>>14350638>>14350639All of these engineering issues are essentially answered with "Soviet industry wasn't very good".
A lot of major technical capabilities like forming very large single piece domes and forming very large diameter hoops of high quality steel, and doing so with very thin steel, was known and understood however manufacturing processes were lagging and would have taken too long to catch up, an N1 with more modern manufacturing would have certainly had superior capabilities but it would have flown far too late to beat the US to the moon.
As a result the N1 that was built was full of rather extreme compromises to make up for the inferiority of existing Soviet manufacturing capabilities.
Then of course there were the engines, built with no extra restarts in mind and thus zero ability to perform stress test or dress rehearsal firings.
Pretty much everything wrong with the N1 including the catastrophic failures that killed it can be blamed not on a lack of intelligence or competence in Russian engineers and designers, but on the inability of the Soviet style of economics and industry to accomplish what was needed from it. This continues to be an issue for Russia today.
