One Small Step Read online

  Just outside Huntsville in Alabama the Americans had installed their greatest prize of the Second World War—the German rocket team. The secret removal of scientists from Nazi Germany—known as Operation Paperclip—was not only for the benefit of the Americans but also to deny the USSR. In April 1944 von Braun and his V-2 engineers had been ordered to Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps under close SS guard, who had orders to shoot them rather than let them fall into enemy hands. However, von Braun convinced the SS that they should be dispersed into nearby villages so that the group would not be an easy target for bombers, and on May 2 he had fled. At the first opportunity his brother had approached an American soldier, calling out: “My name is Magnus von Braun. My brother invented the V-2. We want to surrender.” The Americans were delighted. Von Braun was top of the “black list” of German scientists and engineers they wanted to track down.

  Working for the Americans

  By the autumn, von Braun and his engineers were in the United States. Collating the V-2 documents and teaching the military what they knew about rockets, the team set about assembling and launching a number of V-2s from the White Sands Missile Base in New Mexico. Von Braun and his workers were not allowed to leave their quarters without a military escort, so he and his colleagues jokingly referred to themselves as “Pops”—Prisoners of Peace. Clearly, von Braun’s influence was less than he had hoped.

  An official NASA photograph showing the historic first launch of a missile—a Bumper V-2—from Cape Canaveral, on July 24, 1950.

  Between 1950 and 1956 von Braun and his team worked on the ICBM program, which resulted in the Redstone rocket. He then developed the Jupiter-C, an improved Redstone. But he was frustrated. In a drawer in his desk he kept a notebook he had owned since he was 16 years old. Inside were sketches for a spaceship. But having demonstrated to the world his prowess at rocket technology it seemed that the US government was not interested in space. In the Huntsville Times of May 14, 1950, a headline reads: “Dr. von Braun Says Rocket Flights Possible To The Moon.” He also wrote articles for Colliers Magazine entitled “Man Will Conquer Space Soon.”

  He dreamed of 50 astronauts traveling to the Moon in three huge spacecraft and using the emptied holds of their craft as shelters. Astronauts would drive pressurized tractors hundreds of miles across the lunar surface, exploring its craters and plains. He imagined manned missions to Mars in which a fleet of ten spacecraft, each with a mass of almost 4000 tons, and some of them carrying a 200-ton winged lander, would descend on the Martian surface. To explain his vision he worked with Walt Disney on a series of films called “Man in Space,” which aired in 1955.

  Von Braun knew that the Jupiter-C was capable of being modified to launch a satellite into orbit, but the US government had dictated that the navy should be first to launch a satellite—not the army that employed him.

  Russia Joins the Race to Launch a Satellite

  In the USSR the R-7 needed a new launch site. The current one, Kapustin Yar, was too close to US radio monitoring sites in Turkey. The one chosen was at a place called Tyuratam in Kazakhstan. It was a remote, treeless, naked steppe, with a temperature of 45 °C (113 °F) in summer and subzero conditions in winter. The tsars had exiled undesirable citizens there. It had a curious connection with space; in the late 19th century the artisan Nikifor Nikitin was banished there for his “seditious plans for a flight to the Moon.” Eventually the place was to be called Baikonur.

  There was no space program in 1954 when work on the R-7 began in earnest, but that was to change as events unfolded swiftly. Armed with two large sketchbooks, Tikhonravov made an appointment to meet Georgi Pashkov, the missile department chief at the Ministry of Medium Machine Building. One of the books contained clippings from Western magazines, including von Braun’s articles, with descriptions of American satellites. The other sketchbook contained detailed plans showing that the Soviets could achieve a satellite launch before the Americans, because the USSR had more powerful rockets. Pashkov was sufficiently impressed. The satellite study was approved.

  Competing with the Americans

  But the Soviets were not the only ones planning to launch a satellite. In the spring of 1950, a group of American scientists led by James Van Allen met to discuss the possibility of an international scientific program to study the upper atmosphere and outer space using rockets, balloons and ground observations. Soon the idea expanded into a worldwide program timed to coincide with the anticipated intense solar activity from July to December 1957. They called it the International Geophysical Year (IGY). At a subsequent meeting in Rome in 1954, Soviet scientists silently witnessed the approval of an American plan to put a satellite into orbit during the IGY. In July the following year President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s press secretary James C. Hagerty said that the United States would launch “small Earth-circling satellites.”

  Academician Leonid Sedov, Chairman of the Commission for the Promotion of Interplanetary Flights, USSR Academy of Sciences, called a press conference the same day at the Soviet embassy in Copenhagen at which he announced: “In my opinion, it will be possible to launch an artificial Earth satellite within the next two years.” But a skeptical Soviet leadership needed to be convinced.

  During a tour of Korolev’s rocket factory by Premier Khrushchev, Korolev earnestly tried to explain to him the use to which his rockets could be put for research into the upper atmosphere. Somewhat out of his depth, the Soviet leader nevertheless expressed polite interest, although it was clear that most of the guests were becoming bored with the proceedings. Detecting that his guests were in a hurry to leave, Korolev quickly moved ahead and pointed everyone's attention to a model of an artificial satellite. Invoking the name of a legendary Soviet scientist, Korolev explained that it was possible to realize the dreams of Tsiolkovsky with the R-7 missile. Korolev pointed out that the United States had stepped up its satellite program, but that compared with the “skinny” American rocket, the Soviet R-7 could significantly outdo them. Khrushchev began to show more interest, and asked if such a plan might not harm the R-7 weapons research program. Korolev said that all the Soviets needed to do was replace the warhead with a satellite. Khrushchev hesitated, but then said: “If the main task doesn’t suffer, do it.” Korolev had the green light at last. The USSR Council of Ministers issued a decree on January 30, 1956, calling for the creation of an artificial satellite, designated “Object D,” and approving its launch in 1957 in time for the IGY.

  Early Russian Failures

  As 1956 drew to a close, Korolev was exhausted by the constant travel from his factory at Kaliningrad, near Moscow, to Kapustin Yar and Baikonur. He was also worried that the Americans would beat him to his goal of launching a satellite. In September the US army had launched a Jupiter-C missile from Patrick Air Force Base at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Had the missile been fitted with an additional rocket stage it would have been possible for it to launch a satellite. Korolev mistakenly believed that this had indeed been a secret attempt to put a satellite in space.

  The results of static testing of the R-7 engines on the ground showed they were not as powerful as Korolev had hoped. But perhaps he was making things too difficult for himself, he wondered? Instead of launching a fairly large satellite of 1.5 tons, why not launch something simpler on the first orbital attempt? So he asked for permission to launch two small satellites, each with a mass of 40 to 50 kilograms (88 to 110 lbs.), during the period of April to June 1957, the start of the IGY.

  Fueling for the R-7’s first flight began on May 15, 1957, under the direction of Georgi Grechko, a 26-year-old engineer who would fly into space himself 18 years later. The most difficult part was handling the liquid oxygen, which was maintained at a temperature of—190 °C. The process took nearly five hours. When the time for the launch came the rocket lifted gracefully into the sky, but at T+98 seconds the rocket engines cut out. Engineers later discovered that the strap-on boosters had broken away from the central core.

  The 50-year-old Korole
v was not in good health; he had a bad sore throat and had to take regular penicillin shots. His letters to his wife at the time were full of doubt and frustration:

  When things are going badly, I have fewer “friends.” My frame of mind is bad. I will not hide it. It is very difficult to get through our failures. There is a state of alarm and worry.

  The second R-7 rocket was taken to the launch pad in early June after modifications. This time there were two launch aborts, traced to errors in the rocket’s assembly. A third rocket was moved to the pad for launch on July 12. This time it again lifted off into the sky, but at T+33 seconds all four strap-on units fell off. This was the lowest point for Korolev. There was talk of canceling the entire program, which would end his career. He wrote to his wife: “Things are not going very well again. Things are very, very bad.”

  A Question of National Pride

  Wernher von Braun knew nothing of Korolev’s existence, yet he had some notion of the technological struggles taking place behind the Iron Curtain. Following his successful launch of the Jupiter-C, he studied charts of its flight path. It had reached an altitude of 700 miles (1126 km). He knew that if it had been fitted with a fourth stage it could have put a satellite into orbit.

  It was intensely frustrating for von Braun. He could put a satellite into orbit at any time, but the US government would not let him. They actually prevented him by sending observers to his rocket tests to make sure he did not sneak one into orbit when they were not looking! President Eisenhower and the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not want a German—especially an ex-Nazi—to launch the first American satellite; they wanted the navy to do it. But he knew that the navy’s Vanguard rocket was inferior to the Jupiter-C, and it was behind schedule. More than once he said that the navy would lose the race to the Russians because their rocket would not work. He even said they could paint “Vanguard” on the side of his rocket. But no one was listening to him.

  Sputnik Orbits the Earth

  In Kazakhstan another R-7 was brought to the pad. It successfully lifted off on August 21 and this time all systems worked, the missile and its payload flying 4000 miles (6437 km) before the warhead entered the atmosphere over the target point at Kamchatka. Excited, Korolev stayed awake until three in the morning talking about the great possibilities that had opened up. Korolev, Glushko and the other chief designers had informally planned the satellite launch for the 100th anniversary of Tsiolkovsky's birth on September 17, but that date was now unrealistic. The next R-7 booster, this time with the Sputnik satellite onboard, was wheeled to the launch pad in the early morning of October 3, escorted on foot by Korolev. He told his engineers:

  Nobody will hurry us. If you have even the tiniest doubt, we will stop the testing and make the corrections on the satellite. There is still time.

  At precisely 22 hours, 28 minutes and 34 seconds Moscow Time, the engines ignited. There were problems, but they were not major ones. Satellite separation from the core stage occurred at T+324.5 seconds and the first manmade object entered orbit around the Earth. The Space Age had begun. Korolev waited next to the communications van along with a huge crowd. There was cheering once the Kamchatka station picked up signals from Sputnik, but Korolev advised them to hold back their celebrations until it had completed one revolution of the Earth. Eventually the “beep-beep-beep” of Sputnik was heard as it started its second orbit. State Commission Chairman Ryabikov waited until the second orbit was complete before telephoning Premier Khrushchev, who was visiting Kiev.

  Later Korolev and a small group took off from Baikonur for Moscow. Most were exhausted and slept throughout the flight. After take-off the pilot of the airplane, Tolya Yesenin, came over to say to Korolev that “the whole world was abuzz” with the launch. Korolev was invited into the pilot’s cabin. When he returned he said: “Comrades, you can’t imagine—the whole world is talking about our satellite. It seems that we have caused quite a stir.”

  In the morning edition of Pravda the news was exceptionally low key and was not the headline of the day. The Soviet media did not ascribe a specific name for the satellite, generally referring to it as Sputnik, the Russian word for “satellite,” loosely translated as “fellow traveler.”

  Sputnik, the first satellite to orbit the Earth, being worked on by a Soviet engineer in the autumn of 1957 prior to its launch.

  An American Failure

  That same day the Society of Experimental Test Pilots was holding a symposium in the Beverly Hilton Hotel, California. Neil Armstrong, a young test pilot, was taking part. He was trying unsuccessfully to get the Los Angeles press interested in the various technical advancements in the test-flight world. Then he heard about Sputnik. Instantly he knew it would change the world. He watched on television as President Eisenhower seemed to completely miss the point by saying: “What’s the worry? It’s just one small ball.” Perhaps, Armstrong thought, that was a façade behind which the president was hiding substantial concerns, because if the Russians could put an object into orbit, they could also put a nuclear weapon anywhere in the United States. For Armstrong it was humiliating that a country deemed to represent an evil regime in the eyes of the American people was overtaking them in technology, an area in which they themselves assumed they were leaders.

  Von Braun had arranged a dinner party for the defense secretary designate Neil McElroy in the officers’ mess at the Redstone Arsenal. After dinner the base public relations officer ran into the room and handed von Braun a piece of paper informing him that the Russians had launched a satellite. The event had even been picked up by an amateur radio ham in Huntsville. Von Braun was angry. He turned to McElroy:

  We knew they were going to do it. Vanguard will never make it. We have the hardware on the shelf. We can put up a satellite in 60 days.

  He was right. On December 6 the navy launched their Vanguard rocket from Cape Canaveral. It reached an altitude of 1.2 meters (4 ft.), fell and exploded. The small, 1.3-kilogram (2.9-lb.) satellite was thrown clear, bleeping pathetically as it rolled away. The press called it Kaputnik.

  America was shocked, however, although Eisenhower still seemed unconcerned. One member of the public summed it up when she was interviewed for television. Hesitantly, she said: “We fear this.”

  The First Earthling to Orbit Earth

  Khruschev was surprised and delighted with the worldwide reaction to Sputnik. He asked Korolev what else he could do. Korolev knew the answer. “We can launch a dog,” he replied.

  The first living creature to orbit Earth was found on the streets of Moscow, scavenging for food in dustbins. She was a small mongrel dog about three years old, malnourished, but with a good temperament. She was taken in by scientist Oleg Gazenko, who called her Kudryavka, or Little Curly Haired One. Originally, ten dogs were in the running to be chosen for the flight, all of them trained at the air force’s Institute of Aviation Medicine for rocket flights into the upper atmosphere. They were subjected to many tests and procedures: exposed to noise and vibration, swung around in centrifuges, kept in progressively smaller cages for up to 20 days and trained to eat high-nutrition gel. They were finally reduced to one, Kudryavka, now known as Laika, which means “barker.” Air force doctor Vladimir Yazdovskiy recalls:

  Laika was a wonderful dog, quiet and very placid. I once brought her home and showed her to the children. They played with her. I wanted to do something nice for the dog. She had only a very short time to live.

  Konstantin Feoktistov, a promising 32-year-old engineer later to become a cosmonaut himself and to play an important role in the design of the Salyut and Mir space stations, was placed in charge of the engineering details for the mission. As a 16-year-old he acted as a scout for Soviet partisans in his home town of Voronezh in southwestern Russia. He had been captured, shot and left for dead. But the bullet had only grazed his throat, and he crawled out of a pit of corpses to reach safety under cover of darkness.

  Sputnik 2 was a rushed job, assembled in less than a month. All who worked on it knew it w
as unsatisfactory, being designed to fulfill the needs of propaganda instead of science. It had a crude life-support system, food for seven days in the usual gelatinous form and a bag to collect waste. It was so cramped there would be no room for Laika to turn around. Neither was there a reentry mechanism. It was to be a one-way trip.

  The dog Laika, the first animal in space, inside a mockup of the Soviet capsule Sputnik 2.

  Laika was placed in the capsule three days before launch. Engineers monitored her to ensure she did not become too distressed. The liftoff, on November 3, did not go well. Although Sputnik 2 was placed into orbit, some of its thermal insulation tore loose and the temperature inside rose to above 40 °C (104 °F). Telemetry indicated that Laika was overheating and agitated. But after five hours all went quiet. Scientists had planned to euthanize her with poisoned food. For years afterward it was reported that she died when her oxygen ran out, but in reality she succumbed very rapidly to heat stroke—an unpleasant death. She was cremated on April 14, 1958, when Sputnik 2 burned up during reentry. Earth’s first space traveler had completed 2570 orbits. In 1998 Oleg Gazenko expressed regret at the mission:

  The more time passes, the more I am sorry about it. We shouldn’t have done it. We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog.