This week 30 years ago, the Russians lost the race to the moon. On July 20, 69, Neil Armstrong set foot in the "Sea of Tranquility" and America won the prestigious battle of the century. The revelation of the story from the Russian side, which has been secret until now, reveals that if they had really behaved as communists, they could have won
23.7.1999
By: Bill Keller, New York Times
– Part I. Sergey Korolev, a torchbearer
If you couldn't get to the moon, a base in Ikonor in the Kazakh steppe is probably a good substitute. The famous missile range, known as "the world's largest cosmodrome", is today a scarred flat wasteland where it is unbearably cold, except for days when it is unbearably hot. And she is terribly distant.
The same features that make Baikonur such a miserable place for human habitation were all points of merit when it was chosen to serve as the main experimental facility for the Soviet Union's military and research projects in the 8,000s. From Baikonur, a missile can be fired to a distance of XNUMX km without it landing in China, Turkey, or Japan, and almost without risking it hitting a major city. The skies in Baikonur are usually clear, the ground conditions are ideal for detecting stray missiles, and no one is around to sniff.
At the height of the Cold War, entire formations of engineers, scientists and generals came here with the aim of stunning the world. From Baikonur, within a period of 43 months, the Soviets launched into space the first satellite, the first dog, the first rocket to hit the moon and the first man in space.
When I visited Baikonur last spring, I tried to remind myself that this desolate expanse of steppe was the front of one of the greatest battles in the history of the Cold War. Entire apartment buildings stand abandoned on the wind-exposed test range. The old transporter that would carry the missiles to their launch point stood like a metallic cockroach laid on its back.
The network of launch stations that once flew 150 civilian rockets into space per year, every year, is now engaged in only 20 to 30 launches. In fact, the cosmodrome is not even on Russian territory anymore. Due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it now belongs to Kazakhstan, a sovereign country that barely tolerates the Russian presence. The Russians joke among themselves that it seems as if aliens landed here, established a culture and then suddenly took off and left.
This week 30 years ago, on July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed
In the crater known as the "sea of peace". The story of how the Americans won
The race to the moon is already known to the inhabitants of planet Earth. The story about
How the Russians lost - and how close they were to victory - lies
Deep under the ruins of the Soviet experiment.
The secrecy surrounding the Soviet space program at the time was
pathological. The identity of the missile's designers was a state secret.
The Soviets worked in isolated communities. Their scientific work is not
was published. Their successes were unknown, their failures were covered up. The fact that
That the Soviet Union aspired to land men on the moon was not only hidden
from the public, but an official and categorical denial, and after a plan
The Russian moon was finally abandoned, the Kremlin dedicated
Considerable efforts are being made in an attempt to erase her from history.
But in the last decade, the story began to emerge from his grave. formula
Approved by the government for the Soviet lunar program was published in .'89
Since then, some of the program's expats have had time to comment on flaws in the version
official in their memories. From the American side, for which there was a plan
The Soviet moon is the subject of much espionage and speculation,
The CIA began to gradually release secret satellite images
and many intelligence reports from the time. And so, when I went to the interview
The members of the Soviet "Moon Mission" who are still alive, now in their years
In their eighties, it was like witnessing a debate that suddenly broke out
Suddenly at the end of a 30 year hiatus. an outpouring of
Ancient but intense memories, painted in shades of closure
Accounts and self-righteousness.
From all this we can learn that the Russians entered the race to the moon with a lack
Desire and that many Russian missile manufacturers doubted the possibility of winning the race,
And even in the merit of the victory (what is this race anyway, if not
A very expensive exercise
In political showmanship?). You can also learn that in this race
The Soviets competed among themselves as much as against
the americans But most of all we can learn that despite all the problems,
The Soviets provided the Americans with real competition.
On April 12, 1961, President John Kennedy received a broken message
The Soviets launched the first man into orbit around the Earth.
The young and competitive president ordered his deputy, Lyndon Johnson, to return
to him with a report on the options available to the Americans to respond
for themselves the submarine prestige.
Werner von Braun, father of the Nazi V1 and V2, who joined the effort
The American after World War II, he told the vice president
that the Americans have a "respectable chance" of being the first to fly people
Around the moon, though in his opinion
The best plan is to aim for a manned moon landing. for the operation
Such a massive rocket is required, 10 or 15 times larger than the one that lifted the
The first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to orbit in space. Air Force
The American has already invested considerable work in such a missile.
On May 25, 61, Kennedy informed Congress that the Americans had begun the
their way to the moon, and that American prestige depends on the success of the plan.
In the following years, supporters of the journey to space formulated a number of justifications for his ambition
Kennedy's: the romantic concept of the fulfillment of destiny; The scientific longing
For knowledge, the inspiration involved in new technology; and even conspiracies
Dawnless to establish a military outpost on the moon. But the primary reason
And the decisive reason why the Americans decided to fly to the moon was simple: them
They thought they could get there first.
The moon was not high on the Soviet agenda, but it certainly was a rocket
He charmed the person who was responsible for the supremacy-seemingly of
The Soviets in Space, Sergey Pavlovich Korolev. Understand
The engineers in charge of the Soviet space program, Korolev was
most influential. Its rocket engineering campus, under construction
which was previously used as an artillery factory on the outskirts of Moscow, Natan
Forever "Sputnik" and the first man in space,
Not to mention the first intercontinental ballistic missile. many more
Before Kennedy's speech, Korolev had his eye on the moon - not as a reward
Geopolitical, and not even as a destination in itself, but as a basis for missions
More ambitious to refine are the planets beyond. He's had enough
launch the first rocket that hit the moon; It crashed on his face with a charge
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CDs, Soviet souvenirs, thus setting a record of kitsch
A cosmic that broke only in 1971 when astronaut Alan Shepard of Apollo 14
Roll golf balls across the moon. Another Korolev spacecraft
transmitted the first photographs of the dark side of the moon.
Korolev was sober from illusions about the system he served.
When he was 31 years old? A promising engineer at the Missile Design Institute, they knocked
Stalin's thugs on his door one morning and took him from his lap
His wife and three-year-old daughter. More
A victim of the systematic purge in the academic circles of the Soviets.
Korolev was confronted with testimonies taken by force from three of his colleagues
and was beaten until he confessed to unfounded accusations, according to which he participated in a conspiracy
to assist rocket engineers in Germany. He was thrown to the bottom of the underworld
Stalinist, the frozen mining pits in Kolyma, where he cut trees
and wheelbarrows in the brutal cold. His teeth fell out and his heart was damaged, witness
A year later he was transferred to prison under less brutal conditions, in a facility
for aeronautical engineering in the management of the secret police. for six years
In addition, Korolev participated in the design of aircraft and missiles for the effort
the war, while he was imprisoned in the company
More purified intellectuals.
Korolev had robust sides to his personality that were strengthened by his contact
with the brutality of the Soviet state. Although there was a future
to utter the clichés of the Communist Party himself, his friends
They say he barely pretended to believe them either. Although
who provided his country with a respectable armory, seems to be his true loyalty
There was always an adventure, the least nationalistic dream - the grip of humanity
in space. And there is no doubt that he is blessed with some of the features that the horrifying method
This is what it imparted to many of its residents - such as the ability to swallow suffering,
and a talent for sophisticated improvisations.
After the war, Korolev was acquitted of the charges against him, and was appointed colonel
and attached to a military expedition to Germany, to loot all the documents on
Germany's weapons program that has not yet been hijacked by the Americans.
The delegation brought with you the plans for the German V-2 rocket, which
Korolev's oversight evolved into a series of Soviet missiles
So successful that they are still in use today.
In 61, when the race to the moon began, Korolev was the dominant figure in the landscape
of the Soviet missile industry. James Harford, who published the
The first biography on Korolev in English in ,'97 rates him
Before Werner von Braun, among the space giants. The reason is not only
The continuous sequence of his space inventions, but also that during his life
The shorts excelled in all areas of achievement in space.
Korolev was less of a technological wizard and more of a supreme director and husband
Vision - a little H.G. Wells, a lot Orson Welles. He had her
Popular charisma of the devil-with-all-the-laws, which made him stand out a lot
In a nation of bureaucrats, and a salesman's charm that is hard to resist
- as the rocket workers learned to discover in which he urged and urged throughout my days
16 hour work, the long line of women in his life and the leaders
the political ones on which his plan relied.
In his memoirs, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev describes the
The visit of the head of the missile program to the Politburo, shortly after his death
Stalin. The great men of the party then gathered and looked on in astonishment as Korolev
He presented his model rockets, and explained how objects are free
Wings, which are shaped like a cigar, can reach as far as America - or
to mars "I don't want to exaggerate," wrote Khrushchev, "but I was."
says that we obeyed what he showed us as if we were a flock of sheep
who sees for the first time a new pasture". Khrushchev was a regular visitor
In the offices of the rocket industry, he examined each and every innovation with the enthusiasm of a child.
The moon is not red - part XNUMX The threatening image scam
On December 5, 62, the CIA completed its annual assessment
Top-secret about the Soviet space program. The conclusion of
The agency was that the American victory was not at all certain.
"Considering their ability to concentrate human and material resources for the purposes they are
As a priority," the agency claimed, "we value Sha'am
A concerted national effort would enable the Soviets to accomplish a moon landing
Staffed in a span of five to seven years, between '67 and "'69
The American perception of the Soviet Union in those days was
A perception of admiration and suspicion. Kennedy campaigned against
Richard Nixon claiming that the Soviets enjoyed a formidable advantage
the nuclear warheads; After the "Sputnik" launch, my children got used to it
America's schools in case of a nuclear attack. Establishment of shelters
The backyard has become a cottage industry.
Looking back, it is clear that the Soviet Union cultivated an illusion of tremendous power
In the "Wizard of Oz" style. During Kennedy's challenge,
It was in the USSR 15 years after a war in which 27 million were killed
of its inhabitants and eight years after Stalin's brutal rule. its economy
It was a clumsy and thuggish branch of the political bureaucracy. No
It had a competitive base of private industries - all the general
Electric, Lockheed and Boeing of sorts.
more than that. Sometime, towards the end of '61, intelligence indicated
satellites the USA has a significant advantage in the field of missiles
the strategies. The CIA's most generous estimate put the
The number of Soviet-owned missiles capable of reaching the territory
American in only 25 (Rossologists estimate today that there may have been
There are only four). In addition, it was clear that if America struck
First, the time it would take to fuel the missiles would be so long,
It will be possible to damage them further on the ground.
Khrushchev knew all this, and he conducted an effective public campaign
of hot air and boasting to hide the man from the eyes of the world
The little one behind the screen. When Kennedy proposed, a month after announcing a challenge
His space, to join forces with the Russians in the journey to the moon, Khrushchev
refused As reluctant as he was to enter an expensive race to the moon, he ran
Khrushchev is even less likely to be perceived as America's junior partner. he is not
He wanted the Americans to discover how built up the Soviet image was
bluff. "My father rejected it," says Sergei Khrushchev, son of
Nikita and the chief curator of his documents and memories. "He told me:
'If we try to work together, they will see that we don't have missiles and how much we are
are weak'".
Like Khrushchev, Soviet space scientists were suspicious of
Kennedy's Moon Challenge. They knew that the project would require an effort that would cost
in its dimensions and price than anything Korolev had undertaken up to that time
stage. "Our first thought was: it's a bluff, or it is
serious?" says Boris Chertok, the brilliant engineer who designed the
Most of Korolev's navigation systems. "Our impression was that it was not
bluff. The feeling among the engineering community was that it was realistic
and doable. And it gave us a sense of satisfaction, because we were
We are sure that this will force our leadership to pay more attention
to the Soviet space program".
Inside the secret network of scientists and engineers is not found first
A consensus that would positively consider responding to the American challenge. engineers
Some, like Boris Rauschenbach and Konstantin Fuktsitov, say
who claimed at the time that the Soviets would not be able to compete with the Americans
in waste, and instead need to build a suitable space station
to their advantages and will be an impressive and permanent stronghold in space. others,
Especially the scientists, argued that it is better to focus on unmanned space missions
manned, which will be cheaper and less dangerous.
But Korolev embraced Kennedy's challenge as justification for his dream of
Manned exploration of space, and united the rocket manufacturers around him. look what
We have already managed to do it against all odds, he preached to his colleagues, think
How we could amaze the world. Most engineers
were convinced
Korolev encountered more serious opposition from the leaders
The politicians, and especially the generals, who were frightened by the thriving arsenal of
the americans Throughout the attempt to land Soviets on the moon,
The space program competed for funds with a variety of military ventures.
Exact comparisons are almost impossible because the systems were
So different from their foundation, but in summary they were removed
The Soviets no more than half the 25 billion dollars that America
The investment in the "Apollo" program, and maybe much less than that.
The battle for time was even more tedious than the battle for money. no
Like the USA, where the civilian space program was for the most part
Independent and detached from the army, the Soviet Union harnessed them
Engineers, factories and launch facilities, both for the arms race and for the race
desecrate. The Soviet engineers were simultaneously diligent about experiments
to catch up with the Americans in the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles,
cruise missiles, defense systems against missiles, bombers and fighter planes,
as well as the development of inventions in more esoteric fields, such as a station
in space.
"We could only take on the moon program as an additional occupation,"
says Boris Chertok, designer of the navigation systems. "None of us
He was not released from his military duties. The problem was not only the burden on
The manpower and production facilities, but also on our minds."
Korolev begged and pestered and begged to keep the plan moving
forward. To speak to the hearts of the statesmen who counted every ruble, the lowly
Korolev the cost estimates of the lunar program. to speak to
The hearts of the military men, he promised his moon plan would bring with it
A series of strategic developments.
"Korolyov always did his space work on the back of the army," he recalled
General Karim Karimov, who was the watchdog of the army on
Korolev. The army constantly complained to Dmitri Ustinov, minister
The ammunition enjoyed great power, but Ustinov was a longtime supporter
of Korolev. "Ustinov would sigh and say: 'You must be
You're right, we'll take it
By means', but he always loved Korolev", laughs Karimov.
When it came to his big moon rocket, called N-1, he succeeded
Korolev once again regrouped the army. Boris Durofev, who oversaw
The plans for the construction of the missile, says that in the first proposals that were sent
The missile was presented to the Kremlin as a tool for launching military spy satellites,
To carry multiple warheads around the globe, and even to lift a station
A nuclear war in space. "There was some vague terminology about 'exploring the moon
and the stars', but there was no word about landing a man on the moon", he
A number.
As the program developed, the military came to the understanding of a missile with a refueling time
So long therefore the launch will serve as a very light stationary target.
The military uses we talked about dropped one by one, until they stopped
Even pretending the N1 is for any purpose other than a tool
Transportation designed to bring a Russian man to the moon.
Although Khrushchev was not at all interested in entering the competition
In another waste with the USA, he was not interested in losing either.
In February '62, Khrushchev invited the missile designers to the rural retreat
His in the north of the Black Sea, and after a day of feasting and chatting he confirmed
For the engineers to continue developing their toy - the moon rocket.
The commitment was somewhat vague, and two more years of solicitation were required
before it was accepted in a binding way.
Finally, in ,'64 when Khrushchev was on the verge of impeachment, Korolev drafted
A letter to number two in the party's leadership chain, Leonid
Brezhnev. The document, published only last year, was a masterpiece of
intercession. Korolev claimed that the American plan, with a missile
Her powerful "Saturn" leapt forward so far that
that the Americans have an excellent chance of reaching the moon as early as ,'67 exactly
To spoil the jubilee celebrations of the revolution
Russian.
The slightly exaggerated warning seems to have managed to get attention
The Kremlin. In August 64, the party formulated a decision that provided a foundation
Official for the intention to send a man to the moon. She was a little less unequivocal
From Kennedy's statement - and she is
was secret. But the Soviet missile manufacturers now felt that they were
Completely immersed in the game. Chertok: "At that time it was still visible
possible. We thought we could be the first to orbit the moon, and for all that
The least we can
Compete with dignity in the race to land on it."
In a race that lasted 98 months, from Kennedy's speech to Neil's landing
Armstrong was 39 months behind the Soviet Union. Korolev
Started late, but he didn't waste a moment. Already in October, '64
An American spy satellite took a photo that passed over a large iconor hangar
and preliminary excavations of a large and new launch pad. in my eyes
The Americans, it was the strongest testimony, the first of its kind,
that the Soviets decided to respond to Kennedy's challenge. "then they
They knew that something big was brewing there," says Charles P. Vick, an expert
to the Russian space program.
The challenge of the journey to the moon was not to reach it. Both sides already
Show that they can launch a rocket and smash through the brick. the problem
There was a way back. To complete a round trip you also need to load
A vehicle in which the crew will circle the moon, a means of transportation for descent into space
The surface of the moon, enough fuel to take off back from the moon and adequate shielding to
To protect the passengers during re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. If
Add to that an ATV, it is definitely a heavy load, of an order of magnitude
of 100 tons. There were other complications - the complex choreography of
The meeting in the trip around the moon, for example. But the big obstacle
The most was the need for that monstrous launch vehicle.
To complicate matters, the Soviets needed a surplus missile
momentum to compensate for their geographical disadvantage. The gate to the runway
The moon's orbit is through the southern hemisphere. Because of a fracture
The Soviets sit far in the far north of the globe - and because of that
that Korolev and his partners did not want to risk launching missiles southward above
China - they were working in a northern orbit, which required them to move from orbit
One round of the Earth to a second orbit, for better access
to the moon
The fact that the Soviets had to pick up this project not with a team
United of scientists and engineers but with an entire rocket industry,
Conflicted on a personal, professional and bureaucratic background, she made the challenge difficult
more. In a bureaucratic situation ideal for the formation of conflicts,
The most fateful struggle developed between Korolev and the Soviet manufacturer
The leader of engines for large rockets, Valentin Glushko.
Glushko went through Stalin's concentration camps before Korolev. According to
Documents released last year, Korolev knew Glushko was one
From the three colleagues who testified against him - testimony that was undoubtedly collected under
Torture, but even so is not a good basis for friendship based on
Trust. Glushko, for his part, never got over the fact that during
Their years together in forced labor facilities, his status on the scale of authority
in prison was higher than that of Korolev. The engine manufacturer, type
Proud and prickly, he had a high enough status in the Russian missile world to
To say no, even to Korolev.
In the early sixties, Glushko was in great demand for ventures
military He developed a series of highly sophisticated engines, which became established
on stored fuel material that can remain in Epson stable for months
and burn in a moment. This fuel solved the stationary target problem of
The Soviet nuclear missiles, however, had a very serious flaw
For a rocket designed to carry a human payload: the fuel was toxic
most. In the event of an accident, it could emit deadly fumes
About the cosmonauts and everyone around.
Korolev urged Glushko to develop a more powerful engine that would be based on
A safer mixture of fuel and liquid oxygen. The stubborn missile manufacturer
refused Thus Korolev set out on the most difficult task he undertook
without the services of the country's leading engine manufacturer.
With no choice, Korolev turned to an aircraft engine engineer who had no
Experience stood, or the facilities suitable for assembling a huge engine. On
Although the engine that the engineer designed was a marvel of engineering, it is
was small, a fact that required the connection of 30 motors (in a circuit) to lift
The N-1 moon rocket. No one, before or since, has built a rocket with
More than ten engines.
For Korolev's rocket to succeed, it had to rely on
Highly sophisticated electronic choreography. It was necessary to coordinate the
The motors vibrate to prevent catastrophic tremor attacks. Additionally
For this, the engineers must make sure that if one of the motors is in the circuit
Seats, his opposite partner will turn off to balance the push pressure and prevent
Tilting the missile to one side.
The electronic task was especially complicated in a country that was known
in its weakness in the field of the necessary microelectronics. Roald Sagdiv,
A physicist who ran the Soviet space research center for a while, says
that microelectronics was never a bright enough field to
to attract the attention of the political leaders, who actually were
The top managers of all Soviet industries. "In the days of the tsars
The bells always had to be big," says Sagdiv.
who currently teaches at the University of Maryland. "The same with the Politburo.
They really liked the technology of
big things Squeaky things like an electronic brain - who would notice such a thing?"
The moon is not red - Part C. Dangerous games
The Soviets toyed with several scenarios of reaching the moon right up to the line
The final, however, towards the end of '64, Korolev closed on a similar approach
For the one chosen by the Americans - a launch into the Earth's coffee orbit,
A second jump to the coffee orbit of the moon, and from there an exit in the Todi module
land on the moon Although the American module was designed to contain
Two people, the Soviet version was supposed to deposit a cosmonaut
Single on the lunar surface. To add to the weight reduction, its place was also subtracted
of an airtight chamber in the connection between the sailing vessel and the landing vessel -
The cosmonaut was supposed to move from vessel to vessel on a spacewalk. late
The Soviet plan was further refined and an advance ship was added to it
and an unmanned flight into space, which was supposed to drop an escape module
Added, in case the landing gear of
The cosmonaut will not be able to rise back up.
While both countries were busy perfecting their powerful missiles,
They competed at the same time in developing a vehicle to travel to the moon - spaceships
that could last for many days, carry a crew of astronauts,
Navigate in space, anchor in a comprehensive orbit. in the early sixties
Korolev's engineers worked on a family of spaceships:
The "Vostok", which carried Yuri Gagarin into space, a late version
clumsy, the "waxhood", and a more sophisticated ship, with two compartments,
The "Soyuz". Time and time again they were ahead of the Americans in development
New moves into space.
The Soviets decorated the technical achievements with propaganda decorations, like
Valentina Tereshkova flew, the first woman in space (proof of this
that the communist utopia has reached equality between the sexes!).
And of course, they didn't avoid a little eye contact here and there. in august
In 62, for example, the USSR was the first country to fly two
manned spacecraft at the same time. They launched one "Vostok" into orbit
The coffee, and then, a day later, as the vessel hovered overhead in Iconor, they
They sent a second "Vostok" to the coffee route next to it. Both spaceships passed
past American surveillance stations at a distance of about five kilometers from this
from it, and created the impression that the Soviets had somehow managed to manipulate the
Both for a structure flight. According to Vasily Mishin, the deputy of
Korolev, the Soviets were only too happy to help fool the Americans
by themselves.
The pressure of the space race sometimes pushed the Soviets to try the
their luck In ,'64 knowing that the Americans were on the verge of launching a spaceship
With two astronauts, Khrushchev called Korolev and demanded -
According to Mishin - launch of a spacecraft with three cosmonauts
As soon as possible. Because the "Vakshud" spaceship, which they tested, was
Too small to accommodate a crew of that size in full dress, they decided
The Soviets launched the cosmonauts without space suits - and without
Escape seats.
"If it was dangerous? Of course it is," Mishin told James
Harford, “for about 20 seconds of flight before entry
The crew did not have any means of escape in the event of an emergency."
In October, the three defenseless cosmonauts, among them
Konstantin Fauktistov, who helped design the compact spacecraft,
managed to circle the earth 16 times, and defeated without any difficulty
The flight of the two Americans.
On the next flight of the "waxhood", five months later, he passed
Alexey Leonov another scary experience in the race to get ahead of
The Americans on the first spacewalk. The spacesuit for adventure
The first one outside the spacecraft was a last-minute product; time
The unit that the empty suit was sent into space for quality testing, the spacecraft
who carried her destroyed herself. Then a flight also exploded
An unmanned attempt by the "waxhood", designed to gather information
Essential for the humans who will follow her.
With one "waxhood" left inside the hangar, Korolev decided
And his cosmonauts, in spite of everything, to risk a manned flight.
The result was almost a disaster. As soon as Launov got out of the spaceship to
The great void of space, his soft suit inflated like a balloon. in parallel
Discovered that he was unable to move his gloved fingers, or bend
his legs, and the inflated suit is unable to fit through the spaceship's opening.
While risking his life, Leonov reduced the pressure inside his suit,
until it can slide back in.
On the return flight, the automatic return system failed, and Leonov and his partner
Had to navigate manually. For fear of landing on power lines, or worse
From this, in China, the cosmonauts directed the spacecraft's cabin to the Ural Mountains,
And upon landing they got stuck between two fir trees in the deep snow, where they were forced
to wait a whole night before being rescued. Of course, none of these glitches
Not published before a quarter of a century had passed. on the first spacewalk
The Russians boasted of another victory over the Americans. Leonov,
Currently a very friendly manager in one of the private banks in Moscow,
Rejects danger. "We went into it with our eyes open," he said
says "All in all I was a test pilot. If we were all careful
Time, the result was a certain loss in the race."
With the accumulation of acceleration of Korolev's lunar program, during ,'65
He had to fear not only the Americans - that with their big missile,
The "Saturn" has already begun to yield promising results in indoor flights
The Earth's gravitational field - but also from his fellow engineers,
who yearned to be part of the action. Prominent among them was Vladimir
Chalomi, under the auspices of the Ministry of Aviation, ran a planning office that specialized in missiles
cruising. Chelomi, an overbearing and bad-tempered technical genius, spent most of it
His life designing missiles for the army, and thus he lived and died under a shroud of secrecy
Even tighter than Korolev's.
In a guest house near the cruise missile factory that Chelomi ran outside
Vladimir Polianchek shows me to Moscow, who was one
From his senior engineers, a bundle of neat handwritten notes.
Polyanchek copied them specifically from historical documents
buried in the factory archives.
During the two-hour meeting, he presents a convincing argument, according to which
Chelomi's moon plan was better than his plan
Korolev. This is not a very common claim, partly because
Korolev's heirs are the ones writing the memoirs, but
In view of Poliachenko's words, it is easy to wonder if the Soviets are prisoners
In Korolev's charms, don't bet on the wrong genius.
Chellumi, an expert in thermodynamics, expressed open contempt for the missile of
Korolev, on his 30 engines. He claimed it was almost impossible to sync
the vibrations of so many engines. But since Korolev
Dressed already on the manned landing, Chalomi made a proposal
An alternative to flying people around the moon. His plan included using
In a large rocket, called "Proton", which was almost completed and relied on
Glushko's engines with the toxic fuel, to launch a huge spacecraft
to orbit the moon.
Towards the end of '65, a committee of experts approved the plan by a majority of 47
scientists and engineers who supported it, compared to only three opponents,
All from Korolev's lab. "We thought orbiting the moon was more
Realistic, considering the shortness of time," says Polyachenko. "We were
It is believed that it would be easier to get a flight that would pass over the surface of the moon,
And help solve the more difficult problem of landing on the moon."
Chelomi was not completely ignorant of the art of politics. He had enough sense
to employ Khrushchev's son, Sergei, as a missile engineer, but he
could not compete with the manipulative cunning of
Korolev. About a month after the publication of the decision, Korolev convened a meeting
in his offices in Podlipki and revealed his latest plot. now wanted
Korolev to expand his plan to a flight that would attack the moon in the process
Using a missile that will be a hybrid between Chelomi's missile and his N1,
When his spaceship will be assembled in the head.
In fact, Chelomi was supposed to provide the truck that would transport the cargo
of Korolev around the moon. At the end of '65, this program was added to the mandate
of Korolev, and Chelomi - although he continued to promote his missile
For the purpose of flights to the moon - practically remained out of business.
But by taking over his colleague's plan, Korolev strained it further
more his own powers. "These two programs consumed a lot
resources and effort, and they were not technologically related," he says
The engineer Chertok, who at the age of 87 writes about this period in the fourth volume
of his memories. "There was nothing in common between them except one
from the rocket stages. These are different spacecraft, different guidance systems,
different engines and so on. So we were actually chasing two rabbits
Different".
Inside the Kremlin, irritation prevailed that the Americans had behaved more
Soviets from the Soviets. Korolev's writings, published
In the latter, they include lists he made during a stormy meeting of senior officials
At the party, where they argued angrily about the rival rockets they named
"Private interests" over "common interests of the state". one
The leaders read: "Look how the Americans managed to take over
Their 'capitalist antagonism'".
This point is perhaps one of the most endearing paradoxes of the race
into space: while the Americans, those gladiators of the free market,
They set up a large bureaucracy and marched their industry to the effort
Collectively, the so-called unified economy of the Soviet Union fell apart
in a greedy fight.
In '66, the Soviets' ambitions in space suffered a blow. Korolev, son
59, died in a Kremlin hospital, during an operation to remove a tumor
Crayfish from his gut. After his death, his identity was allowed to be published and he was buried together
With other heroes of the Soviet state within walls
The Kremlin. Maps were changed to name streets, towns,
Even to one of the craters on the moon. Either way, the burden of continuing the race
It fell on the shoulders of Korolev's deputy, Vasili Mishin, an engineer
Good, but lacking the charisma or political talents of Moro
and many
Meanwhile, in North America, the United States enjoyed a boom of
Innovations in space. In March '66 they were the first Americans to connect
Two spaceships in space, and during the year they perfected the art of meetings
These Russians, who continued to mess with the "Soyuz" spaceship, spent a year
intact without any manned flight.
According to the intelligence reports, the Americans thought it was the Soviets
There is no chance of placing a man on the moon before 70. The estimate was
that they would prefer to try a manned flight around the moon, to "provide
A balance to the propaganda value of a successful US moon landing".
However, in January '67, the Americans suffered a blow. electrical fire
ignited the oxygen-rich air inside the Apollo 1 spacecraft and burned
Three astronauts, Grissom, White and Chappie, who participated in the exercise
training. This tragedy meant a delay of several months
In the Apollo program, which breathed a renewed spark of hope in hearts
The Soviets win the race. Their optimism even skyrocketed
Korolev's hybrid to orbit the moon succeeded in circling the Earth
eight times.
While the technicians were tinkering with the machines, the Russian cosmonauts were
Busy with intensive training, both for landing, and for
A flight to the moon. To prepare the cosmonauts for the possibility
of visual navigation in the skies of the southern hemisphere, says
Alexei Leonov, the Soviets flew them to Somalia, a country that was
At that time friendly with Moscow.
"It was important for us to know the skies of the south, in case there was a failure in the system
The landing and we will have to navigate manually", explains Leonov. "they
They took us to the desert at night, away from the city lights. We lay on our backs
And we looked at the stars, and in the morning we were asked to draw the stars from inside
The memory".
For the purpose of simulating the dangers of landing on the moon, says Leonov,
The cosmonauts took off over the training field in helicopters and then
Turn off the engines and practice manual landing.
But in April '67 the Soviets were delayed by a disaster of their own. Cosmonaut
took off into space for an essential test of the "Soyuz" spacecraft, which was
is supposed to participate in the mission of landing on the moon. The plan was to launch
A second spaceship
and make the first manned connection of the Soviets. Except in a spaceship
The first one had a malfunction, and during the early return attempt it was wrapped
The chute around the return chamber. The cabin crashed to the ground and the cosmonaut
Inside it, Vladimir Komarov, was killed. It was 18 months ago
that the Soviets risked another launch of the "Soyuz".
To this day there is a debate surrounding the question of whether the Soviets, in comparison
For Americans, raced with less respect for the risks to passengers
Human (during visits to the "Mir" space station, astronauts
Americans were shocked to find cables passed without a second thought
Through sealing doors that should block dangerous modules in case of
fire or other emergency). The fact is that the space program of
The Russians had fewer casualties than the American plan. Additionally
For this, after the fatal "Soyuz" crash, the Russians formulated rules
More rigid, which required a series of clean unmanned flights
Mishaps before people are launched to orbit the moon.
Mark Wade, who runs the "Aeronautics" encyclopedia on the Internet,
Claims that it is possible that these new security rules prevented the Russians
from defeating the Americans in an impressive flight around the moon. rocket ship
Soviet that orbited the moon and crashed into the Indian Ocean,
In September '68, it could have accommodated cosmonauts, if not for caution
Soviet after the "Soyuz" disaster.
Three months later three astronauts circled Apollo
8 the moon ten times, broadcast a Christmas message from there on the radio
and took the unforgettable photo of the Earth rising above me
the moon
Around the drawing table and in the planning labs, the competition is never
Slowing down - even when the Americans seemed to be pulling away. Korolev,
who always rushed to the launch pad, never over-relied on
Static testing of its components - and this policy continued
after his death. Assembling the necessary equipment for a test run of a rocket engine
On the ground it was a matter of time and money. Build the missile, launch
him, examine the mistakes, and then build the next missile that will be
Better - that was Korolev's way. "He was a gambler",
Says Sergei Khrushchev. The Apollo engineers, unlike him,
We tested all the ingredients on the ground and made rockets that normally flew
on the first try.
On February 21, '69 knowing that the Americans were months away
A few minutes from launching to the moon, Korolev's followers pressed the button
In the first unmanned test of the giant rocket with 30 engines,
The same rocket designed to carry cosmonauts to the moon. The missile took off
The launch followed majestically, but after 68 seconds the tremors caused
The audacity to break one of the fuel pipes. Boiling fuel leaked into a part
the tail and caused a short circuit shutting down all the engines. The missile crashed
54 km from the launch site.
On July 3, the Russians tried again. This time, when the missile was about to enter
At full thrust, one of the engines apparently blew a screw
and exploded. When the giant rocket lifted off then the launch, a system began
The safety shut down the engines one by one, except for a single engine
which remains lit, enough to tilt the missile to its side. The missile was launched
To the ground, a huge ball of flames that left the launch pad in ruins
sooty
One last attempt is made to steal the glory from the Americans, wait
before they land on the moon. In the first months of '69, a team worked
of engineers around the clock to complete assembly of a research vehicle
staffed. The Russians hoped that the vehicle could, for the first time, scratch
A sample from the lunar soil and return with it to Earth. the robot
The motor, called "Luna", was number 15 in the series, and was launched on the 13th
In July it seemed that all the faults in the spaceship had been fixed. But the landing gear
of the robot did not work, and on July 20, when Neil Armstrong walked on
The moon, it was stuck in orbit around the brick. The next day it crashed
The little robot on the moon.
That third week of July the race was finally over. transmission
The telecast of the American moon landing, the live broadcast of the century,
Blocked for reception in most of the territory of the Soviet Union, except for a minority
Chosen - the generals and leaders of the party, as well as senior members of the lunar team
the soviet Ordinary Russians received only a brief account of the journey
In the night news, the fifth item in the news edition, after the salute
To the Soviet metal deaf and a celebration of Poland's liberation day.
At the missile design center in Podlipki, the missile engineers crowded together
The Russians and cosmonauts, until recently the rulers of the cosmos, around
The flickering black and white grounds to watch the final victory of
their opponents. When the "spider" gently descended into the "Sea of Tranquility",
And an interpreter translated Armstrong's words into Russian, she remained
Silence - the result of the mixture of awe and disappointment, jealousy and tension.
After that explosion that destroyed the launch pad of the N-1 were required
Two years to build a new launcher nearby. From there the Russians operated
Third test, in June '71. The missile crashed 16 km away
and blew up a large crater in the salty ground, inside of which lie fragments of
This very day. You can collect them there as a souvenir, like fragments of
Berlin Wall. In November '72, a fourth rocket took off high into the sky,
And with it, the Russians' hopes soared for 107 seconds, until they exploded
In the tail area she destroyed it.
Most of the graduates of the program and also some western experts believe
that Korolev's engineers were close to completing the coordination of 30
the engines, and that the fifth experiment was likely to succeed. Delegations of
Missile manufacturers pleaded that the Americans could still be outgunned,
Build a base on the moon, a stop on the way to the planets, but patience
The statesmen cocooned. the missile program
Lasted until 74, when Valentin Glushko was appointed to head it.
Korolev's grumpy rival. Glushko stopped the project immediately
and sought to erase his existence from public memory. after a failed attempt
revive the missile he himself designed. He died in .1989
Unfired N-1 missiles were dismantled, and their parts were recycled. in the vicinity of
In Iconor, they were turned into sandboxes in children's playgrounds,
For gazebos for picnic tables, for feeding troughs for pigs.
"Our leaders didn't listen to us," says Mishin, the successor of
Korolev. "When we said we were ready to do it better
from the americans
Later, but better - they said no." On the felled machine
the responsibility for defeat. He was reprimanded by the Central Committee of
The party was fired, and his name was dropped from the Soviet Space Encyclopedia.
For the Americans, the magic of Apollo expired on December 19, 1972
When the last of the 12 Americans who visited the moon took off from there reading
A graceless farewell: "Let's get the junk out of here." Haven't stepped on it since
a man's hand on the moon,
And there are no plans to return there.
Today the Russian space program is kneeling under the burden of the economic depression, lack
The public interest and political tensions. Baikonur participates in the assembly
A new international space station, an American initiative, but the Russians
were incorporated into the project in a framework reminiscent of a relief program, to help prevent
the complete collapse of the Russian economy. Those Russians who are not
Apathetic about the space program tend to regard space flights as nonsense
expensive of the government, or worse, as another arena in which the Americans
The braggarts look up to their defeated rivals from the Cold War.
Among the Russian participants in the race to the moon, nostalgia for the program is mixed
The space is a bigger disappointment. They speak bitterly of loss
The sense of purpose, the wasted human potential, the humiliation in my face
the west The scapegoat Mishin, today 82 years old, dedicated the decade
The last of the attempts to purify himself. His spirit seems to have been lost
insult.
"I was accused of failing to defeat the Americans," says Mishin
Indignantly, "But everyone knew from the beginning that the Americans would win.
When Korolev died, it was already completely clear." Towards the end of the interview
He longed for the days of Stalin, whose brutal methods,
He claims, exaggerated. The new International Space Station, is
Presumably, it must have been intended to disguise some new military advantage of
the americans
"We had a moon plan because the Americans had a moon plan",
says Fukzitov, an engineer-cosmonaut, robust and sharp even at the age of 73
He lives comfortably in a residential building erected on the path
Ex-cosmonauts, manned by a military guard who keeps out trouble. currently,
Although he continues to teach at a technical school, he tends to see the
This whole long Olympics of manned spaceflight is bullshit
ridiculed "When I talk about the stupidity of the Soviet program, the thing
The same is true for the American plan. These decisions have not been made
by scientists. They were accepted by politicians, and for what?"
The most interesting discovery about the moon itself, he says, is the possibility
That there is water at the poles of the moon was discovered by an unmanned robot
Sent 26 years after the last man left the moon. "In terms of
Engineering, the Apollo program was an impressive achievement. But what was
The result? They returned with several hundred kilograms of stones. No
We even obtained an item of information about the origin of the moon, for example. the americans
25 billion dollars were wasted on luxury. for 25 billion dollars
They could have done something more interesting."
*
© Published in "Haaretz" on 07/23/1999
The knowledge website was until 2002 part of the IOL portal from the Haaretz group
