Soviet lunar plans

The Soviet Union had an even more ambitious plan for a manned landing on the Moon. An N1 mega-booster would launch two cosmonauts to the Moon aboard a combined Soyuz orbiter-lander vehicle. After entering orbit, one cosmonaut would spacewalk from the orbiter to the attached lunar lander inside the upper stage and enter the lander. He would then separate the lander and descend to the surface, spending a few minutes on the ground planting a flag and collecting some rocks before heading back for a rendezvous with the mother ship, where he would spacewalk

back to the cabin. The orbiter would then fly home for a Soyuz-type landing. The N1 programme was a disaster, with catastrophic launch failures, and the Moon landing plan was simply over-ambitious. A series of unmanned Zond missions tested various elements of the circumlunar manned programme with varying success between 1968 and 1970, but the whole thing was left without a purpose after the Americans reached the Moon in 1969.