One Small Step Read online

  The casually attired Voskhod 1 cosmonauts (from left) Vladimir Komarov, Boris Yegorov and Konstantin Feoktistov on their way to the launch pad on October 12, 1964.

  The launch was set for the morning of October 12. Korolev was more nervous and irritable than anyone had ever seen him. The three cosmonauts arrived at the launch pad at 10:15 a.m. local time dressed in lightweight gray woolen pants, shirts and light blue jackets. Korolev and Gagarin saw the three men up to the elevator before they removed their jackets and boots, donned slippers and entered the spacecraft: Boris Yegorov first, then Feoktistov, followed by Commander Vladimir Komarov. The tension was higher than perhaps during any other mission since Gagarin’s. Without a viable launch escape system during the first minute of the mission, there was absolutely no way of saving the crew in the event of booster failure. Korolev was so nervous he was shaking uncontrollably.

  To his immense relief Voskhod 1 got into orbit without a flaw. Once again, the reaction from the West was unprecedented, prompting another speculation that the ultimate Soviet plan was to go to the Moon. Within two to three hours of the launch Feoktistov and Yegorov began to experience disorientation but despite this the short mission proceeded without much incident. When they landed there was relief all round. Because they had no room for three ejector seats a solid-fuel braking rocket was added to cushion the impact of the capsule with the ground. The flight had lasted one day, 17 minutes and three seconds and achieved nothing except propaganda. They had been lucky to get away with such a gamble.

  Khrushchev Loses Power

  It was later that day that Korolev and Kamanin heard of the changes back in Moscow. News had come in that there would be a special meeting of the Central Committee the same evening. Within hours Khrushchev was no longer in power and had been replaced in his two posts by Alexei Kosygin and Leonid Brezhnev. Kamanin was instructed to alter the cosmonauts’ speeches. Instead of saluting Khrushchev, they would salute Brezhnev and Kosygin.

  A Dangerous Excursion

  It was clear to Korolev that the second Voskhod mission should include a spacewalk. NASA’s announced plans to carry out an EVA during the Gemini program once again compelled him to try and beat the Americans. But how could a Voskhod capsule be modified so that a spacewalk could take place? Soviet engineers could not consider the Gemini method of depressurizing the entire spaceship during an EVA, because their life-support systems were not good enough and the instruments in the Voskhod capsule were not designed to operate in a vacuum. Instead, they drew up a plan for an airlock, made of rubber, to be unfolded on the outside of the spacecraft. Both cosmonauts would wear pressure suits throughout the flight. During the space walk one cosmonaut would crawl into the airlock, shut the hatch behind him, evacuate it, open an outer hatch and then step out into space. A 5-meter (16-ft.) cord would connect the cosmonaut to the space ship during the EVA. The maximum time in space was limited to between ten and 15 minutes.

  By this point, the best candidates for the primary crew of the Voskhod 2 spacewalk mission were Belyayev and Leonov. The 39-year-old Pavel Belyayev had been the oldest candidate from the “Gagarin group” of 1960. He had graduated from the Yeisk Higher Air Force School in 1945 and flew combat missions against the Japanese during the final days of the Second World War. Later, in 1959, he graduated from the famous Red Banner Air Force Academy, and thus he was only one of two cosmonauts in the 1960 class who had received a higher education. Belyayev might have flown into space earlier had it not been for a severe ankle injury sustained in August 1961 during a parachute jump, which left him out of the running for a whole year. Thirty-year-old Aleksei Leonov was born in Siberia, and graduated from the Chuguyev Higher Air Force School in the Ukraine in 1957 before serving as a jet pilot in East Germany.

  Chief Designer Severin recalled:

  The Americans planned to do their EVA in three months and had announced it beforehand. So we felt very rushed. We were hurrying and were nervous.

  The first Voskhod 2 test spacecraft was launched into orbit successfully on February 22, 1965. Designated under the catch-all Kosmos classification, the media did not realize its true function. The fully equipped spacecraft was to simulate all the necessary airlock operations. Meanwhile, the ground tests for these aspects of the mission were beset by failures. Severin recalls:

  The situation was really grave. Almost the entire testing program had been disrupted. Only part of it was completed in the unmanned flight. There was even talk of postponing the flight until better results were obtained on the ground. The competition with Gemini reached such a state that Soviet security personnel arrived at Baikonur. It’s possible that the KGB thought that all of our accidents were the result of sabotage. They imposed strict monitoring, which made us very nervous.

  Near Disaster

  Voskhod 2 lifted off successfully and the two cosmonauts began preparations for the EVA as soon as they reached orbit. First, Belyayev expanded the Volga airlock to its full length. Then, aided by Belyayev, Leonov strapped on his life-support pack. Once the pressure between the airlock and the ship was equalized, Belyayev opened the inner hatch, allowing Leonov to crawl head-first into the airlock and hook himself up to the tether. Then Belyayev shut the inner hatch and depressurized the airlock. Leonov emerged, becoming the first human to walk in space. At first, he just poked his head out, but then gradually extended his entire body. The Sun almost blinded him. His first words were: “I can see the Caucasus.” But after 12 minutes in open space Leonov found himself in a perilous situation:

  Near the end of my walk I realized that my feet had pulled out of my shoes and my hands had pulled away from my gloves. My entire suit stretched so much that my hands and feet appeared to shrink. I was unable to control them. I couldn’t get back in straight away. My space suit had ballooned out and the pressure was quite considerable. I was tired and couldn’t go in feet first as I had been taught to do.

  Leonov decreased the pressure in his suit hoping that it would make it more flexible:

  Then I felt freer and I could move about more easily. Then I pushed myself into the airlock head first, with my arms holding the rails. I had to turn myself upside down in the airlock in order to enter the ship feet first and this was very difficult.

  His pulse raced to 143 beats per minute, his breathing was twice normal levels and his body temperature rose to 38 °C (100.4 °F). Drenched in sweat and exhausted, he closed the outer hatch behind him. Leonov had experienced depressurization for 23 minutes and 41 seconds. The cosmonauts cast off the airlock and then settled down to a one-day mission. But there was to be yet another problem.

  A Perilous Return

  The hatch on the space ship had not been shut properly and was leaking air, which was being compensated for by the life-support system. The result was that the capsule was becoming rich in oxygen, which increased the possibility of a fire; a tiny spark could set off an explosion. They tried to lower the oxygen content during the remainder of their mission, bringing it down to manageable levels before reentry. It would not be the last time that an oxygen-rich atmosphere inside a capsule would pose a risk. But for Voskhod 2 the problems kept coming. By the 30th orbit, pressure in the cabin tanks had dropped from 75 to 25 atmospheres, bringing with it the possibility of the complete depressurization of the spacecraft. Fortunately it stabilized. When the moment for reentry burn came around Belyayev calmly reported: “Negative automatic retrofire.” Korolev immediately told Belyayev to use the manual system—although he was probably ahead of the craft’s chief designer in thinking about how to orientate for reentry. Once the numbered code to unlock the attitude controls was found it was handed to Gagarin who transmitted the information to Belyayev.

  The exercise of orienting the spacecraft became an ordeal. They had to use an optical sighting device but both men were clad in bulky spacesuits. In the cramped space Belyayev, optical device in hand, had to lie horizontally across both seats of the capsule, while Leonov remained out of the way under his seat. At the same time,
Leonov held Belyayev in place in front of the porthole so he could use both his hands to orient the ship with respect to the Earth’s terminator—the boundary between day and night—using the hand controls. After this was done they quickly returned to their seats to reestablish the ship’s center of gravity before firing the retrorocket. The 46 seconds it took to get back in position before Belyayev hit the fire button resulted in a serious overshoot of their original landing point.

  As with several previous Vostok missions, the instrument compartment failed to separate from the descent capsule and the two modules remained connected loosely to each other with steel straps. It resulted in a steeper than usual descent and more G forces. It burst blood vessels in both men’s eyes as the load reached 10 G.

  Incredibly, ignoring the obvious risk they had taken, Korolev raised a toast to the future:

  Friends! Before us is the Moon. Let us all work together with the great goal of conquering the Moon.

  But the Soviet Union was not to launch a single manned spaceflight for two years. Voskhod was the last in a series of spectaculars, and subsequent Vostok-based missions were canceled. The Soviet space effort had flirted with disaster. Next time they would not get away with it.

  TIMELINE

  1964 February Soviet rocket scientist Sergei Korolev suffers a heart attack

  July 28 US probe Ranger 7 is launched toward the Moon and sends back 4308 television pictures

  October 12–13 The first three-member Soviet crew orbits Earth on board a Voskhod spacecraft

  1965 March 18 Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov conducts the world’s first spacewalk during Voskhod 2 mission

  April 6 The US launches Intelsat I, also known as the “Early Bird” communications satellite

  July 15 US space probe Mariner 4 completes flyby of Mars

  July 16 First Soviet Proton rocket blasts off from Site 81 in Baikonur

  “They want you to get back in”

  FLYING IN PAIRS

  THE FIRST GEMINI MISSIONS

  1964–1965

  America’s second manned space project began in April 1964 with the first flight of the Gemini series. Gemini was intended to bridge the gap between the Mercury and the Apollo programs. Its goal was to fly two astronauts in space as well as to test equipment and techniques—such as rendezvous and docking—which were essential for the Moon missions.

  In August 1965 the United States had finally taken the absolute endurance record in space with the Gemini 5 mission, which lasted nearly a week. There were plans to fly Gemini 7 in December for two whole weeks. In the USSR, Korolev extended the planned Voskhod 3‘s duration from ten to 15 days and then to 20 days. Then at a meeting of the Military-Industrial Commission on December 16, 1965, the Soviet government added one more condition to the Voskhod program: that Korolev launch two Voskhods in time for the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party in March 1966 as a salute to the party. It was an unrealistic deadline. Things were falling apart.

  Gemini Begins

  Although the Gemini missions were designed to carry astronauts, the first two flights involving Gemini spacecraft—Gemini 1 (April 8–12, 1964) and Gemini 2 (January 19, 1965)—were unmanned. They were used to test out the rockets and other systems prior to launching with a two-man crew on board.

  Virgil “Gus” Grissom commanded Gemini 3, thus becoming the first man to make two spaceflights. His copilot was John Young. It was a brief mission of just three orbits lasting a total of just under 5 hours on March 23, 1965. During that time they changed orbits, achieving an orbit that had a low point of just 53 miles (85 km). After splashdown Grissom was seasick. “Gemini may be a good spacecraft but she’s a lousy ship,” he said afterward.

  America’s First Spacewalk

  Looking back on the missions, for Gene Kranz, Gemini 4 was one of the most exciting of the Gemini missions. It was his first as flight director:

  We wanted to be the first to have an extravehicular operation; put a man out in space, free from the spacecraft. I got tagged to work with the team in building that EVA plan. And we were very imaginative; we called it Plan X. We’d finish our work here during the day; we’d go home, we’d eat, and then all the Plan X people would come back in and we’d work generally from about 6 or 7 in the evening until 1 or 2 in the morning, building the equipment, validating it in the altitude chamber, developing mission rules, etc.

  Gemini 4 astronauts Ed White and Jim McDivitt simulate launch procedures.

  The USA’s first spacewalk was carried out by Ed White of Gemini 4. The commander of Gemini 4 was Jim McDivitt. He later commented that by the time the US started Gemini, that space race was over:

  In Mercury, you couldn’t maneuver. You could change its attitude but you couldn’t change its flight path. Gemini you could. So, now you had to have the guy in the spacecraft working with the guy on the ground to know what was going on and where they were going, where they were, and what they were doing—what was going to happen. So, that worked out pretty well. As a matter of fact, I think if it hadn’t been for Gemini, flying Apollo would’ve been nigh on impossible.

  My relationship with Ed couldn’t have been better. He was the best friend I ever had. We lived, like I said, a block and a half or so apart. He was getting a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, but he didn’t have an aeronautical engineering undergraduate degree. So, we took a lot of classes together. We started flying together. I remember when the air force had its pre-NASA astronaut selection—I walked in the room in the Pentagon and Ed was already there and he says: “I knew you’d be there!” And I said: “I knew you’d be here, too!” Unfortunately as regards our EVA, we were beaten by the Russians. By what? A couple of weeks I guess. They were quiet up until a few days before the flight. I think originally it was to score the first!

  Gemini 4 was dispatched to space on June 3, 1965—the US’s first multiday mission—and once in orbit the crew turned their attention to the spacewalk.

  McDivitt: When we got around to doing the EVA, Ed went to open up the hatch, but it wouldn’t open. I said: “Oh my God,” you know, “it’s not opening!” And so, we chatted about that for a minute or two. And I said: “Well, I think I can get it closed if it won’t close.” But I wasn’t too sure about it. I thought I could. But remember, then I would be pressurized. I wouldn’t be in my sports clothes, leaning over the top of the thing with a screwdriver as I had been in training. I’d be there pressurized. In the dark. So anyway, we elected to go ahead and open it up.

  Ed White floats in space during America’s first spacewalk. In White’s right hand is a self-maneuvering unit, which he used to move himself around in the weightless environment.

  White was outside for 21 minutes and had to be told to come back into the spacecraft by the Capcom Gus Grissom. Gemini 4 was headed for the Earth’s shadow. “This is the saddest moment of my life,” replied White.

  McDivitt: That was one of the reasons I was anxious to have him get back inside the spacecraft, because I’d like to do this in the daylight, not in the dark. But by the time he got back in, it was dark. So, when we went to close the hatch, it wouldn’t close. It wouldn’t lock. And so, in the dark I was trying to fiddle around over on the side where I couldn’t see anything, trying to get my glove down in this little slot to push the gears together. And finally, we got that done and got it latched.

  The Longest Flight

  Two months later, on August 21, Gemini 5 was launched with Gordon Cooper and Charles “Pete” Conrad on board. With the landing back on Earth taking place on August 29, it was the longest space flight yet—the duration of the flight was equivalent to the time it would take to get to the Moon and back. This was made possible mainly by the first utilization of fuel cells; these generated extra electricity for longer flights.

  Cooper: Our Gemini 5 flight. We worked long and hard at it, and we couldn’t do any EVA or do the other things because we were so loaded. We were absolutely crammed with equipment of all kinds they wanted us to have. We had the first fu
el cell. We had the first radar. We had the first all up computer. These were all things that needed to be tested and proven.

  At the start of Gemini 5 the oxygen pressure within the spacecraft dropped down to practically zero. According to the mission rules, the correct procedure if such an event occurred was to then switch everything off.

  Cooper: I had to go into total power down. So we powered everything down, brought everything down to low, low electrical power; and, of course, it happened again when we were out of radio range. So, as we came whistling over the horizon into communication, Houston realized we were all powered down and they really panicked for a moment; and it looked like we were going to have to reenter another orbit later. But fortunately, and this is a story a lot of people don’t know: When Pete and I were going through the altitude chamber with Gemini 5, we had to go through and do these various tests; and the tests finished on a Friday; the spacecraft was due to be shipped Saturday morning to the Cape from St. Louis in order to stay on the time schedule. But one of the things we wanted to do was, we wanted to run some tests in the altitude chamber by decreasing both oxygen and hydrogen pressure, drastically, to see if the fuel cell would continue to run at altitude. NASA said: “No, we can’t afford the time. If we do it over this week, we can’t afford to delay until next week to do it. And if we do it over the weekend, it would cost us triple time of overtime, so we’re not going to do it.” So Pete and I went to Jim McDonnell, head of McDonnell Aircraft Corporation and told him the story on it, and he said: “I’ll pay for it. Let’s do it.” So we spent the weekend in the altitude chamber at his cost doing the test; and if we had not done that test, we would have reentered an orbit later.