The question, with all its implications, hung in the air momentarily. But it was obvious where Khrushchev was headed. He had invited all the leaders of world communism to Moscow for the anniversary (which because of the switch from the old Julian czarist calendar would actually take place on November 7) and wanted another feat to impress his honored guests. He was especially keen to woo China’s Mao Zedong with Korolev’s magic, since the Chinese had been growing increasingly aloof and independent ever since his secret speech at the Twentieth Party Congress. Beijing had blasted Khrushchev’s assault on Stalin as “revisionist” and had made ugly noises about no longer recognizing Russia’s role as the ideological standard-bearer for communism. But Mao was veritably smitten with missiles and had openly marveled at Sputnik. Khrushchev, eager to bring the Chinese back into Moscow’s fold, had promised Mao missile technology, starting with the R-2, which was to be transferred in 1958. (The Chinese, in turn, would transfer the technology to their client states, and in time the R-2’s DNA would figure in virtually all future generations of Asian missiles.)
Khrushchev clearly relished the prospect of Mao in Moscow, salivating at another display of Soviet missile muscle flexing. Mikoyan also seemed to have caught the gist of his boss’s loaded question. “Maybe,” he suggested, “a Sputnik that will broadcast the ‘Internationale’ from space.” The “Internationale” was the pan-Communist anthem, a hymn that reverberated for the October Revolution in much the same way as the “Marseillaise” sounded the French Revolution.
But Khrushchev didn’t think much of the idea. “What?” he snapped, cutting off a cowed Mikoyan. “You and your Internationale. Forget the Internationale. [Sputnik]’s not a damn music box.”
Glaring briefly at Mikoyan, Khrushchev once more turned to his Chief Designer, his expression immediately softening, his eyes attentive and hopeful. Korolev’s mind must also have been racing throughout the exchange. He had the parts to assemble one more rocket; otherwise the next batch of R-7s would not be ready until January 1958. So he had a launch vehicle. But what about a satellite? Nothing was ready on that front, and he couldn’t simply replicate PS-1. Whatever he came up with had to top the original Sputnik: be bigger, better, and create an even greater sensation. The bar was significantly raised, and the time frame was beyond brutal. It had taken three years to launch Sputnik. Khrushchev was giving him barely three weeks.
A wiser man might have said that it was impossible, that it couldn’t be done. But Korolev did not hesitate. “What if we launch a Sputnik with a living being?” he asked nonchalantly, as if building a spacecraft from scratch in a matter of days was the easiest thing in the world. The military, Korolev explained, had been sending dogs on high-altitude, suborbital rocket flights and parachuting them back to earth in special hermetically sealed compartments. He could borrow one of those canine chambers, outfit it with a life-support system, and cobble something together.
Khrushchev’s face lit up as he listened. “With a dog in it!” he exclaimed, as if the idea had just spontaneously come to him and Korolev was an extension of his own iron will, merely a mechanic who filled in the blanks and fussed over the details. “Can you imagine, Anastas?” Khrushchev cried triumphantly, addressing Mikoyan, who was nodding enthusiastically, as he always did whenever the first secretary looked to him for reassurance. “A dog in space.”
It would be such a coup. Not only could the USSR stake another claim to cosmic supremacy, but it would also be the first nation on the planet to prove that life could be sustained beyond earth’s boundaries. Once more, the whole world would stand in awe of Soviet science while trembling at the strength of its missiles. It was perfect.
“That’s what we need,” a clearly animated Khrushchev continued. “A dog. Give us a dog. But,” his features darkened in a vaguely ominous, finger-wagging way, “make sure you are ready for the holidays.”
It was Korolev who now nodded with forced sincerity, since he had little choice. “We will do our best, Nikita Sergeevich,” he promised, sounding somewhat less certain, being sure to use the collective we in case blame later had to be spread.
“We are agreed then, Sergei Pavlovich,” Khrushchev said, standing up to indicate that the interview was over. “You will have whatever you need. You can ask my man Kozlov”—another new Politburo appointee—“for whatever you want. Meet with him tomorrow to go over the details. But remember,” Khrushchev admonished, “we need this for the holidays.”
• • •
Twenty-six days. The number must have reverberated in Korolev’s head like an oppressive drumbeat, like the pounding of a migraine that could not be dulled. What had he gotten himself into? Twenty-six days to design, build, test, and launch a spacecraft. Scratch the testing; there would be no time for that. The design phase would also have to be severely curtailed if he had any hope of meeting his deadline. There would be no special drawings. His engineers would have to make crude sketches and give them directly to machinists, to be produced without quality control. But what about the overall concept? How big would the craft have to be to keep an animal alive? And for how long? They would have to feed their canine cosmonaut remotely, monitor its progress electronically, process its waste hydraulically, and provide it with a steady supply of fresh oxygen. That was a lot of equipment to haul into orbit. Would Glushko’s engines carry the extra weight? What about the heat? How would they shield their passenger from the forces of friction and solar rays? Would the capsule require a special shroud? And how would it separate from the launch vehicle once it had reached orbital velocity? Ejection systems were complex and prone to malfunction. They couldn’t risk one, not without extensive testing. Perhaps they could weld the satellite to the R-7’s core booster and try to blast the whole thing into space. But that solution presented its own problems.
Dilemmas and technical conundrums swirled through Korolev’s mind as his black limousine pulled out of the Kremlin gates. The Chief Designer was not particularly introspective or prone to soul-searching panic attacks. But he could not have failed to wonder whether his ambition and supreme self-confidence had exceeded his better judgment on this occasion.
Even if Mikhail Tikhonravov, his resident satellite expert—the “chief theoretician of cosmonautics,” as he would soon be called—could sketch a few rudimentary blueprints, they would have to build PS-2 on the fly, improvise virtually every step. The hardware would have to come entirely off the shelf, since there was no time for new components or anything fancy. Korolev hated cutting corners. But he hadn’t left himself a choice.
Nor would there be room for error. This time Khrushchev would be watching, and the entire Presidium would be expecting results. This launch was pure politics, and that was always dangerous ground. If Korolev was successful, he could write his own ticket. And he had ambitious plans to cash in his political chips.
The Chief Designer had not idly proposed orbiting a dog with PS-2. He had not wildly blurted out the suggestion. It had been premeditated, a prelude to his ultimate goal: to plant the seeds for a space program that would someday put human beings in orbit and ultimately a man on the moon. Officially, the Soviet Union had no such designs. Satellites, to Khrushchev, were offshoots of missiles. Korolev wanted to change that perception and make space a politically viable destination in its own right, a propaganda weapon. PS-1 had opened Khrushchev’s eyes to that possibility. This second Sputnik could seal the deal.
If he failed, though, the space option would forever be off the table. Khrushchev would not give him a second chance. His interplanetary dreams would be over, and he would spend the rest of his career working on ICBMs—if he was lucky. Everything depended on PS-2.
Korolev’s first order of business was to get his team back to Moscow OKB-1 headquarters, and that in itself was no easy task. After Sputnik’s launch, he had given all his top engineers time off to recuperate from the months of heavy exertion at Tyura-Tam. He himself could have used a break. He was exhausted, having worked himself to the point of collap
se. But he’d stuck around Moscow, expecting the call from Khrushchev, knowing that the opportunity that might present itself had to be seized. Now he could only hope that his health would hold up another few weeks, and that his men could get back on time from various resorts on the Baltic and Black seas. The Chief Designer started issuing frantic recall notices. “My wife and I were in Kudespa on the Baltic when I received the telegram from Korolev to return to Moscow immediately,” Evgeny Shabarov recalled. “I went to the airport but couldn’t get any tickets.” Soviet airlines were always booked months in advance, especially from tourist destinations. “I went to see the airport administrator, and showed him the cable,” Shabarov went on. “Oh yes, I know all about you, he said, here’s your ticket.” Korolev had called the transport ministry, warning its officials that Khrushchev would have their heads if every single one of his rocket scientists was not back the next day.
“We’re returning to Tyura-Tam tomorrow,” the Chief Designer announced when all his astonished engineers had been assembled. “Be prepared to go back to work.”
10
OPERATION CONFIDENCE
“Soviets Orbit Second Artificial Moon; Communist Dog in Space,” screamed the headlines on the morning of Monday, November 4, 1957, as Americans awoke to another media riot and fresh rounds of recriminations.
“What next?” demanded the New York Herald Tribune incredulously. “A Man on the Moon?” “Moscow Mission to Mars in Near Future?” the Washington Star speculated, its editorial dripping with defeat and resignation. “Shoot the Moon, Ike,” urged the feistier Pittsburgh Press, suggesting defiantly that the White House blow the offending Soviet satellite to smithereens.
From his desk on the second story of the Old Senate Office Building, Lyndon Johnson surveyed the stack of alarmist articles, the barest hint of a smile creasing his craggy features. “Plunge heavily into this one,” advised an accompanying note from his aide George Reedy. But Johnson needed no exhortations from underlings to spot the opportunity he had been waiting for. For several weeks now he’d been sitting on the sidelines, gauging the political winds. The deals had been cut, and his rival, Stuart Symington, had been dispensed with. The only remaining question had been the timing, since Congress was not in session.
During the past month, Johnson had busily poisoned the well against Symington, who may have “looked most like a President,” in the opinion of the New York Times, but had proven no match for the master of the “Johnson Treatment.” The Democratic majority leader had not only wooed Richard Russell but also sweet-talked the ranking Republican members of the Armed Services Committee, Styles Bridges and Leverett Saltonstall. “Let’s not look for scapegoats,” he told them, “but let’s find out what’s wrong and let’s do what’s necessary to fix it.” Johnson conceded that Symington was the Senate’s leading expert on missiles, but he said mournfully that the Missourian was also out for blood, looking only to hold Air Power hearings that would be “too shrill” in tone, “too partisan” in nature. The Preparedness subcommittee, on the other hand, would be bipartisan and interested only in “solving the problems,” not apportioning blame. Never mind that the subcommittee was defunct and had not been used in years, while Symington’s investigative body was fully staffed and an ongoing concern. Johnson sealed the deal by promising Bridges and Saltonstall that they could help preside over the Preparedness inquest, knowing full well that the men were up for reelection in 1958.
The matter of the subcommittee had thus been settled. Johnson, however, had not rushed out and announced his intentions to hold Pre-paredness hearings. For all his reputation as a freewheeling horse trader, as a reckless and charmingly relentless rogue, he was an inherently cautious legislator, never putting himself out front of an issue unless the outcome was guaranteed. Like the lawyer who only asked questions for which he already knew the answer, Johnson only supported measures to which he’d already secured prior passage. He knew that challenging President Eisenhower on national security, no matter how subtly, was a risky proposition. But as Johnson scanned the hysterical articles on Sputnik II, the satellite’s specifications made him bolt upright. The thing was monstrous: a staggering 1,120 pounds, and well over three terrifying tons when the rocket casing to which it was welded was factored into the equation. Unlike its predecessor, this second Sputnik was almost as heavy as a hydrogen bomb—incontrovertible proof that the Soviet Union did in fact have the capability to hurl heavy nuclear warheads at the United States, despite Eisenhower’s dogged assurances to the contrary.
Johnson knew he now had his ammunition, the silver bullet he and Senator Russell had been waiting for to take on the popular president. “Sputnik II absolutely made the decision for them,” recalled his aide Glenn P. Wilson, “because it weighed so much more.”
The following day, Johnson and Russell called a press conference on the steps of the Pentagon. The members of the media, by then, had already worked themselves up into a speculative frenzy over Sputnik II’s passenger, the mix-breed terrier Laika, and her planetary laps. “The greatly increased size of the second Sputnik means that it was probably not fired by the same rocket system that launched the first one,” Time opined erroneously. “This is enough weight allowance to put a powerful atomic bomb on the moon,” the magazine added, also erroneously. The New York Times fared no better, wondering “whether the Soviet Union might be using some new form of rocket propellant unknown in the West” (which it was not) to generate so much lift. Analysts at the Pentagon and the CIA, meanwhile, feverishly revised their estimates of the Russian ICBM’s thrust from a too-low 500,000 pounds to a too-high 1.5 million pounds—still out of range of Time’s moon shot but more than enough to plunk a hydrogen bomb anywhere on earth.
Johnson and Russell whipped up the overeager press. Pronouncing themselves deeply “alarmed” at the briefing they had just received from the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the relative state of American missiles, they announced that an emergency session of the Preparedness subcommittee would be convened later that month. “As Chairman of the Committee, the Senate Democratic leader reported that it would cover such matters ‘as our record of consistent underestimation of the Soviet program, and the Government’s lack of willingness to take proper risks,’” the New York Times duly informed its readers.
The inquest the administration had feared was now official. “It’s a real circus act,” John Foster Dulles grumbled. Unfortunately, he added, “the weight of this thing” was deadly serious. Once more Nixon pleaded with Eisenhower to head Johnson off. The vice president had his own electoral future to think about, and he knew that Johnson was no fool. The Texas senator was certain to tarnish him with the same mud-flinging brush he was going to use to paint the entire cabinet as incompetent. But Ike wasn’t worried. The American people would see through the populism and demagoguery. “Johnson can keep his head in the stars if he wants,” the president replied. “I’m going to keep my feet on the ground.”
Nikita Khrushchev, meanwhile, was also doing his bit to stir up trouble for the White House. Sputnik II, he lectured world Communist leaders on the eve of the November 7 celebrations, “demonstrates that the USSR has outstripped the leading capitalist country—the United States—in the field of scientific and technological progress. The launching of the Sputniks undoubtedly also shows,” he added triumphantly, “a change in favor of the socialist states in the balance of forces with capitalist states.”
Pravda piled on, boasting that “the freed and conscientious labor of the people of the new socialist society makes the most daring dreams of mankind a reality,” while the vapid and decadent West wallowed in racial unrest and inequality. America had lost its place in the sun, seemed to be the message from Moscow, and the theme was quickly picked up by American pundits and politicians, who began to worry whether Pravda had a point. It was time, warned Senator Bridges, “to be less concerned with the depth of the pile on the new broadloom rug, and to be more prepared to shed blood, sweat and tears if this country and the free w
orld are to survive.”
In the pages of the staunchly Republican New York Herald Tribune, the financier and statesman Bernard Baruch chastised America for its lack of resolve. “While we devote our industrial and technological might to producing new model automobiles and more gadgets,” he wrote, “the Soviet Union is conquering space. If America ever crashes, it will be in a two-tone convertible.”
“It’s time to stop worrying about tail-fins,” Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb, said, continuing the automotive allegory and bemoaning the fact that American culture prized football players above scientists and talk show hosts over university professors. The New York Times editorial board agreed, warning, “We’ve become a little too self-satisfied, complacent, and luxury loving.”
America’s sense of self, already shaken by the first Sputnik, now foundered in the wake of its much larger, more sophisticated sibling. The Sputniks were “an intercontinental outer-space raspberry to a decade of American pretension that the American way of life was a giltedged guarantee of national superiority,” suggested Clare Boothe Luce, the millionaire playwright, congresswoman, ambassador, and Republican fund-raiser, whose husband owned both Time and Life magazines. “We ourselves have made it an article of faith that the nation which builds the biggest bombs must be morally superior because it is materially superior,” she declared. “We need not be surprised today that Russia is making the same claim.” And yet, she continued, “we go on believing that our system can provide guns and butter. Yes, and Bibles too. But we query whether that means atom bombs and bombes glacees; SAC by General LeMay, and sack dresses by Christian Dior; lower taxes and higher rockets—all this and heaven too.”
Red Moon Rising Page 26