Epic Rivalry Read online

  Success in either the American or Soviet space programs rested on the innovative work of talented scientists, engineers, and managers. Wernher von Braun came to the United States in the post-war period with an experienced group of German rocket technicians. This core group did much to advance the American rocket program. The creation of NASA in 1958 consolidated America’s space-related assets. Later, James Webb, assisted by an able group of administrators, oversaw the efficient management of the NASA space program—one committed to the fulfillment of the Kennedy mandate for a lunar landing. On the Soviet side, the space program would be directed by Sergei Korolev, the mysterious “Chief Designer.” Korolev, a former political prisoner, became a remarkable and singular administrative force shaping the Soviet space program—often against formidable odds and opposition from the military. At the remote spaceport of Baikonur, he, too, worked with a group of highly motivated, if often contentious, group of designers and engineers. Both superpowers pursued a space program in lockstep with missile research and development.

  The pursuit of a competitive space program required the recasting of national priorities. In the United States public enthusiasm for space and the financial largess of Congress became essential for success. Throughout the time frame of the space race, NASA managed to sustain broad, often uncritical, support for its goals. This situation would change in the post-Apollo years. Contrary voices gained a new momentum and a larger audience. Many sacrosanct NASA programs now came under increased scrutiny. There were questions raised about cost overruns, misplaced priorities, and the problematical nature of manned space missions. Putting humans in space, some argued, was complex, costly, and dangerous. Accidents such as the Apollo 1 fire brought unwelcome scrutiny to NASA. The tragedy reminded the public at large that adventure in space travel did not come without risk. In its formative years, though, NASA benefited from a talented and hard-driving management—one willing to take risks. Those within and outside NASA advocating greater stress on scientific research routinely encountered obstacles; when it came to budgetary allocations, manned space activities routinely enjoyed a powerful mandate. NASA was always in motion, purpose-oriented, and evolving as an organization—and rarely without a loud chorus of critics. Essential to any space program—in the United States and the Soviet Union—was the recruitment of space voyagers: the highly skilled, courageous astronauts and cosmonauts. Initially, they were drawn from the realm of military pilots, many of them combat veterans or experienced test pilots. The early pioneers, including Russia’s Yuri Gagarin, German Titov, and Aleksei Leonov, mesmerized the world with their pioneering space feats. Their American counterparts, Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn, displayed equal courage and became instant celebrities. Subsequent generations carried on the momentum of spaceflights in increasingly powerful and sophisticated spacecraft. The Apollo 11 mission with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins brought a decade of heroic work by astronauts to a fitting conclusion.

  This book offers a glimpse into one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the Cold War, the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. This intense, if brief, interlude of superpower competition helped to shape a new era of space exploration, one which continues unabated into the 21st century.

  The production of Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race involved the creative contributions of many talented individuals. We wish to acknowledge the overall guidance of our editor at National Geographic, Garrett Brown, who worked with us tirelessly, always providing prompt, wise, and helpful support and advice on all phases of our work. John Paine played a key role as a text editor, offering timely commentary to shape the content and focus of the text. National Geographic illustrations editor Olivier Picard did an excellent job in seeking out vivid and often rare images associated with the space era. The book’s cover and interior design benefited from the creative work of Melissa Farris. Michael Gorn, a historian at NASA’s Dryden Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California, played the dual role of helping to shape the concept of the book and offering technical advice. Dmitry Sobolev, a Russian historian, made substantial contributions to the research for this project. We also owe a debt of gratitude to David West Reynolds, author of Apollo and Kennedy Space Center, for writing a series of lively and insightful sidebars. We were delighted that Sergei Khrushchev—himself an engineer and one-time participant in the Soviet space program—contributed a foreword and advised us on many historical aspects of the space race. Lastly, we wish to thank our wives, Patricia Hardesty and Charlene Currie, for their unfailing patience and support over the past year while we wrote Epic Rivalry.

  A V-2 streaks across the sky during a test launch, Peenemünde, Germany.

  PROLOGUE

  Arrow to the Future

  General Walter Dornberger, head of the German army’s rocket program, awoke to a brilliant sunrise on October 3, 1942. Posted at Peenemünde, the army’s top secret test facility on the Baltic coast, Dornberger greeted the dawn with great anticipation. The weather forecast called for cool temperatures, a blue sky nearly devoid of clouds, unlimited visibility, and minimal winds along this isolated stretch of coastline—the ideal setting for an important, even fateful, rocket launch.

  The day had been set aside for the pivotal test of Germany’s new secret weapon, the A-4, or V-2 rocket. During the previous summer Dornberger, with his talented technical staff headed by Wernher von Braun, had attempted two launches of the experimental rocket. Both had ended in catastrophic failure. Albert Speer, the Reichminister for armaments and war production, had observed one of the abortive summer launches. He decided to keep an open mind toward the work at Peenemünde, but his support—and ultimately that of Adolf Hitler—remained contingent on a successful launch. On this bright October day Dornberger felt an undertow of foreboding—another abortive firing of the V-2 might lead to the cancellation of the rocket program.

  Dornberger retained his overall personal optimism, being convinced that the V-2 rocket would ultimately perform well, even flawlessly. At heart, he was a rocket enthusiast, a man who had spent no less than 12 years of pioneering labor in the German rocket program. He knew that his rocket represented enormous potential, a quantum leap in technology that could transform weaponry and offer a vehicle to explore the heavens.

  All eyes turned to the imposing V-2 rocket, which had been adorned with a distinctive livery of alternating black and white hues to allow for precise observation and photography of the rocket during its planned trajectory down the Baltic test range. Between two of the fins was a striking image of a girl in black stockings seated on a crescent moon with a rocket in the background. A polite bow to the visionary German movie on futuristic space travel Frau im Mond (The Girl in the Moon), this peculiar logo bore witness to the fact that the dream of rocketry predated the Nazi regime and Germany’s wartime armaments program.

  The V-2 was a liquid-fueled rocket, powered by a highly sophisticated engine and controlled by an advanced guidance system. For the German army, then engaged in a titanic struggle against the Allied powers, there was an urgent need for the advanced rocket. Once fitted with a warhead of explosives, the V-2 would become a long-range missile to rain down destruction on Allied targets, particularly London. For Dornberger and von Braun, though, there was another dynamic factor at play. Their prewar vision of rocketry as a means to reach the edge of space and beyond. Such visionary ideas were prudently concealed from their German military overlords.

  As the noon hour neared, Dornberger took up a position on the ramparts of a green-painted assembly building adjacent to Test Stand VII. Here the V-2 rocket stood erect with its two umbilical cables attached: one cable to monitor the instruments, the other to provide external power. Beyond the launch pad, Dornberger could look out on the entire Peenemünde test facility—the complex of buildings under camouflage nets, the island of Greifswalder Oie located across a reed-and-sand-covered promontory, the surrounding pine forests, th
e Peene River, and the redbrick tower of the Wolgast Cathedral visible on the distant horizon.

  Nearby in a concrete shelter, Dr. Walter Thiel, the brilliant designer of the rocket engine, stood ready with his timetable containing the precise launch sequence. To allow for careful monitoring of the rocket at ground level during the risky ignition phase, Thiel and his associates used periscopes mounted on the thick roof of the concrete bunker. Here, too, engineers vigilantly monitored all the complicated internal systems of the rocket through an array of gauges, electrical meters, and other measuring instruments. A final check of all systems, rehearsed carefully in advance, offered reassuring signs that the V-2 rocket was primed and ready. Tension mounted as loud speakers and telephones filled the air with commands, alerting all—engineers, the launch control team, and nearby fire-control units—to the impending firing of the rocket.

  With the steering gyroscopes of the V-2 up and running, the loudspeaker began the countdown to the moment of launch.

  “X-minus three” sounded across Test Stand VII and beyond.

  Nearby, a television camera, as Dornberger remembered, captured the image of the V-2 rocket on a flickering black-and-white screen. The rocket was now ready for its historic flight. A band of condensed moisture at the level of the liquid oxygen tank encircled the cylindrical body of the rocket. Oxygen vapor, escaping from the rocket, was visible at the bottom. All these telltale signs suggested that the critical firing sequence was near at hand. Above, a noontime sun and a clear blue sky beckoned the rocket heavenward.

  Numerous engineers and technicians now moved to their assigned positions. From his elevated rampart Dornberger observed the unfolding and carefully scripted ritual. Once the vaporization ceased, he knew that the vent valve on the rocket had been closed, allowing pressure to build in the oxygen tank. The V-2 was seconds away from firing. The last minute of a launch sequence was the most tension-filled, making this brief interlude seem interminable in length, what the launch team called the “Peenemünde minute.”

  “X-minus one….”

  Ignition!

  Eight tons of fiery exhaust pushed downward. The two umbilical cables dropped away. The rocket was now on internal power.

  Three seconds passed. During this short time frame the thrust increased steadily and dramatically—reaching the requisite 25 tons to lift the 13.5-ton V-2 off its launch pad and into the sky.

  Dornberger remembered this singular moment vividly as the rocket leapt from Earth: “Smoke began to darken the picture. Ends of cable, pieces of wood, and bits of grass flew through the air.”

  As the propulsion engineer pulled the last main lever and released the cables, a turbopump running at 4,000 revolutions per minute with a maximum of 540 horsepower forced 33 gallons of alcohol and oxygen per second into the combustion chamber—a witch’s brew of volatile fuel that hurtled the rocket skyward at a phenomenal speed.

  The V-2 climbed steadily, leaving in its wake a stream of smoke and dust. Even as the rocket gained altitude, it slowly inclined at a gentle angle, following a predetermined upward path toward the east-northeast.

  “It was an unforgettable sight,” Dornberger later recalled. “In the full glare of the sunlight the rocket rose higher and higher. The flame darting from the stern was almost as long as the rocket itself. The fiery jet of gas was clear-cut and self-contained. The rocket kept to its course as though running on rails; the first critical moment had passed…. The projectile was not spinning; the black and white surface markings facing us did not change…. The air was filled with sound like rolling thunder.”1

  The combustion gases escaped from the rocket at a speed of more than 6,500 feet per second, the combustion chamber generating in excess of 650,000 horsepower at the end of the burn time. The rocket, in fact, held a vertical ascent for a mere 4.5 seconds, and then assumed an angle of 50 degrees for its scheduled trajectory down the Baltic test range. Dornberger, with binoculars, nervously watched this critical maneuver, alert to any mishap, fully aware that any loss of power, any breakdown in the sophisticated propulsion and guidance systems, would spell disaster for the rocket program at Peenemünde.

  He could hear the noise of the rocket engine mixing with the voice on the loudspeaker monotonously counting the seconds: “14…15…16…17….”

  The velocity was now around 650 miles per hour, climbing higher and higher, and then—“sonic velocity”—the V-2 had exceeded the speed of sound!

  All these dramatic events passed quickly. The rocket remained stable, under control, with no deviation from the scripted flight path even as it passed through the sound barrier.

  Seconds passed…. “33…34…35….”

  The rocket quickly gained speed and altitude. It soon achieved twice the speed of sound (Mach 2) as it climbed to an altitude of six miles.

  At 40 seconds…another tense moment.

  Dornberger and his excited team observed a white cloud appear at the stern of the rocket, prompting some observers to think there had been an explosion. The phenomenon was what they later called “frozen lightning,” or the rocket’s exhaust of water vapor condensing into a plume.

  Reaching the 52-second benchmark…the burn was close to shutdown, and still the gleaming V-2 continued to perform flawlessly, still on course, with Peenemünde receding as a distant backdrop.

  Now came the critical Brennschluss (“end of burning”) stage. The command, sent by radio from the ground, closed the fuel valves precisely at the 58-second mark. The rocket engine was shut down.

  At this fateful moment, the V-2 was racing across the nearly airless upper atmosphere at a speed of 3,500 miles per hour! Only a thin streak of white condensation clearly marked the remarkable passage of the V-2—now viewed as a faraway speck in the sky and only clearly seen with the aid of binoculars.

  “Taking a deep breath,” Dornberger recalled, “I put down my binoculars. My heart was beating wildly. The experiment had succeeded. For the first time in the history of the rocket we had sent an automatically controlled rocket missile to the border of the atmosphere at ‘Brennschluss’ and put it into practically airless space. We had been working 10 years for this day.”2

  Caught up in the excitement of the moment, Dornberger piled into a car with von Braun and dashed to the sand-walled enclosure of Test Stand VII—now empty except for cast-off cables and scattered equipment. Soon they were joined by a stream of technicians and test crew personnel. What followed was a spontaneous outburst of handshakes, cheers, and wild jubilation. The celebration erased all lingering memories of past failures.

  The V-2 rocket, traveling at a top speed of 4,440 feet per second, had completed an extraordinary journey of 116 miles across the Baltic Sea east of Peenemünde.3 During its fall back into the atmosphere, the rocket endured all the stresses of reentry, including the intense heat (1,250 degrees Fahrenheit) and the buffeting that came with the rapid rate of descent (around 2,000 miles per hour). The V-2 nose cone had been fitted with bags of green-colored dye to mark the point of impact in the Baltic Sea. A German aircraft spotted the green-stained impact point an hour later. Dornberger noted that the rocket had struck the water with the energy of 1,400 million foot-pounds, the equivalent of 50 express train engines, each weighing 100 tons and traveling at a speed of 60 miles per hour.4

  In the aftermath of this dramatic October launch, Dornberger attempted to see beyond the narrow and controlling wartime priorities associated with his rocket. Meeting with his team, he did not speak of any future missile age or even how the rocket might assure a triumph over Germany’s formidable enemies. Instead, Dornberger articulated his own expansive sense of the moment, expressing—as he recorded in his memoir—his own breathless “panegyric” on the transcendent historical meaning of his V-2 rocket: “We have invaded space with our rocket and for the first time—mark this well—have used space as a bridge between two points on Earth; we have proved rocket propulsion practicable for space travel. To land, sea, and air may now be added infinite empty space as an area o
f future intercontinental traffic…. This third day October, 1942, is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space travel….”5 Writing in the postwar years, Speer echoed Dornberger’s prescient viewpoint, noting in his memoir, Inside the Third Reich, that “for the first time [the V-2] a product of man’s inventive mind had grazed the frontiers of space.”6

  The successful launch of the V-2 arguably signaled the advent of a new rocket technology. As a so-called “vengeance weapon,” it was deployed too late to reverse the inexorable advance of the Allied powers to victory. In the immediate aftermath of the Allied victory, however, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a spirited drive to capture any remnants of the fabled V-2 rocket. This competition set the stage for the epic rivalry that would shape the course of the new space age.

  Wernher von Braun briefs high-ranking Nazi officers before a V-2 launch in Peenemünde, 1944.