Von Hardesty - Epic Rivalry

Sergei Khrushchev (left) with his father, Nikita, seven years after the fathers 1964 removal from power.

Foreword by Dr. Sergei Khrushchev

I had just turned 22 when, on October 4, 1957, the first man-made satellite was launched from the Baikonur launch site, which at that time still had the same name as the closest train stationTyuratam. I cannot say that I was surprised, since for the previous 10 years I had been an avid reader of science fiction that portrayed mans adventures in outer space. The stories were published en masse in the Soviet Union. For college students and schoolchildren of that time, the idea of a flight beyond Earths atmosphere would be an extraordinary achievement but not a feat beyond the realm of possibility. We were more perplexed that the satellite had not been launched sooner.

Humankind had been preparing for a spaceflight for several decades. In Russia, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had spelled out the basic formulas for a spaceflight; in the United States, Robert Goddard had launched his model rockets; and in Germany, Hermann Oberth had tested rocket prototypes. Any one of these countries could have been the first, but the Soviet Union was destined to pave the way.

Why? There were some very pragmatic reasons for the Soviet triumph. After World War II, only two competing powers were left: the United States and the Soviet Union. In the postwar era, nobody would have been surprised if these two countries had gone to war. Both sides were certainly preparing for it. In the 1950s, the United States enjoyed indisputable superiority, having ringed the Soviet Union with air bases. American strategic bombers were capable of turning any Soviet city into another Hiroshima or Dresden. The leadership of the Soviet Union feared a nuclear catastrophe and did everything possible to avoid it.

But how to avert such a catastrophe? Soviet bombers were incapable of striking any target in the United Stateseven theoretically. The Kremlin had no option but to call for peaceand, feverishly, to seek a military option to oppose Americas offensive and destructive air power. The situation became particularly nerve-racking in July 1956 after U-2 spy planes started flying regularly over Soviet territory, even missions over Moscow and Leningrad. No one had any doubts: The U-2s were identifying targets just as the Germans had done in the spring of 1941 before they attacked the Soviet Union.

Soviet scientists proposed that intercontinental ballistic missiles could ensure parity with America. But no one could figure out how they would fly the distance of 5,000 miles to reach targets on the other side of the world. Nevertheless, Soviet leaders, including Nikita Khrushchev, regarded rockets as a way to provide a measure of national security.

Renowned aircraft designer Semyon Lavochkin started developing an intercontinental missilea flying bomb, as it was called back thena design with a ramjet developed by Mikhail M. Bondaryuk. Meanwhile, Sergei Korolev, then a relatively unknown figure, promised to solve the problem by means of a ballistic missile. Born in 1907, Korolev had devoted his life to aeronautics. As a youth, he had built gliders, then boost-glide aircraft, and in the mid-1930s he actually succeeded in building rockets. Korolev also ended up in the gulagwhere by all accounts he narrowly escaped death. His imprisonment could be traced to his rocket research and the fact that Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, a big proponent of rocket building, had fallen out of favor with Stalin. But Korolev did not perish in the camps; he was miraculously saved. At the time of the war, Korolev was in prison, freezing in temperatures of 40F below zero. He was returned to the mainland and was assigned to build rocket boosters for military bombers. In this prison workshop, Korolev drew his blueprints, while two hefty guards watched over him and his work.

The Soviet views started to change in 1945, when it came to light that the Germans were far ahead of the Allies in rocket technology. Stalin ordered the release of all rocket specialists whom he had not yet executed, assigned them military ranks of colonel or captain, and sent them off to Germany to seek out remnants of the advanced German rocketry. Given the rank of lieutenant colonel, Korolev was assigned to conduct research on the German V-2far from a lofty assignment.

Sergei Korolev, a born leader, did not stay long in a third-rate position; a few years later, he had already become Chief Rocket Designer. In the grand scheme of the military, this was not a great position, but within the Arms Ministry it was quite significant. Korolev designed his R-1, R-2, and R-3 rockets based on the V-2. He also eclipsed his opponents. Under the pretext of maintaining secrecy, Korolev barred his most dangerous rivalsthe captive German rocket specialists under the leadership of Helmut Grttrupfrom all practical work and sent them to the comfortable island of Gorodomlya in Lake Seliger, halfway between Moscow and Leningrad. From there the well-disciplined Germans kept sending quite promising proposals to Moscow. They far surpassed the work done by Korolev himself, but the reports ended up on Korolevs desk for review, after which they ended up in the archives. Most of the imprisoned Germans, including the rocket scientists, had been sent back home to Germany by the mid-1950s. This agreement coincided with German Chancellor Konrad Adenauers visit to Moscow in September 1955. Korolev finally sighed with relief.

It was a little more complicated to get rid of another Soviet GermanMikhail Yangela talented engineer who was Korolevs immediate boss during the first stage of his work. However, Korolev managed to send him to Dnepropetrovsk to ensure the manufacture of his rockets at the production line facility. Thus, Korolev was left alone, and his finest hour arrived.

The development of an intercontinental R-7 missile got under way in 1954. Following the first hydrogen bomb test in the Soviet Union in August 1953, military customers insisted on equipping their principal weapon with a three-megaton thermonuclear charge. Andrei Sakharov conducted an analysis, and he reported that the charge would weigh about five tons. Overall, it was projected that the warhead would weigh 6.5 tons, including the charge itself, heat-resistant coating, plus everything else. As it turned out, Sakharov had made a mistake, and the thermonuclear charge turned out to be lighter. However, his mistake would predetermine the success of Soviet astronautics for many years to come.

Korolev had shed himself of his rivals, but he was in need of talented specialistssomething he understood very well. Then he and everyone around him got incredibly lucky when Mikhail Tikhonravov appeared on the horizon. Seven years older than Korolev, Tikhonravov had taught him how to build rockets in the 1930s. Unlike Korolev, Tikhonravov had not been arrested for some reason. He was drafted into the army, where he served all these years quietly and inconspicuously, collected butterflies, and dreamed about a rocket flying into space.