One Small Step Page 12

  One of the two solar panels did not deploy, resulting in a shortage of power for the spacecraft’s systems. Komarov also had problems orienting Soyuz 1. By orbit 13 the stabilization systems had failed completely. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Komarov even tried to knock the side of the space ship to jar open the stuck panel. Due to dwindling power, he could not stay in space for long. The second Soyuz flight was canceled and plans made for an emergency reentry. The three cosmonauts of Soyuz 2 pleaded to be allowed to launch, arguing that they could perhaps perform a spacewalk to free the jammed solar panel on Soyuz 1. But they were turned down.

  Chertok carefully checked over the set of instructions that Gagarin personally transmitted to Komarov. In the final seconds before loss of contact, Mishin and Kamanin both wished Komarov good luck. At the appointed time the reentry rocket did not fire. Communication with Komarov was reestablished and the problem rectified. Another attempt was made. Komarov did not have many more chances left. Miraculously, Komarov manually oriented Soyuz 1 and managed to fire the rocket to slow the capsule down so that it could reenter the atmosphere—the so-called de-orbit burn. About 15 minutes after retrofire, there was the expected break in communications as Komarov’s capsule entered an ionization layer. A few minutes later, Komarov’s voice cut through the radio silence sounding “calm, unhurried, without any nervousness.”

  The pilot of one of the search-and-rescue helicopters flying east of Orsk reported that he could see the Soyuz capsule. When they reached the landing site it was clear that there had been a disaster. The reentry capsule was lying on its side, and the parachute could be seen alongside. The capsule was surrounded by clouds of black smoke. It was crushed, on fire and completely destroyed. The parachutes had not worked. Komarov’s body was found in the crushed capsule. Medics gathered what they could and a few days later his ashes, like those of Korolev, were interred in the Kremlin Wall after a state funeral. But so great was the destruction of the capsule, that more remains were found later and buried at the crash site.

  Vladimir Komarov, seen here training in a simulated spacecraft, died when the Soyuz 1 craft he was piloting crashed during landing.

  Chasing a Space “Spectacular”

  To add to the problems with the recovery from the Soyuz disaster, Premier Brezhnev wanted a space “spectacular” to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Great October Revolution due in November 1967—preferably a cosmonaut trip around the Moon. Indeed, just days after Komarov’s death, chief designer Mishin set out a new plan for the circumlunar project that envisaged four automated spacecraft flying around the Moon between June and August 1967, followed by three piloted flights occurring in time to make the November 1967 political deadline.

  Many in the West believed that the Moon was the Soviets’ goal. In May 1967 Gemini astronauts Michael Collins and David Scott visited the Paris Air Show at the same time as Soviet cosmonauts Pavel Belyayev and Konstantin Feoktistov. It was only a month after Komarov’s death, and the Americans gave their condolences. What they were told was that there would be several Earth orbital test flights that year followed by a circumlunar flight. Collins later recalled that Belyayev said he expected to make a circumlunar flight in the not-too-distant future. Later that year academician Obraztsov said: “The very next milestone in the conquest of space will be the manned circumnavigation of the Moon, and then a lunar landing.”

  It was clear that the Soyuz docking and spacewalk mission—practice for when the crew transferred to the Lunar Transit Craft (the L1)—would be delayed, and so the plan was changed. There would be no transfer. Instead, cosmonauts would launch in the L1 direct, which would be carried on a more powerful rocket—the Proton. Because of this, two additional automated circumlunar missions were added to the flight sequence, making a total of six robotic flights before a piloted one. If they all went well, there was a chance they could fly a man around the Moon by the November 1967 political deadline.

  Once again it was a highly dangerous strategy. Testing on the spacecraft had hardly started and was beset with poor standards by contractors. Communist Party and government leaders were anxious, knowing that the first launch of the Americans’ mighty Saturn V rocket was due for late 1967, while their own giant N1 booster—the key to their manned landing—was still many months away from launch. In August 1967 Secretary of the Central Committee for Defense and Space Ustinov was infuriated. He told Mishin: “We have a celebration in two months, and the Americans are going to launch again, but what about us? What have we done?” As the summer wore on some degree of sense prevailed. It was realized that the November deadline was impossible. With the pressure off for a little while, Mishin could think instead about beating the Americans to a flight around the Moon. Following the Apollo fire, US manned flights would not take place until mid-1968 at the earliest. It was a breathing space.

  The Saturn V Test

  Something important did take place in the month of the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, however. That was the launch of Apollo 4—the first test, unmanned, of the Saturn V rocket that would take Americans to the Moon. Eighty-nine trucks of liquid oxygen, 28 trucks of liquid hydrogen and 27 of RP-1 (refined kerosene) were delivered to Cape Kennedy to fuel this huge machine. Ignition of the rocket’s first stage saw five mighty F-1 engines burning RP-1 and liquid hydrogen, and providing 7.5 million pounds of thrust. The second stage brought in four powerful J-2 engines burning liquid oxygen and hydrogen. The third-stage engine, a single J-2, also worked flawlessly. Von Braun watched it rise into the sky. He had fulfilled his promise.

  Soviet Moonship Plans Collapse

  In January 1968 the L1 cosmonauts began training in a specially built simulator, carrying out at least 70 trial runs. The following month Mishin and Kamanin agreed on the selection of four crew commanders to train for the first few missions: cosmonauts Bykovsky, Leonov, Popovich and Voloshin. They, along with eight others, were engaged in an intensive program throughout 1967–8, but it seems that they had little confidence in the spacecraft. Kamanin recalled in early March that the cosmonauts were working diligently and knew the craft well:

  Perhaps, it is precisely because the cosmonauts excellently know all the strong and weak points of the craft and the carrier rocket that they no longer have their initial faith in the space hardware.

  There was no lunar launch window in early 1968, so Mishin and Chelomei agreed to launch a test spacecraft out into deep space to a distance of about 205,100 miles (330,000 km)—about the distance to the Moon—and bring it back to Earth, thus simulating an actual circumlunar flight. But there was a feeling of inevitable failure that was difficult to shake off. Kamanin echoes it in his diary:

  All of us need a successful launch like a breath of fresh air. Another failure would bring innumerable troubles and may kill the people’s confidence in themselves and the reliability of our space equipment.

  On March 2, 1968, the test moonship lifted off into a circular Earth orbit. Soon afterward the Block D booster stage fired for 459 seconds to place the craft into an elliptical orbit, with a high point of 220,000 miles (354,000 km)—lunar distance. TASS did not announce anything of note about the launch, except to name the spaceship Zond 4 (“Zond” being the generic Russian word for “probe”). At the end of its mission the spacecraft evidently passed through the atmosphere safely and was about to deploy its parachutes near the West African coast when the emergency destruct system on the descent capsule ignited. Such a destructive charge had been incorporated into the spacecraft for fear that it might fall into Americans hands. Another test flight took place the following month. This time the third stage failed to ignite and the emergency rescue system was activated. The political leadership was extremely worried by the accumulating series of failures in the program. Despite them, Mishin was ordered to accelerate the pace of work on the L1 in order to launch a crew around the Moon by October 1968.

  A test flight around the Moon was scheduled for July, but days before the launch, while the rocket
and spacecraft were being tested on the pad, the Block D stage exploded, killing one person. The aftermath of the accident was extremely dangerous, too, and observers watched in terror. The lunar spacecraft and part of Block D had become unstable, threatening to fall and explode at any time. Engineers risked their lives dismantling the explosive wreckage. The July and August lunar launch windows were abandoned.

  Soyuz Dock in Orbit

  Meanwhile the manned Soyuz flights in Earth orbit were continuing. Two automatic Soyuz craft were prepared in order to practice rendezvous and docking maneuvers. For the first time in the Soyuz program, all of its systems were working without fault when it reached orbit; the solar panels deployed as intended and the Igla (“needle”) radio docking system was functioning correctly. On the second day of the flight there were some minor problems, but the State Commission nevertheless gave the go-ahead for the second Soyuz launch. The craft was launched on October 30. Within 62 minutes of its launch both vehicles were docked—the first automated docking ever carried out. After the vehicles were linked, however, ground controllers discovered that there had not been a “hard” docking, because there was a gap between the two ships. Upon analysis this was considered to be a minor problem, and after three and a half hours the vehicles separated.

  Russia’s “Big” Rocket

  By March 1968, NASA had still to recover from the Apollo 1 tragedy and was still months away from flying a piloted Apollo spacecraft in Earth orbit, let alone in lunar orbit. Many Soviet officials believed that it would take a miracle to successfully carry out a sequential series of successful Apollo missions in the months leading to a first landing by the decade’s end. But in many ways, the Soviets were viewing American capabilities like their own. In a diary entry in March 1968, Kamanin wrote:

  It took us three extra years to build the N1 and the L3, which let the United States take the lead. The Americans have already carried out the first test flight of a lunar spacecraft, and in 1969 they plan to perform five manned flights under the Apollo program.

  In the summer of 1968 the US press was full of rumors about the impending launch of a superheavyweight Soviet rocket comparable to the Saturn V. The head of NASA, James Webb, said:

  There are no signs that the Soviets are cutting back as we are. New test and launch facilities are steadily added, and a number of spaceflight systems more advanced than any heretofore used are nearing completion.

  Later, George Mueller, the NASA Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, told Apollo contractors that the Soviets were developing a “large booster, larger by a factor of two, than our Saturn V.”

  Those responsible for this large booster, the N1, knew it was a gamble. The so-called Council for the Problems of Mastering the Moon met on October 9 to discuss the status of the Soviet lunar landing program. Mishin said that the first N1 flight model would only be able to lift 76 tons, but a modification of the second stage would mean that the 95 tons needed for a lunar landing by a single cosmonaut could be lifted. More improvements might make it possible to take two cosmonauts to the Moon’s surface. Academy of Sciences president Keldysh was one of the strongest supporters of the two-cosmonaut plan, considering sending one cosmonaut as very risky. But then he made the reckless proposal that they should consider landing two cosmonauts on the Moon on the very first launch of the N1! If that was impossible, then the mission should attempt to land a lone cosmonaut. Brezhnev is reported to have said:

  We should prepare for a manned mission to the Moon straight after the first successful launch of the N1, without waiting for it to be finally developed.

  Brezhnev’s demands emphasize the gap between the people building the spacecraft and those who controlled the finances. One could say that the politicians did not understand the true engineering facts of the situation, but then again, the engineers themselves seemed to be turning a blind eye toward them.

  Soviet N1 rockets on the launch pad at TyuraTam in July 1969. The N1 was designed for the Soviet human lunar missions program.

  Earthlings Circle the Moon

  As summer gave way to autumn, the Soviet piloted circumlunar program was getting into deeper trouble. In four tests since late 1967, there had been three complete failures and one partial success—the mission of Zond 4 in March 1968. And another L1 spacecraft had been destroyed during ground preparations for a test launch scheduled to take place in July 1968.

  It was under this cloud that the first of the three remaining L1 spacecraft arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome for a new series of attempts, the first coinciding with the lunar launch window in September. This time the L1 launch was perfect. The Proton booster lifted off on September 15 with the Moon visible tantalizingly above the launch pad. At an altitude of 100 miles (160 km), the third stage ignited, and after a tense 251 seconds the rocket went into a perfect Earth orbit of 119 by 136 miles (191 by 219 km). After a circuit around Earth the Block D fired a second time to send it toward the Moon. Shortly afterward the Soviet press announced the launch, designating the mission Zond 5. It was the first time in their circumlunar program that a spacecraft had been successfully sent toward the Moon. Engineers and cosmonauts were jubilant. A few days later it circled around the Moon at a distance of 1218 miles (1960 km) and was flung onto a return trajectory toward Earth. It splashed down in the Indian Ocean on September 21 and was hauled in by the Soviet navy, which in turn was watched closely by the US navy. The tortoises and other animals onboard survived their ordeal—the first earthlings to go round the Moon.

  The Zond 5 mission was the first real success in the L1 Moon program. It allowed the USSR to make plans for flying a crew on a circumlunar mission in January 1969, dependent upon two more successful L1 flights. The cosmonauts had almost completed their training program, and it was hoped that one of the crews would make history as the first humans to fly from Earth to the Moon. But the men training for a circumlunar mission were not the only cosmonauts preparing for spaceflight in the fall of 1968. By August, cosmonauts Beregovoy, Volynov and Shatalov had completed their preparation for the first piloted Soyuz mission since the Soyuz 1 tragedy more than a year before.

  TIMELINE

  1967 January 27 Three US astronauts die in the fire inside an Apollo spacecraft during on-pad tests

  April 24 Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies on landing after Soyuz 1 test flight

  November 9 The first Saturn V rocket blasts off, carrying an unmanned Apollo 4 spacecraft

  1968 March 2 Russian Proton rocket launches the prototype of the L1 circumlunar spacecraft, designated Zond 4

  July 14 An explosion at the Proton launch complex with L1 (Zond) spacecraft in prelaunch processing kills one person, delaying the program

  September 18 Zond 5, the prototype of the Russian L1 spacecraft for manned circumlunar flight, circles the Moon

  “That was a real kick in the pants”

  RETURN TO FLIGHT

  APOLLO 7, SOYUZ 2, SOYUZ 3 AND ZOND 6

  1968

  The year 1968 saw a resumption of manned space flight by both the Soviet Union and the United States, the first time that either country had launched a human into space since the misfortunes of the previous year. Maneuvers essential for a manned lunar landing—such as docking in space—preoccupied both nations, despite Soviet denials that their immediate goal was a mission to the Moon. However, once the bold plan by the Americans to attempt a manned lunar orbit were known, an opportunity arose for the Soviet Union to steal ahead in the race.

  More by luck than planning, the Soviet “return to flight” Soyuz mission would take place in time for the 51st anniversary of the Great October Revolution. The plan was to carry out a manned repeat of the successful automated docking of a year before—in other words, for a cosmonaut in a manned Soyuz to link up with an automated unmanned Soyuz. The two ships would remain docked for a few hours before separating and carrying out independent missions. Such a conservative rendezvous and docking mission would hopefully lead the way for the long-delayed intership cosmo
naut transfer attempt. The Soviet political leadership was anxious to resume space missions after the long gap, particularly because of NASA’s forthcoming Apollo 7 mission in October—the first manned US spaceflight since the disastrous Apollo 1 fire of January 1967.

  Apollo 7

  The redesigned Apollo capsule was launched as Apollo 7 on October 11, 1968, from launch pad 34 at Cape Kennedy. On board were Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham—the Apollo 1 backup crew. It was not only the United States’ return to flight after the tragedy, but an important shakedown flight to test the cone-shaped Apollo Command Module for the first time in space, along with its associated Service Module. It was also the first manned flight of a Saturn booster, in this case the Saturn 1B variant. It was 68 meters (224 feet) in height, and humans had never ridden into space on a more powerful rocket. Schirra was now 45 years old and making his third spaceflight. Alongside him were two rookies. Knowing that it was almost certainly his last trip into space, Schirra was determined that it should be a perfect mission—and especially his mission. Unfortunately, shortly after liftoff he developed a cold.

  Schirra: We launched on a Friday. I remember this very specifically. In orbit, our so-called Friday night, Donn Eisele was on watch and Cunningham and I were supposed to be sleeping. And I hear Donn saying: “Wally won’t like that.” I put on my mike and listened in. “Oh, we’re supposed to put on the television tomorrow morning.” I said: “Well, we didn’t have it in the schedule, gentlemen. That doesn’t go on till Sunday morning.” I should have said: “I don’t want to interrupt Howdy Doody [a popular television program],” but I wouldn’t have gotten away with it. What I really was saying was: “We have not checked this system out. It’s in the flight plan to be checked at this point in time. We’ll check it at that point in time.”