Poised to be the most powerful rocket on Earth? SpaceX
Just five months before Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969, an unwieldy cluster of 30 engines roared into life beneath a monster rocket on a launch pad in Kazakhstan. Within seconds the uncrewed maiden launch of the Soviet Union’s N1 moon rocket was in deep trouble.
Its control system, and the complex plumbing that fuelled its motors, failed. Engine after engine shut down, causing severe vibrations, rupturing fuel lines and starting fires. The into the snow-covered steppe after just 3 minutes in…
