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I have a memory of an overhead picture of short spacecraft surrounded by rockets that was involved in a disaster on the ground. It looks nothing like the Apollo One. I have searched US and Russian designs but I can not find the ship that is stuck in my head. Any ideas? Thank you, ~Kerry

Kerry Cook
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    Was the image black & white or color? If color, what color were the spacecraft & rockets? Were there any markings on either & if so were they colored? What did the spacecraft look like: a rocket, shuttle (with wings), "flying saucer", something else? Did any of the craft have "unusual" protuberances"? Was the location on paved area, human made, or a natural surface such as a field or a wildness setting? – Fred Jun 05 '22 at 05:27
  • Was it a photo or a drawing? If it was the latter, it might well have been cover art for a science fiction novel or magazine, and that would make the question off-topic for this site. – David Hammen Jun 05 '22 at 09:40
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    This is really hopelessly vague. Can you give any more details beyond "short spacecraft surrounded by rockets"? What does "surrounded by rockets" even mean? Laying on the ground? Sitting on launch pads? Attached to the spacecraft? Any description at all of the spacecraft itself beyond "short"? – Christopher James Huff Jun 05 '22 at 14:55
  • was the spacecraft and rockets vertical in the image or laying on its side on the ground? If laying on ground was it pointing to 12:00 or 3:00 or 6:00 or 9:00 or something else? Was it in the act of launching or being serviced by people? – BradV Jun 05 '22 at 22:02
  • It may have been the V2 rocket if it was small and it exploded. – The Rocket fan Jun 08 '22 at 15:01
  • If it was a fairly recent memory, Trump famously displayed a satellite photo of an Iranian rocket that has blown up on the pad. – antlersoft Jun 13 '22 at 15:20

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I suspect you are talking about the Soviet N1 rocket, which was a heavy launcher in their moon program.

enter image description here

The N1 was plagued by problems, and never had a successful launch, instead there were 4 failures. In the second launch the rocket barely cleared the tower before a serious set of failures shut down all the engines and it dropped back down on the pad, exploding and destroying the pad in the process.

As big as the N1 explosion was it was not as big as the Nedelin Catastrophe, which exploded on the pad and killed somewhere up to 300 people (the Soviet official count was 74, however they had a habit of downplaying these things so the number could very well be higher). However, the your description of the rocket doesn't match as the R-16 rocket in that explosion.

GdD
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