The Energiya was a Glushko design. Here is a good article about it. I like the
stuff this guy writes.
https://falsesteps.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/energiavulkan-the-last-big-rocket/
The Energiya went defunct pretty much with the fall of the soviet union, long
before the French and Russians started cooperating on launches (to my knowledge
anyway.) After WWII the French wanted their own nuclear weapons and ICBM's.
They did want to depend on foreign powers for nuclear strategic defense. This
attitude I'm sure effected who and when they decided to coperate with when it
came to rockets and space. This also lead to what I think of as the three major
"schools" of rocketry. The American, Russian, And French branches.
Also clustering rockets is great idea, and not just for the reasons you usually
hear about. They are much less likely to get canceled, and can fare much better
during lean years for launchers. The number of missions that really need 100t
launches is currently (and for the near future) very small and dependent on
politics. When there is less demand for 100t launches you'll have an easier
(and much cheaper) time maintaining the manufacturing and workers for a smaller
rocket for smaller payloads that you can cluster when and if you need larger
payloads. I predict the Angara will last and the SLS will be canceled in less
time than it took them to cancel the Saturn V.
-Richard
________________________________________
From: arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <arocket-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of
John Dom <johndom@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, December 27, 2015 9:24 AM
To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AR] Re: clustering big rockets
Chris Jones wrote on 271215:
The Energiya boosters (4 of them) were essentially Zenit first stages withLOX/kerosene propellants. Its main stage used LOX/LH2.