The N-1 and the Failure of the Chief Designer

Was the failure of the N-1 the Soviet Union's equivalent of the Challenger Disaster?

There's a lot to draw together here, so pay attention...

In 1986, the space shuttle Challenger exploded soon after liftoff. It was later determined to be due to hot gases leaking from the solid-fuel boosters due to the failure of an O-ring. This failure was due to an unexpected sensitivity to cold that prevented a proper seal. Then-current administrative culture at NASA also made it difficult to recommend aborting the mission, even though there was evidence of the danger.

...Which made it similar to another disaster 64 years earlier, when the crew of the mighty Titanic ignored warnings and continued at high speed into an area where icebergs had already been seen. Walter Lord, writer of the seminal Titanic history A Night to Remember, specifically pointed out the similarities in the two disasters. Both were considered wake-up calls about the limits of technology and the risks of hubris.

Titanic and Challenger happened near the start of their respective Third Turnings, and might even be considered THE starting point of each. If it is common for this lesson of hubris to be learned at this time, we should expect to see it happening in other Third Turnings for other cultures - and the N-1 might be an example of that.

There are some definite problems with this interpretation.  The N-1 failed in 1969, which would have to be more near the end of the USSRs Third Turning. In addition, the news was not widespread until the fall of the Soviet Union over twenty years later - which would prevent it from having a cultural impact.

Except that such a large effort had to have had a large number of workers who all would have known or guessed what happened. And even if the fate of the N-1 was unknown, that the Soviet Union had fallen behind in the space race, despite having a massive lead at the start, must have had some impact on the people of the USSR.