I see Earth. It's so beautiful.
Yuri Gagarin and the legacy of Soviet space flight.
Yuri Gagarin, a twenty-seven year old Red Air Force test pilot, became the first man in space on 12 April 1961. His Vostok 1 computer-controlled flight lasted nearly two hours, ending with a surreal scene of the cosmonaut landing in the field of an old woman, her granddaughter, and their cow. Gagarin, who died seven years later, had become iconic of both manned space flight and of the socialist ideal of the New Soviet Man. Born on a collective farm, Gagarin spent his adult life serving the Soviet state as a military pilot and cosmonaut.
The unknown true hero of 12 April 1961 was not Gagarin but Sergei Korolev. Korolev was the chief rocket designer for the Soviet space program, creating the R-7 rocket that would not only launch Sputnik I (also designed by Korolev), but be the basis for the first ICBM as well. Korolev's design efforts are evident in every Soviet success in space, from Sputnik to Gagarin to Soyuz; the first lunar flyby, the first landing on another celestial body, the first spacewalk. At the time, however, Korolev was unknown. Officially and in press reports he was only referred to as "The Chief Designer." The Soviet space program was meant to be seen as an extension of the Soviet state, and not the product of a single genius engineer. Consequently, Korolev's identity and contributions went unacknowledged.
By 1965, however, much had changed. With the Gemini program, the United States had finally begun to make competitive gains in space. Korolev could only respond with gimmickry, such as squeezing three cosmonauts into the Voskhod 1 by sacrificing the cosmonauts' protective space suits. One of the three aboard, Vladimir Komarov, became the first man to die during a space mission when his Soyuz 1 crash landed. Korolev's N-1 rocket, a massive craft designed for manned lunar landings, had run into design limitations the Soviets were unable to overcome. Its thirty engines did not provide enough lift for the mission, and adding more was not feasible.
Soviet Premier Khrushchev had been deposed in October of the previous year, in the midst of the Voskhod 1 flight. With his removal, Korolev lost his primary ally in the Politburo. Furthermore, with his dream of a manned lunar landing slipping away, his health began to fail. By January 1966, he was dead. Only then did the Soviet public learn his name. The N-1 project never produced a successful flight, and was cancelled officially in 1974. It would take another fifteen years before the Soviet government acknowledged its existence. By then, the Soviet space program was a rapidly fading husk of its former self, as the entire Soviet nation was.
12.04.2004 © ljr