by Von Hardesty
No one in the West, however, fully comprehended the reversals that would bedevil Moscow’s space fortunes after 1966. The Soviet Union continued to maintain tight secrecy over its space program, which complicated the work of the NIE analysts. For Americans seeking an accurate sense of Soviet capabilities, it was indeed like peering through a glass darkly. Beginning with Gagarin’s epochal Earth orbit in 1961, the Soviets had engineered a sequence of space “firsts,” cultivating in their wake the widely held image of technological superiority over their American rivals. As the Americans set in motion the Apollo program, tested successfully its huge Saturn rocket, and made concrete plans for a lunar mission, the Soviets found themselves struggling with severe crises in management and technology. Their space program, as if following the life cycle of a dying star, had expanded brilliantly with the Sputnik launches, the lunar probes, and the benchmark manned flights but would collapse in the quest to reach the moon ahead of the Americans.
The first serious blow—one with immense consequences—was the untimely death of Sergei Korolev in January 1966. The still anonymous Chief Designer had been a powerful central figure, who had worked tirelessly to keep the Soviet Union at the cutting edge of the new space age. He towered over his contemporaries as a forceful and innovative leader. Korolev shared with Wernher von Braun a lifelong vision of human exploration of space, effectively molding military missile programs to serve his ends. By the end of 1965, however, the burdens on Korolev had grown dramatically. With the highly competitive American Apollo program taking wing, Korolev was hard pressed to keep the Soviet space program viable. The pace became intense even for Korolev.35
His control of events in the Soviet Union was complicated, if not compromised fatally, by the advent of new rivals such as Vladimir Chelomei and Valentin Glushko—men who were determined to make their mark on the Soviet space program. Chelomei emerged as a talented rocket designer, the head of the OKG-52 design bureau. His main arena of work had been cruise and ballistic missiles, at the time a vital military priority for the Soviet Union. Chelomei won the patronage of Khrushchev, which made him a powerful figure in the many rivalries that beset the Soviet space program. Glushko was a one-time ally of Korolev and a renowned rocket propulsion expert. Always in the background was the Soviet military establishment, which on occasion mounted keen opposition to the space program, seeing it as a drain on finite resources that could be more properly allocated for research and development of missiles.
Partly owing to the fierce bureaucratic infighting, Korolev’s health began to decline precipitously. The first signs of an impending crisis arose in December 1965, when he had taken time from his frenetic schedule to undergo medical tests for a bleeding polyp in his intestines. Initially, both Korolev and his doctors considered the existence of the polyps as essentially benign—a condition that could be cured through minor surgery. Korolev entered a Moscow hospital on January 14, 1966—two days after his 59th birthday—for surgery. Boris Petrovsky, a prominent Moscow physician and high-ranking government bureaucrat, took personal charge, expressing confidence that the polyps could be removed without difficulty, even telling his patient that he would be able to continue work for another 20 years. Petrovsky approached the fateful day in a relaxed mood, even scheduling a second operation that same day.
Korolev’s daughter, Natasha Koroleva, has left a succinct account of what happened: “The surgeon…started at 8 a.m., used a rectoscope to remove the polyps endoscopically. My father hemorrhaged on the operating table, bleeding so severely that it couldn’t be stopped. Petrovsky cut the abdomen to stop the bleeding and found a cancerous tumor which had not been visible before.” At this juncture, Petrovsky found himself facing a severe crisis, and he frantically tried to save his patient’s life. Korolev’s daughter then recorded her father’s final moments: “He [Petrovsky] began to remove parts of the rectum to take out the tumor. This took a long time. My father had an anesthetic mask on for eight hours. They should have put some kind of tube in his lungs, but his jaws had been broken in prison so they couldn’t use the tube. His heart was not in good condition, and Petrovsky knew this. He completed the operation, but my father never revived.”36
The passing of Korolev—sudden and catastrophic—left the Soviet cosmonaut corps in despair. His body was taken to the Hall of Columns in the Kremlin, a belated recognition of the Chief Designer’s long service to the Soviet state. Here his body was laid in an open casket on a high pedestal, covered with flowers and surrounded by red and black bunting on the white columns in the ornate hall. As countless mourners passed the casket, the room was filled with the music of Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. For the first time the name of Sergei Petrovich Korolev was acknowledged in an obituary appearing in Pravda with a photograph. Other public honors in the Soviet Union followed, including a special parade in Red Square. His remains were eventually cremated and then buried in the Kremlin wall, a gesture conferring high honor by the Soviet leaders Brezhnev and Kosygin. Even the New York Times, on January 16, 1966, took note of Korolev’s death, publishing an obituary and informing its readers that he had been the designer of Sputniks and manned spacecraft.37
In the wake of Korolev’s death, Vasiliy Mishin assumed leadership of the troubled Soviet space program. Mishin had displayed considerable skill and talent as one of Korolev’s chief deputies, earning a reputation for competence as an engineer. However, Mishin lacked Korolev’s charismatic style and wide experience in the upper echelons of the Soviet bureaucracy. In terms of personality, Mishin was a cautious and methodical administrator, a man who failed to show the bold leadership style that had defined the Korolev years. Mishin did not move forthrightly to reduce the number of competing programs. However, he did continue to push the development of the N-1, the Soyuz series (even after the death of cosmonaut Komarov), and the experimental Zond and Cosmos lunar probes. The unmanned docking of the Kosmos 186 and Kosmos 188 in 1967 represented an important milestone under Mishin’s tenure in the immediate aftermath of Korolev’s death. Mishin would lead the Soviet space program into the mid-1970s.38
Korolev’s legacy continued to shape the Soviet space program in the late 1960s. The N-1 moon rocket, whose origins could be traced to 1958, represented the Soviet challenge to the Saturn V. While the Soviet military—most notably in the Strategic Rocket Forces—opposed such costly space programs, Korolev had prevailed. In a parallel program, the L3 spacecraft was designed for a future mission to the moon atop the still untested N-1 booster. In Khrushchev’s final months in power, he had also approved a second space initiative under Vladimir Chelomei, of OKB-52, to send two cosmonauts around the moon in the LK-1 spacecraft. Chelomei now moved forward with the powerful UR-500, or Proton booster, which emerged as a rival design to the N-1. The perceived threat of Apollo had prompted Khrushchev to approve these ambitious space projects. When Leonid Brezhnev toppled Khrushchev and assumed power in October 1964, he continued to offer support for these long-range space goals for the Soviet Union.39
In the final year of his life, Korolev had used the specter of Apollo to garner support in the higher levels of Soviet political leadership, but he faced continued opposition from his old rival Valentin Glushko. The two had engaged in a bitter dispute over the engine design for the N-1. Korolev realized that the new rocket required powerful engines to lift a projected payload of more than 100 tons into orbit. Consequently, he argued for the development of engines using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen propellants; in his view this super-cooled cryogenic mix offered optimal lift for the huge N-1 rocket. His powerful rival, Glushko, remained a strong believer in storable propellants such as nitric acid, arguing that cryogenic fuels were inherently unstable. Going back to 1962, Korolev had gained ascendancy in this fierce debate when his approach received official sanction. Glushko then stepped aside from the N-1 project, severing his ties with Korolev. In time, Glushko migrated to Chelomei’s shop, where he worked on the RD-253 engine for the Proton booster. A desperate Korolev then turned to Nikolai
Kuznetsov, a designer of turbo-prop engines for aircraft, to design and build engines for the N-1. Kuznetsov did possess a reputation as a talented designer, but he lacked the experience and knowledge of Glushko. The infighting continued into 1965, when Korolev maneuvered to have Chelomei’s LK-1 project cancelled. In its place, Korolev opted for the L1, a modified Soyuz spacecraft, to be catapulted into a circumlunar orbit on Chelomei’s three-stage Proton rocket, which was the first Soviet launcher not based on a military missile prototype.40
As the Apollo space missions drew closer to the moon, the venerable Soyuz would be used for yet another space spectacular. In January 1969, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 docked in orbit, and two cosmonauts transferred from one spacecraft to the other in a dramatic spacewalk. Stemming from the Soyuz design, another key undertaking by the Soviets in the late 1960s was the Zond space series. Between 1968 and 1970 five Zond deep space missions were launched. The unmanned Zond series represented a remarkable feat of navigation and hinted at the long-range goal of the Soviets to undertake a circumlunar mission, if not an actual lunar landing. Zond 5 set a new milestone by orbiting the moon and returning to Earth in September 1968, just months before the historic Apollo 8 mission. The unmanned spacecraft had taken photographs of Earth while above the moon’s surface. In November, Zond 6 took a series of remarkable pictures of the far side of the moon. The Zond probes suggested that the Soviets were seriously preparing for a manned lunar mission.41
The critical component for any manned Soviet lunar mission was the N-1 booster. With its L3 module attached, the N-1 rocket was a huge affair: It was 344 feet long and weighed more than 2,700 tons. The N-1 was nearly the same height as the Saturn V, which was 364 feet tall. The design and appearance of the N-1, however, was quite different with its contours and trusses between stages. The first stage of the N-1 consisted of a complex array of 30 engines with a projected thrust of 9 million pounds, or 4,500 tons; a second stage with eight engines; and a third stage with four engines—all powered by a volatile mix of liquid oxygen and kerosene. Hurried into production, with the rocket engines designed by the inexperienced Kuznetsov, the N-1 was an accident ready to happen. The dramatic test of the N-1 took place at Baikonur on February 21, 1969. The launch was scheduled without any full-scale ground tests of the engines. At ignition, the complex first stage roared to life, flames and smoke enveloping the pad as the resulting shock waves vibrated across the complex. But after 80 seconds the first stage engines shut down, causing the N-1 to crash 60 miles from the launch site. The ill-fated super rocket exploded in the remote desert outside Baikonur. A second launch followed on July 3, and the N-1 became engulfed in flames just seconds after lift off. The explosion of the second N-1 ended any Soviet hopes of making a circumlunar mission and keeping pace with the Apollo program.42 Two additional launches of the N-1—also catastrophic failures—took place in June 1971 and November 1972, bringing down the curtain on this ill-fated experiment in rocketry.43
The failure of the N-1 represented a dramatic reversal for the Soviets, but the reasons for the Soviet space program’s inability to keep pace with the Americans rested in large measure on non-technical factors. In particular, the bitter competition among the major Soviet designers begat great confusion. Competing technologies worked at cross-purposes, which hindered the space program at a critical juncture when the Americans were ready to assume a decisive lead. Chronic disarray was evident in the post-Korolev era. The Soviet space effort had evolved out of a military missile project. It garnered support from the highest echelons of political leadership, but the military sector maintained a persistent and often debilitating opposition. In addition, the planned nature of the Soviet economy, with its top-down allocation of resources, did not consistently encourage innovation or, more important, a logical and sustainable space program with incremental stages. The shroud of secrecy—pervasive and illogical—cast its shadow over the entire program. The Soviet space program recruited many talented engineers, designers, and cosmonauts, but they worked in a context of managerial chaos and waste. The Soviet regime, self-styled as being at the cutting edge of progress, became the midwife of a system characterized by gross inefficiency. In the end, it was the politics of the Soviet Union that dealt the space program its most severe blows.
THE FIRST LEAP
The NASA press release for Apollo 8, dated December 15, 1968, described the forthcoming mission in a straightforward manner: “The United States has scheduled its first mission designed to orbit men around the moon for launch December 21 at 7:51 a.m. EST from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s John F. Kennedy Space Center, Florida.” The Apollo 8 spacecraft with a three-man crew would depart the familiar environs of near-Earth orbit and cross 237,000 miles into outer space—passing outside the gravitational pull of the home planet. Before this time the farthest humans had ventured into space had been a modest 850 miles. NASA did not characterize Apollo 8 as a bold or quantum leap in manned spaceflight. Instead the language was matter of fact, suggesting that the mission would be “open-ended” and designed to allow the crew “to operate at lunar distances.” One statement in the press release, however, did hint at the inherent dangers of the lunar excursion: “The mission will be carried out on a step-by-step ‘commit point’ basis.” This vague hint of caution meant that the Apollo 8 spacecraft might be ordered home abruptly or placed on some “alternate mission” if deemed necessary. The mission’s projected “Earth landing” was scheduled to take place some 147 hours after launch on December 27, at 10:51 a.m. EST.44
The official language describing the Apollo 8 lunar mission in no way captured the drama of the moment—the remarkable fact that humans for the first time would visit, though not land on, Earth’s orbiting moon. The decision to launch such a mission was not part of the pre-set NASA Apollo blueprint; in fact, NASA redefined the mission for Apollo 8 in a curious, almost accidental fashion. In the course of 1968, myriad technical problems in the manufacture of the LM, especially its ascent rocket, had caused a series of delays. The Apollo 8 mission had been scheduled to test the LM, but this critical evaluation now appeared impossible before the end of the year. George Low, a talented NASA engineer, then proposed that the Apollo 8 mission be radically reset for a bold journey to the moon. Moreover, Low suggested an even bolder objective—a series of orbits around the moon rather than a figure-eight loop of the moon. Such a maneuver, he argued, was appropriate; astronauts would have to perfect this skill for any future lunar landing. After some deliberation, NASA administrator James Webb approved the stunning Low idea.45
A manned crossing of the vast empty void between Earth and the moon would be an unprecedented exercise, one filled with extreme risk and manifold technical uncertainties. Webb understood the less than ideal odds for success, but he nevertheless approved the bold idea. Webb’s measured enthusiasm was shared by other high-ranking NASA leaders and the astronaut corps. In retrospect, the Low plan offered a welcome stratagem for NASA to make a historic leap forward. The year 1968 had been a grim interlude for the United States at home and abroad: the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the outbreak of race riots and civil unrest, and the continued debate over an unpopular war in Vietnam. As for NASA, it faced the haunting specter that the Russians might soon launch their Soyuz spacecraft on one or more space spectaculars, perhaps even a lunar flyby.46
The new initiative would follow up on the highly successful Apollo 7 mission in October, which had buoyed confidence in the space agency. Apollo 7 had signaled that NASA was ready to resume manned spaceflights after a 20-month interregnum following the Apollo 1 fire. Just before the Apollo 7 mission three unmanned flights using Saturn V and the smaller Saturn IB rocket had been launched. With this backdrop, Apollo 7 astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham aimed to orbit the Earth for 11 days, equal to the time it would later take for a round-trip to the moon. Their mission was to thoroughly check out the Apollo spacecraft’s command and service modules’ readiness to f
ly Americans to the moon. If they succeeded, nothing would stand in the way of such a flight. If they failed, the chances of achieving Kennedy’s lunar landing goal on time would greatly diminish.47
As if those stakes were not high enough, Apollo 7, carried aloft on von Braun’s smaller Saturn IB rocket rather than the Saturn V, was to be the first manned Apollo mission. The flight turned out to be a total success, remembered for achieving every engineering and technical goal set for the crew and the spacecraft. On the human side, though, Apollo 7 did have its difficult moments. Mission Commander Schirra, a veteran of Mercury and Gemini flights, contracted a severe head cold early in the flight. An impatient Schirra, often joined by his crew, took a combative posture toward NASA mission controllers. He cancelled a scheduled television broadcast from orbit, telling the flight controllers, “We’ve got a new vehicle up here, and I’m saying at this point television will be delayed, without further discussion….” The Apollo 7 crew nonetheless eventually redeemed themselves with NASA’s Public Affairs Office by sending several lighthearted TV broadcasts back from their capsule.48
The willingness of Schirra to depart from the normal protocol of obedience to the mission script became evident when he reacted negatively to one series of scheduled tests, saying they were “ill-conceived and hastily prepared by an idiot.” Schirra had a keen desire to focus on the critical goals, primarily the need to check out the redesigned Apollo spacecraft. As he later pointed out, his motivation was quite personal: His “next-door neighbor, Gus [Grissom], one of our [Mercury] seven…[and] two other guys I thought the world of” were killed in the Apollo 1 fire. As a member of the Apollo 7 crew he aimed to prevent such a tragedy from happening again, even as the team paved the way for a future lunar mission. The moon was the next stop.49