Chapter 0: The Race to the moon
The 1950s and 1960s were a period of transformation for the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev would take control of the USSR following the death of the Man of Steel and began a process of destalinization and reform. Meanwhile the Americans and the Soviets looked to the sky and dreamed of setting foot upon the moon.
Communist Reformist takes hold
When Nikita Khrushchev gave his secret speech denounce Stalin and his cult of personality, he began a process of reforms that began to spread throughout all of the Soviet Sphere of Influence. The most important being Hungary where there was concern that reforms were going to lead to the members of the Warsaw pact leaving the Pact. When Imre Nagy decided to stay with the Warsaw Pact, it allowed brought changes throughout the bloc.
The Hungarian Crisis
For the Soviet Union, the first test of the Cold War was the Hungarian Crisis. Tensions between hardliners and Reformers, the Hungarians and the Soviets and the general cold war atmosphere resulted in a tense crisis in 1956. Protests against hardliners, and soviet troops lead to protests and demonstrations in 1956.
As the conflict spread, and there was fighting between more radical protesters and hardliners, Imre Nagy would find himself as leader of the protest movement. A number of demands by the protesters would be made which included having the soviet troops leave Budapest and possibly even all of Hungary, but also making worker’s councils have more power.
Back in Moscow, hardliners in the Soviet Union wanted to bring in the tanks. This faction was lead by Molotov. It was argued that the Hungarians were filled with fascists who wanted to make Hungary a capitalist country and join NATO. Khrushchev and more importantly Zhukov were on the side of not intervention. It was argued that these fears were being played up. Zhukov was recorded as saying "We should withdraw troops from Budapest, and if necessary withdraw from Hungary as a whole. This is a lesson for us in the military-political sphere."
The Presidium of the Soviet Union would adopt a Declaration of the Government of the USSR on the Principles of Development and Further Strengthening of Friendship and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and other Socialist States. Which would proclaim: “The Soviet Government is prepared to enter into the appropriate negotiations with the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and other members of the Warsaw Treaty on the question of the presence of Soviet troops on the territory of Hungary.”.
What this amounted to in the end was the fact that Soviet troops would for the most pull out of Hungary, though a few key military bases would remain. Imre Nagy would be able to bring reforms to Hungary which included greater support for Worker’s councils in both economic and political affairs; though the Hungarian Communist party still was running and calling the shots. Moreover, Hungary would remain a member of the Warsaw pact. The more anti-communist and nationalist elements of the protest would be crushed with Hungarian forces.
The resolution of the Hungarian Crisis would have an effect throughout the Socialist East. In Poland it gave support to reformers who were having their own conflict and allowed Władysław Gomułka to take power. In Romania, students from Bucharest would work to bring reforms
Famously Nikita Khrushchev himself would point to this example saying that Socialism has a human face, and then contrasted it with American Capitalism which fought any attempt for a leftist democracy, including supporting Franco and Salazar and other right wing dictators. Despite the rhetoric and despite the reforms, the Communist parties in the various countries in the east remained squarely in control of the government and hardly tolerated few threats to its power regardless of which country you were looking at.
Kosygin Reforms
[Alexei Kosygin the architect behind the reforms]
As mentioned reformers were able to gain power during the time Khrushchev was in charge, which would last till 1971. Many were simple opportunists wanting power at the expense of the hardline Stalinist, but others like Kosygin were actually interested in bringing about modern socialism as they termed it. Catchup and overtake the West was the motto that they believed in.
In 1965 Kosygin would bring about a number of economic reforms that would have lasting impact upon the Soviet Union for sometime. A centerpiece of these changes was the introduction of profitability and sales as the two key indicators of enterprise success. Some of an enterprise's profits would go to three funds, used to reward workers and expand operations; most would go to the central budget.
They reflected some long-simmering wishes of the USSR's mathematically oriented economic planners, and initiated the shift towards a more decentralized economic planning process. Something that would be greatly accelerated once Kosygin took the helm of state. Their was also the goal of catching up and overtaking the west not just in heavy industrial goods, but consumer goods and electronics. It would take time but these reforms would improve the quality of life for the people of the USSR.
The Space Race
For most of the 1960s, it was the Space Race that captured the minds and imagination of the public across the world. For the 1960s there was an obvious prize, the Moon. The early part of the Space Race was more trial and error. For all the successes that the Soviets and the Americans had, there were still plenty of near-misses and exploding rockets that took the lives of people.
Vostok and Mercury
[Yuri Gagarin the First man in space]
The first Soviet Space Program would be founded in 1961 out of several design bureaus. In order to prevent espionage from the american CIA, it was titled Ministry of General Machine-Building Industry of the USSR or Министерство общего машиностроения СССР, or just MoM for short. It would be lead at first by Sergei Korolev and then later Sergei Khrushchev. It was precisely the fact that Premier’s son was working under Korolev that gave him more funding and connections to advance the Soviet Space Program.
The first human being to enter space did so on April 12, 1961. Yuri Gagarin, aged 27, was the Soviet cosmonaut who piloted the single man Vostok-1 mission. He would be the first man in space, and the first man to do an orbital flight around the earth, a feat that would take the Americans a full year to accomplish with Project Mercury. The flight would last an hour and a half as Gagarin completed one orbit before landing in a farm in the Russian Countryside. He would be given a hero’s welcome after returning from space and this was used by the USSR as what Communism can bring.
The Americans however would take on this challenge in 1962 as John Glenn became the first American to Orbit the Earth. Friendship-7, officially known as Mercury Atlas-6, lifted off from Cape Canaveral on February 20th 1962 carrying the brave as astronaut at its helm. John Glenn would stay in space just under five hours, during which he orbited the earth three times, before he landed in the Pacific Ocean.
Previously NASA's human spaceflight career had included two Suborbital Mercury missions lasting just five minutes each. This was a major step forward for NASA and the United States in the Space Race. It was largely about sending a message that the United States could compete with the Soviet Union in orbital spaceflight. The US would continue with the Mercury program sending more astronauts up into space to replicate Glenn’s accomplishment.
The creation of a Centralized Soviet Space Agency resulted in a number of changes in spacecraft and vehicle development decisions. One early decision was the upgrading of the Vostok to accomplish the goals of Extra-vehicular Activity, Multi-crew missions as well as long duration missions, double flights between two Vostok capsules and to test hardware necessary for the later lunar mission.
Vostok 3 had another capability beyond even this interesting novelty. Mated to the side of the vehicle was an inflatable makeshift airlock for the purposes of Extravehicular activities, otherwise known as EVAs. While Pavel Popovich waited inside Vladimir Komarov found his moment of inspirational awe outside as he floated gracefully about, his name would soon join the ranks of Gagarin and Glenn because of this.
They would spend the time working on science experiments about how the how the human body adapted to being in the weightlessness of Space. The crew would also set a new record of one day and two hours in space. There was a brief scare on the return flight as the service module failed to separate on re-entry. Despite this, the crew returned to Earth unscathed.
The Space Race is on
[A group photo of some of the early Soviet Cosmonauts]
Korolev had been training a second cosmonaut group for sometime notable in that they were composed entirely of women. He had hoped to beat the Americans to another victory in the Space Race due to intelligence reports that NASA was planning an orbit with a woman on board. Unknown to the Soviets however, the Americans would later cancel the program.
A day after the launch of Vostok 5, Valentina Terreshkova and Irina Solovyova took their own place in history as the first women in space. After one day of intensive biomedical research on the female body's reaction to weightlessness the two returned to Earth upon much fanfare.
The Soviet Union had now sent the first satellite into orbit, the first living animal into orbit, the first man into space and orbit, the first men to live in space for multiple days, had performed the first spacewalk, the first multi-crew missions, the first double flights between manned spacecraft, the first Extravehicular activity and the first women into space. All this with just an average of two manned missions per year. Hope for the future was high among the Soviets.
With no piloted American space flights planned for 1964, the Soviets remained the technological unmatched superpower in manned space leadership.Meanwhile, just as the Americans were planning for Gemini and Apollo, the Soviets were preparing for their next giant leap beyond upgrading old Vostok hardware.
Vostosk’s end and Korelov’s end
[Sergei Korolev, the Chief Designer of the Soviet Space program]
Despite the initial lead in the Space Race the Soviets had, the soviets were concerned at the pace that Americans were catching up. With the exception of sending a woman into space, most of the accomplishments that the Soviets were doing in Space were being replicated by the US, and at a faster rate.
Compounding this was Sergei Korolev’s failing health. He had already suffered one heart attack, as well suffered a kidney disorder, along with intestinal bleeding, cardiac arrhythmias, and to make things even worse he was beginning to grow deaf. These ailments were likely caused by the time that he spent in Stalin’s Gulag, though the stress of the job certainly did not make things easy on him.
A month before the Vostok 12 was scheduled to launch, Korolev had checked himself into a hospital in Moscow for colon surgery, as he had been diagnosed with cancer the year earlier; something which he hid from his colleagues. Unfortunately, a tumor had been discovered and in their attempts to remove it, the doctors kept Korolev under anesthetic for little over five hours. His heart was unable to take the ordeal and upon January 14th 1966, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev died upon the operating table as the doctors were trying to save his life.
In his memory the R-7 carrying Vostok 12 cannon balled into the depths of outer space, February 22nd 1966. There never was a Vostok 11 because of designation complications resulting from the unmanned Kosmos test launch. The Vostok 12 would be the last launch of the Vostok rocket.
The Race to the Moon
The end of the 1960s brought about a race to the Moon. The US Apollo Missions and the Soviet Soyuz mission both sought to become the first to make it to the moon..The scientific knowledge that would come from such a mission was obviously important, but both the Americans and the Soviets had a bigger reason for wanting to reach the moon, Propaganda. Whoever got to the moon first would score a massive propaganda coup for their side in the cold war.
The New Rockets
Following Korolev’s death, Sergei Khruschev would take over as the Chief Designer for MoM. The plans that were being prepared to go to the moon were facing immediate problems that need to be resolved. From engine issues to the fact that the payload weight had to be increased, Khruschev had his work cut out for him.
First tests of the Soyuz Rockets had a number of issues. While the first test got into space it would malfunction on the re-entry and crash somewhere in the countryside. The second attempt failed to get off the ground where it would explode after failing to get off the ground and killed one person and injured many others.
Because of these failures, not to mention the numerous close calls that happened during the Vostok missions where cosmonauts were nearly killed, it was agreed that the next couple of Soyuz would be unpiloted to see if they even worked. Thankfully the next rocket did not explode and the pod landed back semi-intact in Central Asia, by that it had a 300 mm hole burned through the heat shield on re-entry.
However by the time the Soyuz 1, the first crewed flight was being launched a number of these problems had sorted themselves out for the most part. Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 2 would be launched roughly at the same time, the first on November 27th and the second on November 30th to link up with one and transfer equipment which would be necessary for a future lunar mission After 3.5 hours of Joint flight, the crew of both rockets returned to earth and made a soft landing.
Flying by the moon
By the fall of 1968 the Soviet Space program was regaining its footing after the success of both Soyuz 1 and 2. The Initial Soyuz rockets while they had their problems, new hardware that was developed helped overcome those issues. It was the success of both the crewed Soyuz missions along with the Kosmos satellites that gave the engineers confidence that the n-2 rocket and Soyuz could make it to the moon. Thus plans were being drawn up to perform an orbit flyby around the moon.
Aleksei Leonov and Oleg Markarov were given the assignment for the first trip around the moon. This mission would be the first that the N-2 Proton rocket was launched with a human crew. On September 15, 1968, the cosmonauts stepped up to the tower and entered at what was at the time one of the largest and most powerful rockets.
Soyuz 3 would enter the Moon’s Gravitational influence on September 18th. Numerous photographs, mostly in black and white though a rare few would be captured in color. These color photos of the moon, despite their rarity would soon printed across the newspapers and magazines in both the East and Western blocs, from Time and the New York Times to Pravada and Krasnaya Zvezda. Communications with earth were blacked out as the cosmonauts were flung by the Moon’s gravity around its backside, something which was predicated and prepared for. This allowed mankind to see the far side of the moon for the first time with their own eyes.
The landing on September 22nd was anything but graceful due to the momentary failure of the Service Module to detach from the descent module nearly resulted in mission failure and loss of the entire crew and spacecraft. Down on earth in the Soviet Union, the temporarily uncontrolled re-entry had them preparing for the worst, thankfully the searing heat of reentry solved that problem before another reared its head. While the parachutes worked as planned, due to the failure of the retro-rockets, this was not enough to ensure a soft landing and they would slam into the ground at around 12 m/s or around 26.8 MPH. This would result in serious injuries to both cosmonauts including broken teeth, concussions, multiple fractures, broken bones and serious bleeding. Compounding the issue was the fact that the medical team would arrive late due to the remoteness of their crash landing.
Despite all the sacrifice the entire mission accomplished almost nothing scientifically, much to the dismay of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. This mission was an engineering demonstration mission to prove that the rockets were in working order. So that the more ambitious goal of having the Soviet Flag on the moon could be achieved. The cosmonauts would celebrate in a parade a year later; which the soviet press was happy to work with instead of admitting that things did not go perfectly and that the cosmonauts were heroes of the USSR willing to take any amount of injury and sacrifice for the exploration of the Cosmos and the Pride of the Motherland.
Soviets on the Moon
1969 would be the Year that men walked upon the moon. It was a race that both were aiming for. The Americans had a target date for the Apollo 11 mission, July 16th 1969. The Soviets meanwhile scheduled their flight for June 27th 1969.
The Soviets had chosen for its crew, Vladimir Komarov and Pavel Popovich. The first part of the mission was not crewed at all for it relied upon Zond-12 to orbit the moon to help get sensory data to make sure that nothing unexpected happened. It took a few days later for the readings to get to earth. On July 3rd everything was prepared and the mission began in earnest.
The mission was crewed by two men, Pavel Popovich and Vladimir Komarov. Popovich would stay in the orbital craft while Komarov would land on the moon in the LK spacecraft. Using the signals from Lunokhold 3, Komarov would descend towards the moon’s surface. On July 4 1969 Vladimir Milhaylovich Komarov landed as First human in history on the Moon. He would place down a flag of the Soviet Union. The event was being filmed worldwide, people from across the world watched in awe. For the first time in Human history, mankind set foot on another world. Famously he would quote Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and state:“Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever”.
Komarov would collect samples of Lunar soil and rocks, as well as taking photos of the moon as well as the famous picture of the earth. He also took photos of his LK, the Lunokhod 3 which followed him via remote control, as well as the LK-backup that was at the Lunar horizon.
After 3 hours of EVA activity, he would return to his pod for his first meal upon the Moon and some rest before the descent back to earth. However while he was eating, he suddenly heard a loud bang which was then followed by a hissing sound. The avionic container was depressurized. Which was rather bad considering that it was cooled by nitrogen gas which ventilated through the containers and the electronic equipment started to overheat and then fail. Komarov quickly made a report what had happened before the LK radios went dead.
Down on earth in Baikonur, the mission control reacted with predictable turmoil and consternation. Now it was the turn of LOK Pilot Pavel Popovich, because the LK had a passive rolle in Rendezvous and docking, it was the task of Popovich to manage to catch up the LK and dockt with it. On 5 July at 10:59 the LOK jettison it’s Utility module with it dockt LK and return to Earth. at 8 July around 10:00 the Descent Module entered the Earth's atmosphere for a skip maneuver and re-entered for landing on USSR. The first mission to the moon was a success.
The Eagle has landed
By just a couple of days the Soviets beat the Americans to the moon. However, that did not stop the Americans. They had invested far too much resources to give up now. As with the Soviet mission to the Moon, the American mission was watched across the world. Across America, people turned into the Radio and TV sets to watch more history in the making.
The launch of the Saturn V rocket was an uneventful launch for it was entirely by the book with nothing going wrong. The crew performed the separation and transposition maneuver to dock the Command Module Columbia to the Lunar Module Eagle, and pulled away from the spent third stage. They then settled in for the three-day trip to the Sea of Tranquility.
After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. The next day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module Eagle, manned by Armstrong and Aldrin, separated from the command module, where Collins remained. Two hours later, the Eagle began its descent to the lunar surface, and at 4:17 p.m. the craft touched down on the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong immediately radioed to Mission Control in Houston with his now famous message: “The Eagle has landed.”
At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of schedule, Armstrong opened the hatch of the Lunar Excursion Module, LEM. As he climbed down the module’s ladder, a television camera was attached to the craft to record his progress and beam the signal back to earth. Where people watched with great anticipation. At 10:56 p.m., as Armstrong stepped off the ladder and planted his foot on the moon’s powdery surface, he spoke his famous quote, “that’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Buzz Aldrin would join him on the moon’s surface 19 minutes later and like with Komarov they would plant an American Flag, run scientific tests and gather various lunar rocks for further study back on earth. On July 21st both men were back in the Lunar Module where they would sleep that night upon the moon. Later that day, the Eagle began its ascent back to the command Module. Several items were left behind by the Americans but the most famous was a plague that recognized the accomplishments of both the Soviets and Americans that read: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon–July 1969 A.D–We came in peace for all mankind.”
Finally, humanity was gaining a new perspective. That the Moon and Planets were worlds. No longer a mere point of light, the Moon was forever a world. Soon the Earth would fade into a mere point of light. A new era was beginning. Though the sting of the Soviet victory on the 4th of July of all days would be a national humiliation that would not be forgotten.
The 1950s and 1960s were a period of transformation for the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev would take control of the USSR following the death of the Man of Steel and began a process of destalinization and reform. Meanwhile the Americans and the Soviets looked to the sky and dreamed of setting foot upon the moon.
Communist Reformist takes hold
When Nikita Khrushchev gave his secret speech denounce Stalin and his cult of personality, he began a process of reforms that began to spread throughout all of the Soviet Sphere of Influence. The most important being Hungary where there was concern that reforms were going to lead to the members of the Warsaw pact leaving the Pact. When Imre Nagy decided to stay with the Warsaw Pact, it allowed brought changes throughout the bloc.
The Hungarian Crisis
For the Soviet Union, the first test of the Cold War was the Hungarian Crisis. Tensions between hardliners and Reformers, the Hungarians and the Soviets and the general cold war atmosphere resulted in a tense crisis in 1956. Protests against hardliners, and soviet troops lead to protests and demonstrations in 1956.
As the conflict spread, and there was fighting between more radical protesters and hardliners, Imre Nagy would find himself as leader of the protest movement. A number of demands by the protesters would be made which included having the soviet troops leave Budapest and possibly even all of Hungary, but also making worker’s councils have more power.
Back in Moscow, hardliners in the Soviet Union wanted to bring in the tanks. This faction was lead by Molotov. It was argued that the Hungarians were filled with fascists who wanted to make Hungary a capitalist country and join NATO. Khrushchev and more importantly Zhukov were on the side of not intervention. It was argued that these fears were being played up. Zhukov was recorded as saying "We should withdraw troops from Budapest, and if necessary withdraw from Hungary as a whole. This is a lesson for us in the military-political sphere."
The Presidium of the Soviet Union would adopt a Declaration of the Government of the USSR on the Principles of Development and Further Strengthening of Friendship and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and other Socialist States. Which would proclaim: “The Soviet Government is prepared to enter into the appropriate negotiations with the government of the Hungarian People's Republic and other members of the Warsaw Treaty on the question of the presence of Soviet troops on the territory of Hungary.”.
What this amounted to in the end was the fact that Soviet troops would for the most pull out of Hungary, though a few key military bases would remain. Imre Nagy would be able to bring reforms to Hungary which included greater support for Worker’s councils in both economic and political affairs; though the Hungarian Communist party still was running and calling the shots. Moreover, Hungary would remain a member of the Warsaw pact. The more anti-communist and nationalist elements of the protest would be crushed with Hungarian forces.
The resolution of the Hungarian Crisis would have an effect throughout the Socialist East. In Poland it gave support to reformers who were having their own conflict and allowed Władysław Gomułka to take power. In Romania, students from Bucharest would work to bring reforms
Famously Nikita Khrushchev himself would point to this example saying that Socialism has a human face, and then contrasted it with American Capitalism which fought any attempt for a leftist democracy, including supporting Franco and Salazar and other right wing dictators. Despite the rhetoric and despite the reforms, the Communist parties in the various countries in the east remained squarely in control of the government and hardly tolerated few threats to its power regardless of which country you were looking at.
Kosygin Reforms
[Alexei Kosygin the architect behind the reforms]
As mentioned reformers were able to gain power during the time Khrushchev was in charge, which would last till 1971. Many were simple opportunists wanting power at the expense of the hardline Stalinist, but others like Kosygin were actually interested in bringing about modern socialism as they termed it. Catchup and overtake the West was the motto that they believed in.
In 1965 Kosygin would bring about a number of economic reforms that would have lasting impact upon the Soviet Union for sometime. A centerpiece of these changes was the introduction of profitability and sales as the two key indicators of enterprise success. Some of an enterprise's profits would go to three funds, used to reward workers and expand operations; most would go to the central budget.
They reflected some long-simmering wishes of the USSR's mathematically oriented economic planners, and initiated the shift towards a more decentralized economic planning process. Something that would be greatly accelerated once Kosygin took the helm of state. Their was also the goal of catching up and overtaking the west not just in heavy industrial goods, but consumer goods and electronics. It would take time but these reforms would improve the quality of life for the people of the USSR.
The Space Race
For most of the 1960s, it was the Space Race that captured the minds and imagination of the public across the world. For the 1960s there was an obvious prize, the Moon. The early part of the Space Race was more trial and error. For all the successes that the Soviets and the Americans had, there were still plenty of near-misses and exploding rockets that took the lives of people.
Vostok and Mercury
[Yuri Gagarin the First man in space]
The first Soviet Space Program would be founded in 1961 out of several design bureaus. In order to prevent espionage from the american CIA, it was titled Ministry of General Machine-Building Industry of the USSR or Министерство общего машиностроения СССР, or just MoM for short. It would be lead at first by Sergei Korolev and then later Sergei Khrushchev. It was precisely the fact that Premier’s son was working under Korolev that gave him more funding and connections to advance the Soviet Space Program.
The first human being to enter space did so on April 12, 1961. Yuri Gagarin, aged 27, was the Soviet cosmonaut who piloted the single man Vostok-1 mission. He would be the first man in space, and the first man to do an orbital flight around the earth, a feat that would take the Americans a full year to accomplish with Project Mercury. The flight would last an hour and a half as Gagarin completed one orbit before landing in a farm in the Russian Countryside. He would be given a hero’s welcome after returning from space and this was used by the USSR as what Communism can bring.
The Americans however would take on this challenge in 1962 as John Glenn became the first American to Orbit the Earth. Friendship-7, officially known as Mercury Atlas-6, lifted off from Cape Canaveral on February 20th 1962 carrying the brave as astronaut at its helm. John Glenn would stay in space just under five hours, during which he orbited the earth three times, before he landed in the Pacific Ocean.
Previously NASA's human spaceflight career had included two Suborbital Mercury missions lasting just five minutes each. This was a major step forward for NASA and the United States in the Space Race. It was largely about sending a message that the United States could compete with the Soviet Union in orbital spaceflight. The US would continue with the Mercury program sending more astronauts up into space to replicate Glenn’s accomplishment.
The creation of a Centralized Soviet Space Agency resulted in a number of changes in spacecraft and vehicle development decisions. One early decision was the upgrading of the Vostok to accomplish the goals of Extra-vehicular Activity, Multi-crew missions as well as long duration missions, double flights between two Vostok capsules and to test hardware necessary for the later lunar mission.
Vostok 3 had another capability beyond even this interesting novelty. Mated to the side of the vehicle was an inflatable makeshift airlock for the purposes of Extravehicular activities, otherwise known as EVAs. While Pavel Popovich waited inside Vladimir Komarov found his moment of inspirational awe outside as he floated gracefully about, his name would soon join the ranks of Gagarin and Glenn because of this.
They would spend the time working on science experiments about how the how the human body adapted to being in the weightlessness of Space. The crew would also set a new record of one day and two hours in space. There was a brief scare on the return flight as the service module failed to separate on re-entry. Despite this, the crew returned to Earth unscathed.
The Space Race is on
[A group photo of some of the early Soviet Cosmonauts]
Korolev had been training a second cosmonaut group for sometime notable in that they were composed entirely of women. He had hoped to beat the Americans to another victory in the Space Race due to intelligence reports that NASA was planning an orbit with a woman on board. Unknown to the Soviets however, the Americans would later cancel the program.
A day after the launch of Vostok 5, Valentina Terreshkova and Irina Solovyova took their own place in history as the first women in space. After one day of intensive biomedical research on the female body's reaction to weightlessness the two returned to Earth upon much fanfare.
The Soviet Union had now sent the first satellite into orbit, the first living animal into orbit, the first man into space and orbit, the first men to live in space for multiple days, had performed the first spacewalk, the first multi-crew missions, the first double flights between manned spacecraft, the first Extravehicular activity and the first women into space. All this with just an average of two manned missions per year. Hope for the future was high among the Soviets.
With no piloted American space flights planned for 1964, the Soviets remained the technological unmatched superpower in manned space leadership.Meanwhile, just as the Americans were planning for Gemini and Apollo, the Soviets were preparing for their next giant leap beyond upgrading old Vostok hardware.
Vostosk’s end and Korelov’s end
[Sergei Korolev, the Chief Designer of the Soviet Space program]
Despite the initial lead in the Space Race the Soviets had, the soviets were concerned at the pace that Americans were catching up. With the exception of sending a woman into space, most of the accomplishments that the Soviets were doing in Space were being replicated by the US, and at a faster rate.
Compounding this was Sergei Korolev’s failing health. He had already suffered one heart attack, as well suffered a kidney disorder, along with intestinal bleeding, cardiac arrhythmias, and to make things even worse he was beginning to grow deaf. These ailments were likely caused by the time that he spent in Stalin’s Gulag, though the stress of the job certainly did not make things easy on him.
A month before the Vostok 12 was scheduled to launch, Korolev had checked himself into a hospital in Moscow for colon surgery, as he had been diagnosed with cancer the year earlier; something which he hid from his colleagues. Unfortunately, a tumor had been discovered and in their attempts to remove it, the doctors kept Korolev under anesthetic for little over five hours. His heart was unable to take the ordeal and upon January 14th 1966, Sergei Pavlovich Korolev died upon the operating table as the doctors were trying to save his life.
In his memory the R-7 carrying Vostok 12 cannon balled into the depths of outer space, February 22nd 1966. There never was a Vostok 11 because of designation complications resulting from the unmanned Kosmos test launch. The Vostok 12 would be the last launch of the Vostok rocket.
The Race to the Moon
The end of the 1960s brought about a race to the Moon. The US Apollo Missions and the Soviet Soyuz mission both sought to become the first to make it to the moon..The scientific knowledge that would come from such a mission was obviously important, but both the Americans and the Soviets had a bigger reason for wanting to reach the moon, Propaganda. Whoever got to the moon first would score a massive propaganda coup for their side in the cold war.
The New Rockets
Following Korolev’s death, Sergei Khruschev would take over as the Chief Designer for MoM. The plans that were being prepared to go to the moon were facing immediate problems that need to be resolved. From engine issues to the fact that the payload weight had to be increased, Khruschev had his work cut out for him.
First tests of the Soyuz Rockets had a number of issues. While the first test got into space it would malfunction on the re-entry and crash somewhere in the countryside. The second attempt failed to get off the ground where it would explode after failing to get off the ground and killed one person and injured many others.
Because of these failures, not to mention the numerous close calls that happened during the Vostok missions where cosmonauts were nearly killed, it was agreed that the next couple of Soyuz would be unpiloted to see if they even worked. Thankfully the next rocket did not explode and the pod landed back semi-intact in Central Asia, by that it had a 300 mm hole burned through the heat shield on re-entry.
However by the time the Soyuz 1, the first crewed flight was being launched a number of these problems had sorted themselves out for the most part. Soyuz 1 and Soyuz 2 would be launched roughly at the same time, the first on November 27th and the second on November 30th to link up with one and transfer equipment which would be necessary for a future lunar mission After 3.5 hours of Joint flight, the crew of both rockets returned to earth and made a soft landing.
Flying by the moon
By the fall of 1968 the Soviet Space program was regaining its footing after the success of both Soyuz 1 and 2. The Initial Soyuz rockets while they had their problems, new hardware that was developed helped overcome those issues. It was the success of both the crewed Soyuz missions along with the Kosmos satellites that gave the engineers confidence that the n-2 rocket and Soyuz could make it to the moon. Thus plans were being drawn up to perform an orbit flyby around the moon.
Aleksei Leonov and Oleg Markarov were given the assignment for the first trip around the moon. This mission would be the first that the N-2 Proton rocket was launched with a human crew. On September 15, 1968, the cosmonauts stepped up to the tower and entered at what was at the time one of the largest and most powerful rockets.
Soyuz 3 would enter the Moon’s Gravitational influence on September 18th. Numerous photographs, mostly in black and white though a rare few would be captured in color. These color photos of the moon, despite their rarity would soon printed across the newspapers and magazines in both the East and Western blocs, from Time and the New York Times to Pravada and Krasnaya Zvezda. Communications with earth were blacked out as the cosmonauts were flung by the Moon’s gravity around its backside, something which was predicated and prepared for. This allowed mankind to see the far side of the moon for the first time with their own eyes.
The landing on September 22nd was anything but graceful due to the momentary failure of the Service Module to detach from the descent module nearly resulted in mission failure and loss of the entire crew and spacecraft. Down on earth in the Soviet Union, the temporarily uncontrolled re-entry had them preparing for the worst, thankfully the searing heat of reentry solved that problem before another reared its head. While the parachutes worked as planned, due to the failure of the retro-rockets, this was not enough to ensure a soft landing and they would slam into the ground at around 12 m/s or around 26.8 MPH. This would result in serious injuries to both cosmonauts including broken teeth, concussions, multiple fractures, broken bones and serious bleeding. Compounding the issue was the fact that the medical team would arrive late due to the remoteness of their crash landing.
Despite all the sacrifice the entire mission accomplished almost nothing scientifically, much to the dismay of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. This mission was an engineering demonstration mission to prove that the rockets were in working order. So that the more ambitious goal of having the Soviet Flag on the moon could be achieved. The cosmonauts would celebrate in a parade a year later; which the soviet press was happy to work with instead of admitting that things did not go perfectly and that the cosmonauts were heroes of the USSR willing to take any amount of injury and sacrifice for the exploration of the Cosmos and the Pride of the Motherland.
Soviets on the Moon
1969 would be the Year that men walked upon the moon. It was a race that both were aiming for. The Americans had a target date for the Apollo 11 mission, July 16th 1969. The Soviets meanwhile scheduled their flight for June 27th 1969.
The Soviets had chosen for its crew, Vladimir Komarov and Pavel Popovich. The first part of the mission was not crewed at all for it relied upon Zond-12 to orbit the moon to help get sensory data to make sure that nothing unexpected happened. It took a few days later for the readings to get to earth. On July 3rd everything was prepared and the mission began in earnest.
The mission was crewed by two men, Pavel Popovich and Vladimir Komarov. Popovich would stay in the orbital craft while Komarov would land on the moon in the LK spacecraft. Using the signals from Lunokhold 3, Komarov would descend towards the moon’s surface. On July 4 1969 Vladimir Milhaylovich Komarov landed as First human in history on the Moon. He would place down a flag of the Soviet Union. The event was being filmed worldwide, people from across the world watched in awe. For the first time in Human history, mankind set foot on another world. Famously he would quote Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and state:“Earth is the cradle of humanity, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever”.
Komarov would collect samples of Lunar soil and rocks, as well as taking photos of the moon as well as the famous picture of the earth. He also took photos of his LK, the Lunokhod 3 which followed him via remote control, as well as the LK-backup that was at the Lunar horizon.
After 3 hours of EVA activity, he would return to his pod for his first meal upon the Moon and some rest before the descent back to earth. However while he was eating, he suddenly heard a loud bang which was then followed by a hissing sound. The avionic container was depressurized. Which was rather bad considering that it was cooled by nitrogen gas which ventilated through the containers and the electronic equipment started to overheat and then fail. Komarov quickly made a report what had happened before the LK radios went dead.
Down on earth in Baikonur, the mission control reacted with predictable turmoil and consternation. Now it was the turn of LOK Pilot Pavel Popovich, because the LK had a passive rolle in Rendezvous and docking, it was the task of Popovich to manage to catch up the LK and dockt with it. On 5 July at 10:59 the LOK jettison it’s Utility module with it dockt LK and return to Earth. at 8 July around 10:00 the Descent Module entered the Earth's atmosphere for a skip maneuver and re-entered for landing on USSR. The first mission to the moon was a success.
The Eagle has landed
By just a couple of days the Soviets beat the Americans to the moon. However, that did not stop the Americans. They had invested far too much resources to give up now. As with the Soviet mission to the Moon, the American mission was watched across the world. Across America, people turned into the Radio and TV sets to watch more history in the making.
The launch of the Saturn V rocket was an uneventful launch for it was entirely by the book with nothing going wrong. The crew performed the separation and transposition maneuver to dock the Command Module Columbia to the Lunar Module Eagle, and pulled away from the spent third stage. They then settled in for the three-day trip to the Sea of Tranquility.
After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. The next day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module Eagle, manned by Armstrong and Aldrin, separated from the command module, where Collins remained. Two hours later, the Eagle began its descent to the lunar surface, and at 4:17 p.m. the craft touched down on the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong immediately radioed to Mission Control in Houston with his now famous message: “The Eagle has landed.”
At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of schedule, Armstrong opened the hatch of the Lunar Excursion Module, LEM. As he climbed down the module’s ladder, a television camera was attached to the craft to record his progress and beam the signal back to earth. Where people watched with great anticipation. At 10:56 p.m., as Armstrong stepped off the ladder and planted his foot on the moon’s powdery surface, he spoke his famous quote, “that’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Buzz Aldrin would join him on the moon’s surface 19 minutes later and like with Komarov they would plant an American Flag, run scientific tests and gather various lunar rocks for further study back on earth. On July 21st both men were back in the Lunar Module where they would sleep that night upon the moon. Later that day, the Eagle began its ascent back to the command Module. Several items were left behind by the Americans but the most famous was a plague that recognized the accomplishments of both the Soviets and Americans that read: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon–July 1969 A.D–We came in peace for all mankind.”
Finally, humanity was gaining a new perspective. That the Moon and Planets were worlds. No longer a mere point of light, the Moon was forever a world. Soon the Earth would fade into a mere point of light. A new era was beginning. Though the sting of the Soviet victory on the 4th of July of all days would be a national humiliation that would not be forgotten.
