Epic Rivalry
Near and yet so far: A full moon rises over Cape Kennedy during Apollo 11 launch preparations, July 1969.
EPIC RIVALRY
THE INSIDE STORY OF THE SOVIET AND AMERICAN
SPACE RACE
Von Hardesty and Gene Eisman
WASHINGTON, D.C.
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
by Sergei Khrushchev
INTRODUCTION
The Epic Rivalry
Prologue
ARROW TO THE FUTURE
Chapter One
THE GREAT TROPHY HUNT
Chapter Two
SPACE AND THE COLD WAR
Chapter Three
SPUTNIK NIGHTS
Chapter Four
THE HUMAN DIMENSION
Chapter Five
PORTALS TO THE COSMOS
Chapter Six
THE SPACE RACE QUICKENS
Chapter Seven
A DISTANT PRIZE
Epilogue
OLD VISIONS, NEW REALITIES
NOTES
ILLUSTRATION CREDITS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Sergei Khrushchev (left) with his father, Nikita, seven years after the father’s 1964 removal from power.
HOW ROCKETS LEARNED TO FLY
Foreword by Dr. Sergei Khrushchev
I had just turned 22 when, on October 4, 1957, the first man-made satellite was launched from the Baikonur launch site, which at that time still had the same name as the closest train station—Tyuratam. I cannot say that I was surprised, since for the previous 10 years I had been an avid reader of science fiction that portrayed man’s adventures in outer space. The stories were published en masse in the Soviet Union. For college students and schoolchildren of that time, the idea of a flight beyond Earth’s atmosphere would be an extraordinary achievement but not a feat beyond the realm of possibility. We were more perplexed that the satellite had not been launched sooner.
Humankind had been preparing for a spaceflight for several decades. In Russia, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had spelled out the basic formulas for a spaceflight; in the United States, Robert Goddard had launched his model rockets; and in Germany, Hermann Oberth had tested rocket prototypes. Any one of these countries could have been the first, but the Soviet Union was destined to pave the way.
Why? There were some very pragmatic reasons for the Soviet triumph. After World War II, only two competing powers were left: the United States and the Soviet Union. In the postwar era, nobody would have been surprised if these two countries had gone to war. Both sides were certainly preparing for it. In the 1950s, the United States enjoyed indisputable superiority, having ringed the Soviet Union with air bases. American strategic bombers were capable of turning any Soviet city into another Hiroshima or Dresden. The leadership of the Soviet Union feared a nuclear catastrophe and did everything possible to avoid it.
But how to avert such a catastrophe? Soviet bombers were incapable of striking any target in the United States—even theoretically. The Kremlin had no option but to call for peace—and, feverishly, to seek a military option to oppose America’s offensive and destructive air power. The situation became particularly nerve-racking in July 1956 after U-2 spy planes started flying regularly over Soviet territory, even missions over Moscow and Leningrad. No one had any doubts: The U-2s were identifying targets just as the Germans had done in the spring of 1941 before they attacked the Soviet Union.
Soviet scientists proposed that intercontinental ballistic missiles could ensure parity with America. But no one could figure out how they would fly the distance of 5,000 miles to reach targets on the other side of the world. Nevertheless, Soviet leaders, including Nikita Khrushchev, regarded rockets as a way to provide a measure of national security.
Renowned aircraft designer Semyon Lavochkin started developing an intercontinental missile—a flying bomb, as it was called back then—a design with a ramjet developed by Mikhail M. Bondaryuk. Meanwhile, Sergei Korolev, then a relatively unknown figure, promised to solve the problem by means of a ballistic missile. Born in 1907, Korolev had devoted his life to aeronautics. As a youth, he had built gliders, then boost-glide aircraft, and in the mid-1930s he actually succeeded in building rockets. Korolev also ended up in the gulag—where by all accounts he narrowly escaped death. His imprisonment could be traced to his rocket research and the fact that Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, a big proponent of rocket building, had fallen out of favor with Stalin. But Korolev did not perish in the camps; he was miraculously saved. At the time of the war, Korolev was in prison, freezing in temperatures of 40°F below zero. He was returned to the “mainland” and was assigned to build rocket boosters for military bombers. In this prison workshop, Korolev drew his blueprints, while two hefty guards watched over him and his work.
The Soviet views started to change in 1945, when it came to light that the Germans were far ahead of the Allies in rocket technology. Stalin ordered the release of all rocket specialists whom he had not yet executed, assigned them military ranks of colonel or captain, and sent them off to Germany to seek out remnants of the advanced German rocketry. Given the rank of lieutenant colonel, Korolev was assigned to conduct research on the German V-2—far from a lofty assignment.
Sergei Korolev, a born leader, did not stay long in a third-rate position; a few years later, he had already become Chief Rocket Designer. In the grand scheme of the military, this was not a great position, but within the Arms Ministry it was quite significant. Korolev designed his R-1, R-2, and R-3 rockets based on the V-2. He also eclipsed his opponents. Under the pretext of maintaining secrecy, Korolev barred his most dangerous rivals—the “captive” German rocket specialists under the leadership of Helmut Gröttrup—from all practical work and sent them to the “comfortable” island of Gorodomlya in Lake Seliger, halfway between Moscow and Leningrad. From there the well-disciplined Germans kept sending quite promising proposals to Moscow. They far surpassed the work done by Korolev himself, but the reports ended up on Korolev’s desk for review, after which they ended up in the archives. Most of the imprisoned Germans, including the rocket scientists, had been sent back home to Germany by the mid-1950s. This agreement coincided with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer’s visit to Moscow in September 1955. Korolev finally sighed with relief.
It was a little more complicated to get rid of another Soviet “German”—Mikhail Yangel—a talented engineer who was Korolev’s immediate boss during the first stage of his work. However, Korolev managed to send him to Dnepropetrovsk to “ensure” the manufacture of his rockets at the production line facility. Thus, Korolev was left alone, and his finest hour arrived.
The development of an intercontinental R-7 missile got under way in 1954. Following the first hydrogen bomb test in the Soviet Union in August 1953, military customers insisted on equipping their “principal weapon” with a three-megaton thermonuclear charge. Andrei Sakharov conducted an analysis, and he reported that the charge would weigh about five tons. Overall, it was projected that the warhead would weigh 6.5 tons, including the charge itself, heat-resistant coating, plus everything else. As it turned out, Sakharov had made a mistake, and the thermonuclear charge turned out to be lighter. However, his mistake would predetermine the success of Soviet astronautics for many years to come.
Korolev had shed himself of his rivals, but he was in need of talented specialists—something he understood very well. Then he and everyone around him got incredibly lucky when Mikhail Tikhonravov appeared on the horizon. Seven years older than Korolev, Tikhonravov had taught him how to build rockets in the 1930s. Unlike Korolev, Tikhonravov had not been arrested for some reason. He was drafted into the army, where he served all these years quietly and inconspicuously, collected butterflies, and dreamed about a rocket flying into space.
Both Korolev and Tikhonravov worked in the Moscow suburbs, Korolev in Podlipki and Tikhonravov in Bolshevo. They met by chance, had a drink, shared stories of the old times, and talked about the future. Tikhonravov talked about the rocket “packet,” and Korolev understood immediately. It was exactly what he needed, and he invited Tikhonravov to work in his design bureau. An armchair scientist, Tikhonravov did not have the slightest chance of implementing his ideas without Korolev. By the same token, the brilliant project manager Korolev needed a visionary like Tikhonravov. Together they constituted the “critical mass” that shook the whole world.
During the initial stages of the rocket’s development no one mentioned a satellite. Not until mid-1955, at the time when the R-7 rocket was being developed, did Tikhonravov gingerly bring up the subject. For him, the rocket had little appeal without a satellite. Korolev had a satellite in mind, too, but he thought that the rocket was more important since it was the top priority for the government. In 1955, a man-made satellite in orbit around Earth was viewed as a toy, a “scientific amusement” with no practical application. Korolev knew that persuading the leaders of the Soviet state to spend funds on “nothing” would be difficult. But they might be interested in setting a new world record—and at practically no extra cost. Accordingly, a plan took shape in Korolev’s mind.
In January 1956, Korolev, then a rank-and-file chief designer, did not have direct access to Khrushchev. Nevertheless, he used all his organizational skills to push through a government resolution that provided for “the launch of a man-made satellite using the R-7 intercontinental missile in the interests of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences.” But this resolution did not mean that the project would necessarily get the green light. The Soviet bureaucracy moved according to its own understanding of what was really important and what was not. A critical breakthrough came on February 27, 1956, when my father, Nikita Khrushchev, made a visit to Podlipki with several other Soviet leaders. He wished to meet Korolev in person, to look into his eyes, and to convince himself of the reality of the ballistic rocket to which he would entrust the future of the country’s safety. My father took me with him. I was a student at the Moscow Electric Power Institute, and he believed that it would be useful for me, a future engineer specializing in automated control systems, to be well informed about recent technological achievements. That day I shook hands with Korolev, a person who would soon be known as a great man. I had no idea then that barely two years later I would become a rocket engineer and fate would bring me together with yet another great man, Vladimir Chelomei, and that I would in some way participate in the competition between these two icons. In my book Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower, I wrote about the relationship between these two great men and their interaction with Khrushchev, Soviet officialdom, and the military.
On that pivotal day of February 27, after a conversation about important military matters, Korolev led my father to a special screened-off area in a large hangar. In the discussion that followed, he showed Khrushchev a modest poster with the design for placing a satellite in Earth orbit. Korolev asked for support, arguing that the satellite would not take one minute away from the “main project,” which was the development of an intercontinental missile. My father, an intellectually curious person by nature, promised his support; he also wanted to know what was out there beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. He reiterated that the country’s safety was priority number one. Everyone present in the hangar that day witnessed Korolev telling Khrushchev about the satellite and Khrushchev agreeably nodding his head. The words that were exchanged were not that important; what was really important was that Korolev secured the personal support of the number one person in the country, which in Russia means much more than any government resolution.
Now the future depended on Korolev himself. He needed to overcome serious obstacles to surpass the Americans. He started with the “academics.” They were working slowly, stuffing the satellite with as many devices and sensors as possible—tests that were important for science, but not for Korolev. At their rate the project could go on for months and months. Korolev ordered the removal of all the scientific add-ons, making the satellite as simple as possible. The result is known to the entire world as the hollow, polished ball with four whiskers of antennas—an ingenious solution by a brilliant manager. Given the secrecy of the time, he worked as best he could. He also launched a publicity campaign. Newspapers and magazines carried articles here and there about an upcoming launch of a satellite, but gave no specific information on the date. The magazine Radio even published the satellite’s transmitter frequencies. The world paid little attention to those publications.
All these preparations, though, were worthless without a rocket. It was necessary to teach the rocket how to fly, and the rocket was in no hurry to learn. Starting in May 1957, one failure followed another. Then the Americans successfully tested their Jupiter-C rocket in August 1957. Korolev was crestfallen. He had no doubts that a satellite would follow the first successful launch—at least that was his intention. But the Americans were moving slowly. Korolev suspected that they were plotting something. But what was it?
Finally on August 24, the “Semyorka,” as the R-7 intercontinental missile was nicknamed, was launched and reached distant Kamchatka. Another successful launch followed in September. Now it was the satellite’s turn. Korolev was in a great hurry. The International Geophysical Year (IGY) coordinating committee scheduled its meeting for early October, and the agenda included a presentation by American scientists on their projected Vanguard satellite. Korolev put himself in their place, and he had no doubts that the Americans would prefer using the Jupiter-C, a rocket already successfully tested, to launch a satellite into orbit. Korolev then ordered his staff to work day and night in order to launch his satellite ahead of the Americans, perhaps one day before the IGY meeting.
By pure chance, on October 4, 1957, I happened to be with my father at the Mariinsky Palace in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Korolev called to report a successful launch. My father and I turned on the radio to listen to Sputnik beeping as it flew over Europe. Neither Khrushchev nor Korolev—and I even less—realized the immensity of what was happening during those hours. The next day Pravda and other Soviet newspapers published a two-column standard report on their front page from the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS): “About the Launch of Earth’s Artificial Satellite in the
Soviet Union, in accordance with the International Geophysical Year Program.” Reports of similar achievements, such as the first nuclear power plant in operation, the first jet aircraft flight, or a new high-altitude record set by the new MiG jet fighter were standard fare. The article about the first satellite was no different.
Moscow suddenly realized a day later that the satellite had caused quite a furor all over the world, especially in the United States, and the Russian word “sputnik” for “satellite” soon entered the languages of all nations. Ironically, it was the American press, not the Soviet press, which gave the Sputnik launch such immense coverage, allowing it to become one of the most powerful weapons of propaganda the Soviet Union had.
After Sputnik, Korolev could call Khrushchev any time, knowing that as the Soviet leader he would answer the phone, listen to him, and give the necessary orders no minister would dare ignore. Thus, Korolev gained the power necessary to implement his other ideas. However, Korolev’s name was not widely known at the time. He became world famous as the “Chief Designer” spelled with capital letters, and he humbly signed his articles in Pravda merely as “Engineer Sergeyev.” With such anonymity, Soviet counter-intelligence would force the CIA to spend its resources to uncover “non-secret” secrets, to prevent them from uncovering the real secrets for as long as possible.
Meanwhile, Korolev was in a hurry to solidify his success. After returning to Moscow, my father called Korolev to congratulate him. During that call, Korolev suggested that a new more complex satellite be launched as early as a month later, by November 7, the anniversary of the October Revolution. Naturally, my father did not object. That left him very little time. Korolev, an excellent psychologist, explained to his people that they were working on a project assigned at the highest levels and that he would report to Khrushchev every evening on the daily progress. His ruse worked. Soviet technicians worked day and night to meet the goal. The second satellite was launched on schedule as planned by Korolev.