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The Soviets pushed on with developments despite glaring issues, including several failures in missions designed to showcase docked spacecraft and ambitious lunar goals based on Korolev’s unfulfilled dreams.
The Final Decline
As the Soviet Union clung to a grasp on glory, the groundbreaking N1 rocket—designed to take the Soviets to the Moon—proved tragically flawed and plagued by catastrophic failures. In 1969, as Apollo 11 marked America’s monumental landing on the Moon, the Soviet space ambitions crumbled.