One Small Step Read online

  On the 19th orbit a warning light came on. The .05 G green warning light came on, which is the light that tells you you’re starting to reenter. I was sure that I wasn’t reentering, because there had been nothing to slow down my speed at all. And, of course, as usually happened on these missions, we had long spaces when we were out of radio contact; and I was out of radio contact when this happened. So when I got in radio contact first time, the Cape was kind of concerned when they heard about this light on. Then we proceeded on the next orbit or so to try to analyze, go through various procedures to try to find what it was. And we realized I was, slowly but surely, having an electrical fire from my relays; and they did short out the inverters. So, eventually I lost my total electrical system.

  It meant that I had the manual push/pull rods to activate the jets for attitude control. I had eyeballs out the window for my attitude—my pitch, roll and yaw attitude. I had a wristwatch for timing. And I had to activate each and every one of the relays, and I’d have to manually fire the retros while manually flying the spacecraft. So, everything had to be done manually. I’d have to control the spacecraft all the way through reentry. I’d have to put my drogue out manually. And I’d have to deploy my parachute manually. I’d have to deploy the landing bag manually.

  In the end it was a perfect splashdown just 4 miles (6.4 km) from the USS Kearsarge in the Pacific.

  Mercury ended with a total of two days, five hours and 55 minutes of cumulative space time from six missions. It might not have sounded much but it was a sound start, verifying the technology necessary to maintain a human in Earth orbit for a short period of time. Well before that last flight, plans for a second-generation spacecraft were already on the drawing boards. As early as December 1961, NASA Associate Administrator Robert Seamans approved a “Mercury Mark 2” vehicle proposed by the former Space Task Group, which had been renamed the Manned Spacecraft Center. This new spacecraft would be capable of conducting extensive rendezvous and docking operations in Earth orbit, allowing astronauts to acquire experience in techniques needed for the Apollo lunar landing program. By January 1962, the project had been renamed Gemini. It was clearly a major leap in capabilities over either Mercury or Vostok. The spacecraft would be able to change orbits, it would carry two astronauts and it would allow flights lasting as long as two weeks.

  Alan Shepard Grounded

  Wernher von Braun had transferred to NASA from the army in 1960, having extracted the proviso that NASA develop the powerful rocket needed to launch astronauts to the Moon. He had already produced the Jupiter-C, so they named the new rocket after the next planet out from the Sun—Saturn.

  Alan Shepard was chosen to fly in the Gemini program but a medical problem grounded him and that seemed, at the time, to be the end of his career as an astronaut:

  I was chosen to make the first Gemini mission. Tom Stafford, who is a very bright young guy, was assigned as copilot, and we were already into the mission, already training for the mission. We had been in the simulators, as a matter of fact, several different times. I’m not sure whether we’d looked at the hardware in St. Louis or not prior to the problem, which I had. The problem I had was a disease called Menière’s; it is due to elevated fluid pressure in the inner ear. They tell me it happens in people who are Type A, hyper, driven, whatever. Unfortunately, what happens is it causes a lack of balance, dizziness, and in some cases nausea as a result of all this disorientation going on up there in the ear. It fortunately is unilateral, so it was only happening with me on the left side. But it was so obvious that NASA grounded me right away, and they assigned another crew for the first Gemini flight.

  Wernher von Braun (center) explains to President John F. Kennedy the Saturn launch system in 1963.

  The Russians Sack Three Cosmonauts

  On March 27, 1963, three trainee cosmonauts, Nelyubov, Anikeyev and Filatev, were returning to the training center after an evening out in Moscow. They had been drinking and became involved in an altercation with a military patrol at a railway station. Nelyubov threatened to go over the head of the offended officers if they filed a formal report against the cosmonauts. Later, officials at the Cosmonaut Training Center requested the duty officer not to file a report against the three men. He agreed, on condition that they apologize for their behavior. Although Anikeyev and Filatev agreed to do so, Nelyubov refused, and so the offended duty officer filed a report against the three men, and within a week they were all dismissed from the cosmonaut team. Nelyubov was one of the brightest and most qualified cosmonauts; he had served as Gagarin’s second backup during the first Vostok mission, and he certainly would have gone into space in the near future.

  The Race to Regain Russian Superiority

  How was the USSR to respond to the impressive Mercury flights and demonstrate its superiority? It was decided that the next flight of the Vostok was to include a woman. Reports on the candidates stated that Ponomareva had the most thorough preparation and was more talented than the others:

  She exceeds all the rest in flight, but she needs a lot of reform as she is arrogant, self-centered, exaggerates her abilities, and does not stay away from drinking and smoking. Solovyeva is the most objective of all, more physically and morally sturdy, but she is a little closed off and is insufficiently active in social work. Tereshkova is active in society, is especially well in appearance, makes use of her great authority among everyone who she knows. Yerkina has prepared less than well in technical and physical qualities, but she is persistently improving and undoubtedly she will be a rather good cosmonaut.

  The report then reached a conclusion:

  We must first send Tereshkova into space flight, and her double will be Solovyeva.

  It was said among the trainees that Tereshkova was “Gagarin in a skirt!”

  Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space was launched on June 16, 1963, returning on June 19.

  The flight was set for August 1963, but then Korolev discovered a problem. His engineers realized that the operational lifetime of both the proposed spacecraft was due to expire in May–June 1963, well before the August flight, and there was no possibility of extending their “shelf life.” They had to either launch them or scrap them, so they changed the timetable. The first spaceship, launched in May or June, would carry a man into orbit for a full eight days, while the second would carry the first woman into space for two to three days. The choice for the first mission was Valeri Bykovsky; the decision on the woman was more difficult. According to later reports, what swung the decision in Tereshkova's favor was the fact that some were lobbying too enthusiastically for Ponomareva. Without such support she would have been the first woman in space. In her book, The Female Face of the Cosmos, Ponomareva later wrote:

  Korolev started with me: he asked why I was sad and whether I would resent it if I do not fly. I rose and said with emphasis: “Yes, Sergei Pavlovich, I would resent it very much!” Pointing his index finger at me, Korolev said: “You are right, you fine girl. I would have resented it too.” He spoke with emphasis, very emotionally. Then he has kept silent for a while, gave every one of us a long attentive look, and said: “It’s all right, you’ll all fly into space.”

  The session of the State Commission on May 21, 1963, was short, and there was no miracle. It was announced that Valentina Tereshkova was appointed the commander of the space ship, and Irina Solovyeva and Valentina Ponomareva were the backups. As I remember the physician Karpov’s explanation, two backups, instead of one as for men, were appointed “with the consideration of the complexity of the female organism.”

  The Tricky Launch of Vostok 5

  But for Vostok 5 trouble began soon after Bykovsky arrived at the pad. Neither of the shortwave transmitters on Vostok 5 were working, later there was a problem with the ejection hatch and then there was a control failure in the third stage. Engineers moved in. They had just six hours to repair the faults, otherwise the launch would have to be canceled and the Vostoks would exceed their design lives. Finally,
the task was accomplished but the problems were not over. In the final minute of Bykovsky’s countdown a light indicated that the rocket had not severed its umbilical electrical connection to the pad. Korolev looked on the verge of panic, but all around him said they should launch. In the end the rising rocket tore the cable from its socket and left it flailing on the pad.

  The First Woman in Space

  Tereshkova and her backup Solovyeva were prepared for the second mission. All seemed to go well and Tereshkova lifted off two days later, becoming the first woman in space. The Vostoks flew closest to each other immediately after launch, when they passed at a distance of about 3 miles (5 km). Bykovsky later reported that he had not spotted Vostok 6, while Tereshkova thought she might have glimpsed Vostok 5. They established radio contact shortly afterward, and within three hours of the launch Moscow television was showing live shots of Tereshkova in her capsule. But she was not feeling well; subsequent transmissions showed her tired and looking weak. She initially failed to perform one of the major goals of her mission, the manual orientation of her spacecraft. Kamanin ordered Gagarin, Titov and Nikolayev to radio new instructions. Eventually she accomplished the task, showing that if the automatic system failed she would be able to put the craft into the correct orientation for reentry. Bykovsky reported there had been a knock, and that this had caused consternation on the ground. When questioned further, Bykovsky clarified what he had said: “There had been the first space stool.” the Russian word for “stool” (stul) had been mistaken for the word for “knock” (stuk). It was a historic moment of sorts—the first time a human had made a bowel movement in space.

  Tereshkova landed without incident, although she bruised her face. During Bykovsky’s reentry, like that of Gagarin and Titov, his instrument compartment failed to separate from the descent capsule as planned—it was getting to be a persistent problem. Fortunately he landed without too much worry.

  It was heralded as a triumph for the Soviet Union; a woman had flown in space for longer than all the six American Mercury flights combined. Bykovsky claimed the world duration record for a single-crew spaceship; it still stands today, over 45 years after his mission.

  TIMELINE

  1962 August 11 Vostok 3 launched

  August 12 Vostok 4 launched to join Vostok 3 in space

  October 3 Sigma 7, part of the Mercury program, launched with Walter Schirra aboard

  1963 May 15 Launch of Faith 7 with Gordon Cooper aboard marks the end of the US Mercury program

  June 14–19 Valery Bykovsky completes the longest manned space flight to date (199 hours, 81 orbits) during the Vostok 5 mission

  June 16 Vostok 6 launched with first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, aboard

  “Friends! Before us is the Moon”

  TEMPTING FATE

  THE DANGEROUS VOSKHOD MISSIONS

  1964–1965

  After the Vostok missions, the Soviet space program became bogged down by incompetent planning, delayed schedules and a desire to produce space “spectaculars”—instead of developing the next phase of exploration using their Soyuz spacecraft. This strategy put lives at risk and also damaged the Russians’ chances of putting a human on the Moon before the Americans.

  As early as March 1963 NASA had established guidelines for performing spacewalks during the forthcoming Gemini program. By January 1964 officials at Houston had completed the final details of the plan. The flight of Gemini IV, then scheduled for February 1965, would include an astronaut opening the hatch and standing up for a short period. Perhaps the US would even carry out the first spacewalk, or EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) on this mission.

  The Order is “Three Cosmonauts!”

  The successor to the increasingly outmoded Russian Vostok capsule was to be the Soyuz capsule. It was designed with a voyage to the Moon in mind, but by early 1964 it was clear to Korolev that it would not be ready by late 1964, or even early 1965. The Communist Party and the USSR Council of Ministers had already committed itself to the Soyuz in a joint decree on December 3, 1963, with its ultimate goal of a manned flight around the Moon.

  The Moon, photographed from just outside Earth’s atmosphere.

  With the two-man Gemini flights just months away, Soviet space officials were faced with a difficult situation. None of the four projected Vostok missions planned for 1964 would compare favorably with a Gemini flight. They were all designed to carry only a single cosmonaut; none of them included a spacewalk and none of them would have the capability of changing orbits. The Soviets were paying for their lack of organization, departmental rivalry and wasteful dilution of effort and use of space for political statements. In this climate an unlikely idea emerged, as audacious as it was dangerous.

  Where the idea originally came from is lost in time. Some say that Khrushchev called Korolev and ordered him to convert the one-man Vostok spacecraft into a vehicle capable of carrying not two, but three, cosmonauts. According to Kamanin, Korolev was not pleased to receive such an order, as he recalled:

  It was the first time that I had seen Korolev in complete bewilderment. He was very distressed at the refusal to continue construction of the Vostoks and could not see how to reequip the ship for three in such a short time. He said it was impossible to turn a single-seater ship into a three-seater in a few months.

  A Fateful Decision

  However, the account given by Khrushchev’s son differs. He maintains that it was Korolev’s idea. It is certainly true that Korolev was considering a three-seater Vostok as early as February 1963, and he certainly had a pathological desire to beat the Americans at all costs. But wherever it came from, the decision to upstage Gemini proved to be one of the most disastrous decisions in the history of the Soviet space effort, ignoring any natural progression of space vehicles and the resulting gain in knowledge and inserting instead a showy diversion. It was the very antithesis of what the Americans were doing—an incremental acquisition of abilities and technology. For the Soviets, the space race had degenerated into little more than a circus act of one-upmanship. Ultimately it cost them the Moon.

  While the Soviet Union was engaged in falsely presenting the image of a nation at the cutting edge of space exploration, the Soyuz program—the real future of the Soviet space effort—was put on hold. They called the new project Voskhod (Sunrise) hoping no one would realize that it was a strained and stretched Vostok packed with three worried cosmonauts.

  Vostok Becomes Voskhod

  Konstantin Feoktistov, the resourceful engineer who played a critical role in the design of the Vostok, was on the Voskhod design team. Adding to the view that it might have been Korolev’s idea after all, he later recalled how Korolev neutralized internal opposition:

  We argued that it would be unsafe, that it would be better to be patient and wait for the Soyuz space ship to be built, but in the end, of course, Korolev got his way. In February 1964 he outwitted us. He said that if we could build a ship based on the Vostok design, which could carry three people, then one of those places would be offered to a staff engineer. Well, that was a very seductive offer and a few days later we produced some sketches. Our first ideas were accepted.

  Feoktistov proposed getting rid of the ejection seat and spacesuits from the Vostok, thus allowing three men to cram into the spherical capsule in regular clothing. Many objected to this move but it was really a foregone conclusion; it would have been impossible to fit them in any other way. By the time the draft plan was completed it was also clear that there would not be a tower-equipped launch escape system ready for the Voskhod launch, but Korolev and his engineers took the risky step of moving on with the launch despite this blatant disregard for safety. It was stated that it would be “difficult” to rescue the cosmonauts up to the first 25 to 44 seconds of a launch. That was wrong. If a failure occurred during that period, the crew would be doomed.

  Korolev’s health continued to decline. In February 1964 he suffered a heart attack and spent several days in hospital. Doctors had prescribed a
long holiday, which was delayed by urgent work. He was allowed to fly to Czechoslovakia for a brief holiday, the only time between 1947 and his death that he left the Soviet Union. Upon returning to Moscow he immersed himself in the Voskhod preparations. A drop test with an engineering version of the capsule was carried out in September. It was a disaster; the parachute hatch failed to open and the capsule was smashed to pieces.

  Who Flies the Risky Mission?

  Then there was the question of which engineer was to fly on the mission. Feoktistov knew more about the design of the Vostok and Voskhod spacecraft than anyone, but he was not considered fit enough to be a cosmonaut. When Kamanin heard that Feoktistov was an option he was reported to have blurted out:

  How can you put a man into a space ship if he is suffering from ulcers, nearsightedness, deformation of the spine, gastritis, and even has missing fingers on his left hand?

  The air force objected as well, but Korolev backed his engineer and they eventually capitulated. Korolev yelled in frustration:

  The air force is perpetually jamming up the works! Looks like I’m going to have to train my own cosmonauts.