Epic Rivalry Read online

  Since the NERVA program, British-born American physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson seriously proposed the idea of a rocket propelled by detonating atomic bombs for thrust, under the name Project Orion. Today such ideas, like all nuclear rocket engines, exist only in science fiction.

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  Sputnik 2, the second artificial satellite, flies over the United States, November 3, 1957.

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  SPUTNIK NIGHTS

  In late September 1957, Sergei Korolev abandoned OKB-1, his experimental design bureau located in the suburbs of Moscow, for a new top-secret rocketry complex in Kazakhstan. The move was abrupt and unannounced, shrouded in mystery as all of Korolev’s activities were. As a leading designer of long-range ballistic missiles, he remained largely unknown in his own country, notwithstanding the fact that he would soon be at the cutting edge of Soviet-designed robotic and manned spacecraft. The previous month, he had overseen the successful launch of the R-7 (SS-6) rocket, the Semyorka, a missile with the potential to hit distant targets with nuclear weapons. Korolev’s shadowy move to Kazakhstan signaled that the R-7 was now part of a clandestine scheme to launch the world’s first artificial satellite. The planned launch, keyed to fall in the International Geophysical Year, was a risky undertaking, given all the technical uncertainties. But the bold endeavor promised dramatic propaganda possibilities—an occasion to showcase the latest strides in Soviet technology and to beat the Americans to the punch in what would become one of the most memorable technological milestones in human history.1

  Taking leave of Moscow, Korolev flew with his new satellite, christened Sputnik (“fellow traveler”), to a distant test range in Central Asia called Baikonur. Tight secrecy surrounded the entire project. He aimed to mount the satellite in the nose cone of a powerful R-7 for an early October launch.

  Reaching the threshold of the historic launch had come only after a long process of preparation. The previous month had been devoted to the frenetic drive to complete the construction of the satellite. Hard-driving and alert to the smallest details, Korolev had pushed his staff relentlessly to fashion the spherical-shaped satellite into what he later described as “a simple and expressive form, close to the shape of natural celestial bodies.”2 The resulting metallic sphere was highly polished, at Korolev’s insistence, to ensure that the satellite properly reflected the sun’s rays—both to reduce heat and to increase the probability of being seen while in flight above Earth’s atmosphere.

  Mikhail Khomyakov had served as the primary designer for the satellite, and Korolev’s talented workers at OKB-1 had stamped the sphere in two halves, which were then vacuum-sealed. The small satellite contained a radio transmitter, batteries, and temperature-measuring instruments, weighing 184 pounds—for the time, a massive object to lift into space. On the eve of the flight, Korolev had his creation placed on a special pedestal and draped in velvet, giving the object the sort of reverence typically accorded to a Fabergé egg. That was his way of expressing to his workers the unique importance of Sputnik. This small, shiny object was the harbinger for a new stage in the history of rocketry. Upon first seeing Sputnik, famed Russian test pilot Mark Gallai expressed a certain deference and amazement, calling the satellite an “elegant ball…with an antenna thrown back like a galloping horse.”3

  Once Sputnik reached remote Baikonur, the process of rocket assembly began in earnest. The satellite was placed carefully in the nose cone of the R-7, a task completed in a special “space room.” Here a severe regime of cleanliness prevailed, with technicians in white smocks attending to the many details of the launch preparation. Mikhail Rebrov remembered the thoroughness of Korolev, who was known to those in the emerging Soviet space program simply as the “Chief Designer.” Whenever Korolev appeared in the hangar, everyone fell silent, being keenly alert to his demanding standards, unforgiving posture toward failure, and the high purpose associated with the top-secret Sputnik project.4

  The design of Sputnik had no historical parallel; it was an original piece of technology, built with studied simplicity and governed by one requirement—the satellite could not weigh more than 220 pounds. The spherical shape met Korolev’s demand for an object that could fit easily into the interior of the R-7 nose cone. The rocket design required the easy release of the satellite once the fairing on the nose cone separated. Instrumentation reflected Korolev’s austere approach: He decided to have two radio transmitters, powered by silver-zinc batteries, one with a frequency of 20,005 megahertz, the other at 40,002 megahertz. The choice of these frequencies meant that radio signals from Sputnik could be detected at extreme distances, in particular by amateur radio operators tuning in the shortwave and ultra-shortwave ranges. The radio signals from Sputnik would be emitted in the form of telegraphic pulses lasting approximately 0.3 seconds. When one radio transmitter was operating, the other was in the pause mode. By plan, the radio signals sent from Sputnik, the staccato sound of “beep, beep, beep,” would entertain a global audience of trackers, amateur and scientific observers alike, for a period of approximately two weeks.5 The Sputnik satellite was small, measuring a mere 22 inches in diameter, but Korolev remained confident that its highly reflective polished surface would make it clearly visible to the naked eye. The Soviets wanted the world’s first artificial satellite to be tracked—by sight or sound—because this observation by a worldwide audience would confirm a new benchmark in technology.

  Sputnik rode atop the R-7, the most powerful operational rocket in the Soviet inventory. The imposing missile consisted of a core rocket surrounded by four tapered boosters. At liftoff the core and boosters ignited simultaneously. Each of the strap-on booster rockets was fitted with one engine, producing approximately 110 tons of thrust at sea level. About two minutes after liftoff, the four strap-on boosters separated from the core. The rocket would continue to fire, lifting the R-7 to altitude and inserting the satellite into orbit. The development of the R-7 reflected the impressive Soviet capacity to lift huge payloads into orbit (and correspondingly the potential to send missiles armed with nuclear warheads to strike distant targets). Used in 1957-1958, the R-7 would place into orbit several artificial satellites. Its successor, the Vostok (“east”) launch vehicle, first introduced in September 1958, was an adaptation of the R-7 design, capable of lifting payloads of five tons into orbit. This rocket was the one used to place the first Soviet cosmonaut into space in 1961.6

  The dramatic launch of Sputnik into orbit took place on Friday, October 4—at exactly 22:28 hours, 34 seconds (Moscow time). The fateful day had been filled with minor delays. Yet all of these frustrations and the many weeks of arduous work faded from consciousness as the R-7 lifted from the ground with a thunderous roar. In the command blockhouse, Korolev observed the historic launch through periscopes with a number of key associates: Vasiliy M. Ryabikov, Valentin P. Glushko, Mstislav V. Keldysh, and Nikolay A. Pilyugin. The man who had been delegated the responsibility of launching the rocket was Boris S. Chekunov. At the instant Chekunov pushed the switch, the five engines on the R-7 ignited into a bright fiery conflagration, and the ground shook under the impact of 1,120,000 pounds of thrust.7 The rocket rose majestically into the sky, accelerating to 17,400 miles per hour. After reaching an altitude of 142 miles, the core engine shut down. The satellite with its four spring-loaded antennae then entered into a free orbit around the Earth. The orbit inclined at an angle of 65 degrees to the plane of the Equator, following an elliptical path ranging from 141.7 miles to 588 miles from Earth. No sooner had Sputnik begun its orbital passage than, on cue, radio signals beamed downward; the Kamchatka station in the Russian Far East became the first to confirm the reception of the distinctive “beep, beep, beep” signals from the orbiting Sputnik. Nikita Khrushchev, attending a conference in the Soviet Ukraine, received the news of the successful launch at approximately 23:00 hours. Khrushchev shared Korolev’s enthusiasm, announcing that a new era of missiles had arrived, one that “demonstrated the advantages of socia
lism in actual practice.”8

  First word of Sputnik reached Washington in a dramatic way, descending, as it were, on the IGY conference at the National Academy of Sciences building like a bolt of lightning. Walter Sullivan, the science reporter for the New York Times, had come to the nation’s capital to attend the IGY meetings. Part of the buzz surrounding the Washington conclave was the imminent launch by either the Soviet Union or the United States. Inside the ornate domed interior of the National Academy of Sciences building on Constitution Avenue, a full-scale model of the Vanguard satellite had been placed on exhibit. The Vanguard mock-up, with the satellite buzzing around the Earth, had caught the attention of Sullivan and the attendees, including the Soviet representatives. The latter shared no details on the announced plans of the Soviet Union to launch its own satellite. On the night of October 4, Sullivan attended a special party at the Soviet Embassy on 15th Street, joining a number of prominent American scientists, including James Van Allen from the University of Iowa; William Pickering, the director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena; Herb Friedman, a research scientist with the Navy rocket program; and other luminaries. Also attending the party was Anatoliy Blagonravov, the leader of the Soviet delegation to the IGY conference. Blagonravov—though a high-ranking official and privy to many secrets concerning the Soviet rocket program—was unaware of the firing of a rocket from Baikonur earlier in the day.

  Shortly after Sullivan arrived at the embassy, the Soviet attaché pulled him aside for a phone call. In the breathless conversation that followed, the New York Times news desk informed Sullivan that they had just received a wire report from Reuters, announcing that the Russians had placed a satellite in orbit; the satellite, named Sputnik, at that very moment was circling the Earth and beeping radio signals to tracking stations below. When the excited Sullivan returned to the party, he was keenly aware that he alone possessed this stupendous news. Without hesitation, he hurriedly informed the senior American scientist in attendance, Lloyd Berkner, of the remarkable Russian space feat. Berkner, in turn, lost no time in sharing the news. He clapped his hands to get the attention of the assembled partygoers and then announced the news, offering a toast to the Soviets for their success in launching the world’s first artificial satellite. The stunned onlookers joined Berkner in the toast. The Soviet delegates, as Sullivan later reported, were ecstatic, smiling “like they had swallowed a thousand canaries.”9

  LOOK TO THE SKIES!

  The spectacle of Sputnik in orbit above the atmosphere—with the relentless “beep, beep, beep” of its radio transmissions—quickly caught the attention of a global audience, one that included scientists, amateur ham radio operators, military intelligence operatives, and countless spectators drawn to rooftops with their binoculars. The event was a human milestone with no historical precedent and, for the Russians, a technical triumph of immeasurable value. On October 7, Le Figaro caught the mood of the moment, proclaiming in a banner headline “Myth has become reality: Earth’s gravity conquered.” With thinly disguised delight, the French newspaper observed that the United States—a nation rarely humiliated in the “technical domain”—now found itself caught up in a spiral of “delusion and bitter reflection.”10

  On that same day, Britain’s Manchester Guardian expressed the view that the Soviet Union now possessed enormous technical prowess, a newly acquired potential to send rockets to the planet Mars. On a more apocalyptic note, the Guardian noted the threatening military specter of Sputnik, opining that the “Russians can now build ballistic missiles capable of hitting any chosen target anywhere in the world.”11 Having launched an artificial satellite during the IGY, the Guardian noted, affirmed certain peaceful intentions on the part of the Soviet Union, but the West would be foolhardy to ignore the strategic implications of Sputnik in the context of the Cold War.

  A week later, Time magazine made an effort to define the epochal meaning of Sputnik for Americans. The magazine interpreted the whole episode as another chapter in the long history of human exploration, the quest for new frontiers: “The launching of the Russian satellite is man’s first successful attempt to navigate the ocean of space around the Earth.” Coming as a stunning surprise, the Soviet technical feat, in the words of Time, represented a “Red Triumph.” America’s rival satellite, Vanguard—at the time of publication still mired on the ground—could not match Russia’s orbiting satellite in the critical categories of “weight, orbit, and altitude.” Sputnik weighed an astounding 184 pounds. By contrast, the Americans hoped to put into orbit a test version of its Vanguard satellite, weighing less than four pounds.

  The Russians had impressed the editors of Time with their boldness, catapulting Sputnik into an elliptical orbit that would pass over nearly all of the inhabited Earth (the American Vanguard projected an orbit passing south of Europe and clear of most of the Soviet Union). In addition, Sputnik’s apogee in orbit was 559 miles, by the magazine’s calculation well outside the outer fringes of the atmosphere. For Time, the reason for the American defeat “in the race for space” had become apparent in the first week of October: The United States had not made use of its larger military rockets, depending instead on the Navy’s Viking—an underpowered rocket, in the words of the magazine “barely capable” of launching the small Vanguard satellite into orbit. This critique of Vanguard, in a matter of weeks, proved to be prescient. Taking the longer perspective, Time concluded that Russia’s scientific community had matured, and the dependence on German specialists had long passed—“The Russians are now on their own.”12

  Sputnik would orbit the Earth until late January 1958, when it fell from orbit and made a fiery descent into the Earth’s atmosphere. At the start, Sputnik took 96 minutes and 12 seconds to complete an orbit of Earth. But with the passing of time, atmospheric resistance began to shorten the time frame for its path around the Earth, with the orbital dimensions being reduced at a steady and inexorable rate. The carrier rocket, initially in approximately the same orbit, encountered the same forces. Both Sputnik and its launch vehicle were destined to only a short life span. The steady erosion of Sputnik’s orbit, however, was not evident in the first weeks of October as the satellite made its dramatic passes around the planet.

  The first appearance of Sputnik over a major city, heralded by its radio signals, became a moment for celebration. The Soviet Union took elaborate steps to alert the world to its ever-shifting orbital path. On day two, at a moment of intense global curiosity, Sputnik appeared over Berlin no less than 13 times. Dublin, to the surprise and delight of locals, was graced with the same number of visitations. Other cities encountered fewer appearances of Sputnik on that memorable day: New York, 7 times; London, 6; Tokyo, 6; and Washington, 5. The orbits of Sputnik could be tracked visually only at night, however. Seeing Sputnik with the naked eye as it moved swiftly across the night sky—often with the brilliance of a star—left a profound impression on all observers. No human object had ever gained such a stupendous altitude and orbited the Earth in such a dramatic fashion. Observers were awestruck by Sputnik, especially since many could track its orbits with the naked eye. In reality, as reported later, these observers were often tracking the more reflective carrier rocket, not necessarily the smaller Sputnik satellite.13

  The Russians quickly moved to augment their stunning October surprise by launching a second satellite—named simply Sputnik 2. Always alert to anniversaries, Khrushchev—the force behind the decision—ordered the launch of Sputnik 2 to take place on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution on November 7. The official order to make the launch, issued on October 12, reflected Khrushchev’s wish to exploit fully the immense propaganda triumph that had come with the first Sputnik. However, preparations for a second launch proved to be a daunting undertaking for Korolev and his team, who were forced to work in a narrow window of time—less than a month. The task became more complex with the decision that Sputnik 2 would carry a dog into outer space. For the historic launch, a mixed-breed female te
rrier named Laika was selected—and Laika’s inevitable martyrdom would carve out a new chapter in the chronicles of space history. The Soviets had conducted a number of high-altitude rocket launches with dogs, but in the case of Laika, there was no plan for the canine’s safe return. A significant amount of improvisation accompanied the creation of Sputnik 2, since the upper-stage satellite had to be manufactured without reference to an existing design. The engineers made basic drawings and these were handed directly to workers in the shops. The final assembly was completed with what Boris Chertok called “on-the-spot fitting.”14 One key change in the design of the Sputnik 2, however, was the decision not to separate the satellite from the core booster upon reaching altitude. Consequently, the second satellite with Laika on board consisted of the entire R-7 booster.

  The launch of Sputnik 2 occurred on November 3; the liftoff took place without mishap, propelling the satellite with its canine passenger into orbit. The electrical power on board was finite, enough to sustain the instrumentation and the life-support system for Laika for approximately six days. The dog was placed in a pressurized capsule, equipped with water and food dispensers. Electrodes measured Laika’s pulse and blood pressure. Telemetry from Sputnik 2 offered a partial chronicle of Laika’s life in space: She appeared to survive the high-g launch without difficulty and settled into a relaxed posture for the duration of the flight. Reportedly she barked and ate some of her food on her ill-fated trip into outer space. Once the electrical power died, Laika succumbed to the excessive heat in the capsule. Later, the Soviets promoted a new cigarette brand with Laika’s image on the package to honor the canine pioneer.15