT'S FIRST FLIGHTS (B6-4s)
SEPTEMBER 6, 2005