Nobody expected it
Vladimir Lositsky, historian of national aviation and cosmonautics, director of the Cosmonaut Serebrov Foundation
The Soviet government approved the decision to build the intercontinental ballistic missile proposed by Korolev on May 20, 1954. As soon as a week later, Korolev began bombarding officials, the military, and the Academy of Sciences with letters suggesting that the not yet created missile be used to launch an artificial earth satellite and to carry out other space missions, including a flight to the moon. He received no official response. The opinions expressed unofficially ranged from negative to sharply negative.
The military did not want to even hear about it, and only a few notable scientists supported Korolev’s initiative, although not without hesitation. It took several meetings at the Academy of Sciences before Korolev succeeded in convincing leading academicians, including the famous and most distinguished Soviet physicist, future Nobel Prize winner Pyotr Kapitsa, of the importance of space program.
Shortly before Khrushchev’s visit, the R-5 missile — an upgraded version of the R-2 — with a nuclear payload was successfully tested. This became an important instrument of foreign policy. The USSR was now able to deliver a nuclear bomb almost anywhere in Europe, except as far away as Spain.
Korolev showed Khrushchev different models of missiles from the R-1 upwards, spoke about their capabilities, history of creation, successes and failures along the way. For all the failures, Korolev blamed himself. Khrushchev was surprised; he was not accustomed to such sincerity.
Finally, it was the turn of the R-7 missile, almost ready, but yet untested.
THIS IS HOW KHRUSHCHEV DESCRIBED THE EPISODE IN HIS MEMOIRS:
Ustinov reported to me that designer Korolev invited us to take a look at his ballistic missile. We decided to go to the assembly plant with all the members of the Presidium of the Party Central Committee. There we were shown the missile. Frankly, all of us were staring at it like a cow looking at a new gate. Our minds were at a loss to understand just how this huge, cigar-shaped piece of tube could fly anywhere and hit anything with an explosion. Korolev explained to us how it flew and how far it could reach. And we kept walking around it in circles like village people buying some cotton cloth at a rural marketplace: we felt it, groped it, tugged at it, and all but licked it. One might say, «What an ignorant bunch you were!» The truth is, in those days anyone facing a rocket for the first time would have looked as technologically backward as we did.
Khrushchev was deeply impressed with everything he saw and heard as well as by Korolev himself. He took a great liking to Korolev and had a good deal of trust in him. He even allowed that Korolev called him directly, a privilege of only the highest state and military officials.
After Khrushchev’s visit, Korolev acquired a very special status that no chief designer in the USSR had ever had before. Arguably, it was then that Khrushchev realized the true scale of what was happening — the Soviet Union was becoming the second, along with the United States, superpower — and the role of Korolev as the key contributor.
The meeting with Korolev significantly influenced Khrushchev’s political thinking. Since then, missiles became his favorite argument in confrontation with the West.
One weighed over a ton and was a full-blown space research station rigged with dedicated equipment, all sorts of instruments and sensors.
The second had a pressurized cabin for animals, and was also packed with scientific equipment.
The third had nothing but a radio transmitter. The design of this ball-shaped satellite with antennas was conceived by Korolev himself.
All three versions of Sputnik were built at the same time, and no one knew which one would fly first.
Progress Rocket and Space Center in Samara. May 2021
In early 1957, Korolev got word that a report entitled Satellite Over the Planet! would be delivered at a session to coordinate US rocket and satellite initiatives in Washington on October 6.
As there was no way to know if this was supposed to be just the title of the report or a launch announcement, it was decided to take the lead and launch the Soviet satellite the soonest possible. The basic Sputnik seemed the safest bet of the three.
It’s hard to believe, but all parameters related to the first spaceflight were hand calculated. No computers were available. They made calculations on paper with an accuracy of four decimal places.
This was how the flight trajectory and other parameters required to put the Sputnik-1 into orbit were calculated. No one knew exactly how correct the calculated trajectory was, where the boundaries of the atmosphere were, and what altitude the satellite should go up to.
As it became known later, the flight was just moments short of failure. Due to a malfunction, the main engine ran one second less than planned, and that might not have allowed the rocket to achieve the first space velocity needed to put the Sputnik-1 into orbit.
As a result, Sputnik’s orbit was 90 km lower than programmed. Three months after launch, it deorbited and burned at reentry into the atmosphere.
Progress Rocket and Space Center in Samara. May 2021
It is impossible to calculate exactly.
In recognition of the successful launch of the Sputnik-1, the Soviet government presented Korolev with a house, built especially for him according to a custom project in the Ostankino neighborhood of Moscow. Korolev lived in the house for 6 years (1959-1966).
Today it houses the Memorial House-Museum of Academician Sergey Korolev
Arguably, not only the closest associates were able to figure out that, while developing the R-7 missile, Korolev was thinking in the first place about its spaceflight potential, rather than warfare capabilities. Many of Korolev’s employees later recalled they had little doubts that he had carefully planned everything from the very beginning. But an informal circle of trust never failed, and every one kept quiet about what they guessed. Korolev never had to run up against a problem of someone questioning certain design features of the R-7.
Formally, the missile accomplished the main task it was designed for — it made the U.S. vulnerable. The R-7 was a real beast capable of delivering a thermonuclear warhead of 5.5 tons to a distance of more than 10 thousand kilometers.
It was rather difficult, though, to use the missile as a practical weapon. For one thing, its gigantic size did not allow it to be silo deployed covertly. When assembled, the missile did not fit on a railroad platform. The missile had to be assembled in a special hangar near the launch site, which took 5 days at least.
The R-7 could not be kept in a ready state and fueled all the time, and it took not less than 8 hours to prepare it for launching.
However, the R-7 missile had an important quality of being easily adaptable to be used as a satellite launch vehicle. With the third stage fitted, it was able to reach the Earth orbital velocity, necessary for putting an artificial satellite into orbit. For an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead such speed was excessive.
The entire space program was conceived by Korolev … after the successful launch of the Sputnik. … The true driving force behind everything was his great faith in success, romantic nature, and desire to do the only thing he loved,
ACADEMICIAN BORIS CHERTOK
AUTHOR, PRODUCER, PROJECT MANAGER
Georgy Avanyan
AUTHOR-COMPILER
Natalya Akulova
PROJECT CONSULTANT
cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko
EDITOR
Elena Matza
HEAD CAMERAMAN
Natalya Makarova
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT
Pixeljam Studio3D VIDEO AND MODELING
«TIL»
ANIMATION
Studio Lastik«REMEMBRANCES»
PROJECT MANAGER
Elena Kuklina
COORDINATOR
Julia Baklanova
PROJECT PARTICIPANTS
Anna Ulyanskaya, Alla Chetaeva, Victor Koreshev, Georgy Kulikov, Vladimir Derevyanko, Alexei Taranin, Natalya Bogoyavlenskaya, Maxim Makarov, Svetlana Alexikova, Dmitry Anzhaparidze, Dmitry Koshelev, Danila Koshelev, Ivan Karyshev, Arthur Salikhov, Mikhail Tatyanin
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Progress Rocket and Space Center in Samara for the filming opportunity
Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow for the filming opportunity on the territory of the Memorial House Museum of Academician Sergey Korolev in Ostankino
ILLUSTRATIONS AND VIDEO PROVIDED BY:
Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation
Russian State Documentary Film and Photo Archive
Shutterstock
PHOTO AND VIDEO MATERIALS FROM PERSONAL ARCHIVES OF:
Yaroslav Golovanov, Boris Smirnov, Evgeny Ryazanov
VIDEO CONTENT SOURCES
Documentary footage:
«Pilot Shabanov’s Flight Moscow-Berlin (1920-1930)», «The Country of the Soviets Turns 16. (1933)», " May 1 Celebration in Moscow (1923)», «Sovjournal No. 64/173 (1928)», «Aero March (1934)», «Aircraft Inventor Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1927)», «Into the Air Now! (1923)», «The Great Scientist of the Great People (1935)», «The Eastern Flight (1924)», «Socialist Village No. 3 (1935)», «Fighter Planes (1942)», «Airplane in the Service of Culture (1925)
Documentary films and stories (1960-1992):
«Korolev», «Conquerors of the Universe», «Columbuses of the Space Era», «Twenty-Five Years' Undertakings», «Documentary Filings of Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov» — footage of cosmonauts in the TV studio, footage of flight preparation of the first team of cosmonauts
MAIN SOURCES OF CONTENT
The USSR leader’s visit to the assembly plant in Podlipki was staged by Korolev with remarkable skill.
Korolev was showing the missiles gradually, one at a time, in the order they were built and was giving explanations along the way without going into too much technical detail. He spoke about how they were created, their range and payload capacity.
As they proceeded from rocket to rocket, the numbers kept increasing manifold. The missiles were getting bigger and bigger too. Khrushchev looked extremely pleased.
There was a separate guard in front of the huge new workshop. When the doors swung open, the visitors saw an incredibly large missile standing upright and filling the entire space of the brightly lit hangar. It was the R-7.
The missile seemed like a real miracle, and the visitors were visibly overwhelmed.
As eyewitnesses put it, members of the delegation were plainly stunned — no one had ever seen anything like that — and it seemed incredible that «this thing, the size of the Spasskaya Tower» could fly at all.
According to eyewitness accounts of those events recorded many years later, Korolev thoroughly enjoyed the effect produced. While Khrushchev was walking around the rocket with his head craned, Korolev was giving explanations. Khrushchev was simply beaming with joy.
Speaking about new opportunities opened with creation of R-7, Korolev brought Khrushchev to a small stand with a model of some device, and made a true «presentation» of a satellite.
The main arguments were:
‑ we already have a rocket, no need to develop anything extra, no additional costs involved
‑ the Americans announced they would launch a satellite in 1958, and here’s the chance to beat them to it
Khrushchev was convinced by these arguments.
The Sputnik was to travel in outer space, and it was necessary to make sure that, at least for a while, it would be able to withstand the destructive influence of external forces, the magnitude of which was hard to accurately estimate.
Due to a lack of time, some of testing operations were performed in an unconventional way. To test freeze-thaw resistance, for example, the sphere was half-submerged in a tank with a mixture of alcohol and dry ice, while the other side was heated with dozens of powerful lamps. Every 15-20 minutes, the sphere was rotated, and the routine kept repeating for two days.
To test how far the satellite beep-beep signal would reach, the transmitter was air-towed by a helicopter over the Moscow region, while they tried to pick up the signal all the way to the Far East.
К сожалению, ваш браузер устарел и не поддерживает некоторые технологии, необходимые для просмотра сайта
Чтобы посетить сайт, используйте Google Chrome или любой другой современный браузер.