Outposts on the Frontier: A Fifty-Year History of Space Stations (Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Spaceflight)

by Jay Chladek

  Once the craft acquired a visual sighting of the station, the Igla rendezvous problems reared their ugly head again. It was determined that Salyut 5’s transponder was operating properly. But for some reason, the Soyuz was unable to lock on; conditions were not ideal for conducting a manual docking, because the distance wasn’t close enough to even make an attempt. The limited battery life of the Soyuz ferry meant that the crew had to shut down all nonessential systems and spend the next few orbits in drifting flight before the next reentry window over the prime recovery zone opened up.

  After another day in orbit, the crew executed a proper retroburn and were on their way home. But that wasn’t the end of their problems. Due to the aborted flight, the Soyuz came home to darkness and blizzard conditions in the prime recovery area. What was worse is that it splashed down almost dead center in the northern part of Lake Tengiz, a shallow, saltwater lake located in northern Kazakhstan. Where the descent module touched down, the crew were eight kilometers from shore, and the craft broke through the ice layer into the water. The Soyuz craft had been designed for possible water landings, and the crews had trained for them. But no trials had taken place during a blizzard in freezing conditions. It would take extreme effort from the recovery crew to retrieve the cosmonauts.

  The ice clogs on the lake meant that boats could not make it to the craft and fog kept recovery helicopters from flying. The crew got out of their Sokol pressure suits and donned their cold weather survival gear to await rescue. With a craft made out of metal floating on the surface of a partially frozen lake, it didn’t take long before the interior reached freezing conditions as the outside temperature was about -20 degrees Celsius (-4 degrees Fahrenheit). Plus, the capsule only had very limited battery power for the reentry. So the crew turned their heaters off and used the remaining power to keep an internal light and the ship’s location beacon operating. At least the crew wouldn’t suffocate as the valves that doomed the Soyuz 11 crew worked as advertised here, allowing fresh air to come in while keeping the water out.

  Many years later, it was revealed just how harrowing the rescue was. Saltwater intrusion under a cover caused the reserve parachute to deploy and it acted like a large anchor that tried to pull the capsule underwater. Only the shallow bottom of the lake kept the capsule from sinking below the waterline. Recovery forces found the capsule purely by chance, but they couldn’t get to it. They eventually lost contact as the antennae iced over. Many in the recovery crew fully expected the cosmonauts to be dead from exposure. Finally, at daybreak the weather cleared enough for a rescue attempt to be made, as divers attempted to attach a lifting cable to hoist the capsule out of the lake by helicopter. While the copter was unable to completely lift it, the capsule was dragged to shore, where a cold and exhausted yet very much alive crew was recovered. Neither cosmonaut flew in space again, yet both remained in the program for a few more years.

  Soyuz 24, the Last Almaz Mission

  On 7 February 1977 another attempt was made to launch a crew to Salyut 5 for a short-duration visit. Commanding the Soyuz 24 mission was Viktor Gorbatko, and he was accompanied by engineer Yuri Glazkov. The launch proceeded as normal; a day later, the Soyuz executed a perfect rendezvous with Salyut 5. At eighty meters out, the Igla system failed, but Gorbatko was able to take over and executed a perfect manual docking.

  The crew donned their gas masks and entered the station. But to their surprise, they found the atmosphere to be clean and quite breathable with no sign of the acrid odor experienced by the Soyuz 21 crew. This would only be a two week stay, and the crew got right to work on the tasks originally assigned to the previous crew.

  Viktor Gorbatko conducted a pretty extensive interview for the “Astrospies” program on his Salyut 5 mission. Gorbatko said of his mission, “When we flew over the United States, I looked down and immediately recognized New York. We could see human beings on the streets. I would say we could see objects about one meter in size. I had enough time to count planes on the ground when we flew over military bases. We just had to shoot film of any weapons we could spot. That was about all we had to do. Our main assignment with the Agat system was to film ships and planes on the other side. There was some military tension in Israel, so we had to count how many planes they had.”

  One test that took place late in the mission had Salyut 5’s air supply purged and completely replenished with onboard tanks. This was a precursor to EVAs planned for the next DOS station. Both the DOS and OPS station cores had a side hatch built into them. These could allow for space walks to be conducted, but none of the stations that flew up to that point were equipped with EVA pressure suits. The Sokol pressure suits used for launch and recovery could be used in a pure vacuum, but only for short time periods; they lacked the thermal protection required for EVAs.

  After a two-week mission, the Soyuz 24 crew returned to Earth. Since it was still the middle of winter, the weather was still quite cold even though the descent module came down in daylight. The vehicle overshot its recovery area by a little bit, so the crew had to wait about an hour before recovery forces arrived. As a result of these cold-weather landings, officials made sure to equip future Soyuz craft with additional survival provisions. Preparations for intensely cold weather also became part of Soyuz training and continue to this day with current ISS crews.

  The Legacy of Almaz

  A few weeks after the Soyuz 24 crew returned home, Salyut 5 jettisoned its film container, and the capsule was recovered after a nominal reentry. The “secret” capsule was kept in Soviet and Russian hands until it was sold at an auction in New York City in late 1993. Salyut 5 remained in orbit for another six months after the departure of Soyuz 24, when it was deorbited over the Pacific Ocean in August of 1977.

  Chelomei’s bureau had come a long way since the designer had first proposed Almaz over a decade earlier. At the end of the Salyut 5 mission, they still had one Almaz station left in storage, and plans were underway to fly it sometime in the early 1980s. The TKS spacecraft would also soon be ready for flight. But flight of another manned Almaz station was not meant to be, due to behind-the-scenes events taking place while Salyut 5 was in orbit. In late April 1976, Dmitry Ustinov became defense minister for the Soviet Union after the death of Andrei Grechko. The new title made him one of the most powerful men in the Soviet Union with a say in defense and space matters.

  While Salyut 5 was allowed to continue, once its final manned mission was concluded, the decision was made to not fly any more manned Almaz missions. Some of the reasons behind the decision were obvious, such as the capability of unmanned Soviet reconnaissance satellites, which by this point had steadily improved since the program’s inception. Secondly, flying the Almaz missions as part of the Salyut program meant that they were more high-profile than what a classified military program should be. Soviet space station efforts had become as prestigious for the Soviets as the moon landings had been for the United States, making it harder to maintain the cover story.

  But regardless of any technical arguments for the conclusion of Almaz, the decision likely was also influenced by Ustinov’s personal bias. What had kept Chelomei in the manned space business after Khrushchev’s removal were his allies in the military, such as Grechko. Now that Grechko was dead, Ustinov was the voice of the military.

  The cancellation of Almaz meant that Chelomei’s bureau was demoted to acting only in a support capacity only for space activities. There was still a demand for the UR-500 Proton rocket, and portions of Chelomei’s bureau were involved with the construction on the next-generation DOS station cores, even if Chelomei had no direct say in their design. But it paled in comparison to the grand plans envisioned a decade earlier. Chelomei would still continue to supply armaments and missiles for the Soviet military, but Ustinov had Chelomei right where he wanted the designer: under tight control. For the foreseeable future, Glushko’s NPO Energia design bureau would be in charge of the Soviet space station program.

  6

  On-Orbit Diplo
macy

  In 1974 NASA’s space efforts were focused on a new mission. But rather than going to the moon or doing another flight to Skylab, the plan was for an Apollo CSM to launch and dock with a Soyuz spacecraft. To many observers, the mission didn’t seem like much, as it was only demonstrating the rendezvous and docking techniques that had been practiced by both countries since the late 1960s. But the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) would have far-reaching impacts to both nations’ space programs, even if they weren’t fully understood at the time. It would be the first directly collaborative effort of equipment and government personnel from both the United States and the Soviet Union since the end of World War II.

  The Early Path to Cooperation

  The building blocks for NASA and Soviet cooperation were first laid in the early 1960s by NASA associate administrator Hugh Dryden, former director of the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics. Dryden was one of the great aeronautical scientists of the twentieth century during the 1930s and ’40s. He was well known and highly regarded among Soviet circles as well, since his published papers were considered required reading by aerodynamicists.

  While international relations between the two countries cooled in the 1950s, Dryden maintained a dialog with his Soviet counterparts. One Soviet scientist whom Hugh Dryden frequently exchanged letters with was academician Anatoly Blagonravov, a designer of rocket and artillery systems during the Second World War. Blagonravov was an orchestrator of space policy for the Soviet Union during its program’s early years.

  Informal contact between scientists of the United States and the Soviet Union was also maintained through the foundation of COSPAR, the International Committee for Space Research. COSPAR had been founded to help maintain a level of international cooperation that had begun during the International Geophysical Year (the IGY took place from 1 July 1957 to 31 December 1958), during which scientific studies of Earth’s atmosphere and the space environment were made all over the globe. It can be said that the space programs of both the United States and the Soviet Union were spawned by the IGY studies, given that both low-altitude and high-altitude sounding rockets were used to fly payloads in and above the atmosphere. In the Soviets’ case, they announced their intentions to fly the first Sputnik as part of their own IGY efforts. Yet few took notice until the first Sputnik flew successfully.

  NASA administrator James Webb publicly endorsed more of a hard-line stance from NASA and touted American space efforts as a competition against the Soviets with no hint of anything being done jointly. This position resonated just fine with Congress, who continued to fund NASA’s efforts throughout the mid-1960s. But back channels were kept open behind the scenes at the encouragement of Webb.

  Right after NASA was chartered in 1958, an International Programs Office was opened. Publicly, it was created with the goal of maintaining relationships with other countries that might be able to provide logistical support for space missions (such as land for tracking stations). It also served as a point of contact for other countries who wanted to conduct space science jointly with the United States. It was a point of contact available to the Soviets as well, should they have chosen to utilize it.

  When John Kennedy became the U.S. president in 1961, public perception was that the United States was behind the Soviets in the missile-development race, though the Eisenhower administration had previously touted that there was no such problem. Kennedy endorsed increased involvement in space for political purposes, and this was best illustrated when he announced the goal of a moon landing by the end of the decade. But Kennedy also attempted to extend the hand of cooperation to the Soviets in the development of satellites and space probes to other planets, perhaps thinking that his goal of the moon would score some diplomatic points with Soviet leadership. These overtures didn’t seem to impress Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev all that much.

  One interesting little footnote to Kennedy’s space-cooperation diplomacy occurred in the fall of 1963. There were some hints that Soviets might not take part in a manned lunar program after all and that they were instead hinting at an unmanned lunar program. Kennedy publicly suggested the idea of inviting the Soviets to take part in the Apollo program. This didn’t exactly go over well in Congress or with the American public. The announcement also took place less than a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. After hearing the idea, Khrushchev reiterated his country’s firm commitment to its own manned program as their half of the space race. The matter was quietly dropped. When Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, any further intentions he might have had for Soviet space cooperation also died.

  Dryden and Blagonravov at least had some success as both men successfully negotiated an agreement on the exchange of scientific and medical findings in each country’s respective space programs, provided that they mutually benefited both nations’ space efforts and didn’t reveal any secrets about their own programs. This was done while Blagonravov served on the United Nations Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space with Dryden acting as a negotiator on behalf of the U.S. government. This initial step would be a small one, but it was at least a first step. As an additional gesture, the Soviets also were invited by NASA to take part in the Echo II communications satellite program.

  The joint Echo II experiments took place in January of 1964. Echo II was essentially a giant aluminum-covered Mylar balloon that served as a passive signal reflector between ground-based radio telescopes on Earth. It was launched into a polar orbit, meaning it could fly over Earth’s entire surface within a twenty-four-hour time period. The Soviets supplied NASA with some tracking data on the satellite and photographs of its inflation in Earth orbit. They also took part in communications experiments between the Jordell Bank Observatory in England and a Soviet tracking station while Echo II passed overhead.

  Dryden and Blagonravov continued their exchange of letters and had occasional face-to-face meetings throughout 1964 and 1965 to refine the early agreements, but there wasn’t much additional headway reached. Dryden was living on borrowed time, as he had been battling cancer for years, although he maintained a high level of productivity even as his health worsened. With Dryden’s death in December 1965, another doorway to potential cooperation closed, and both nations got on with their respective space efforts independently of one another for the next few years.

  In late 1968 things began to change with James Webb’s retirement from NASA. Incoming NASA administrator Thomas Paine had a little different agenda than Webb. Upon taking office, Paine began to downplay the competitive aspects of NASA’s moon program against the Soviets. Behind the scenes, NASA knew that the Soviets were close to launching a moon rocket of their own and had several problems getting it off the ground, information that was not made public until many years later. By the flights of Apollos 9 and 10, it was a foregone conclusion that the United States would likely win the race to the moon. The United States could once again extend the arm of cooperation. This time, they could do it from a position of superiority.

  As administrator, Paine extended an invitation to Blagonravov in a letter and asked him if a Soviet contingent would like to attend Apollo 11’s launch. The invitation was respectfully declined, but the Soviets publicly sent congratulations and acknowledgment to the United States and NASA for their successful efforts when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. With that official acknowledgment, a crack in the wall between East and West began to form.

  Thomas Paine felt that NASA’s long-term future in spaceflight might rest in international cooperation, and this mirrored Richard Nixon’s détente approach to international politics. With encouragement from the Nixon administration, Paine continued to exchange letters, this time to academician Mstislav Keldysh, president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Unlike the National Academy of Sciences (America’s participant in COSPAR), which only had an advisory role in U.S. government affairs, the Soviet Academy of Sciences was directly responsible for Soviet policy regarding scientific and engineering matters. Keldysh was a s
cientist in the fields of mechanics and mathematics. He was one of the architects of early efforts by the Soviet space program and was nicknamed the Great Theoretician to coincide with Sergei Korolev’s label of chief designer. As president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, Keldysh was essentially the top man in matters of Soviet space policy.

  Nixon’s Space Task Group had also generated a report indicating that the time might be right for international cooperation in future space endeavors, thanks to Apollo’s success. So Paine submitted copies of this report, along with additional reports on NASA’s plans for its future in space, directly to the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Paine also wrote how he would welcome a face-to-face visit with Keldysh. Keldysh replied that such a meeting on matters of international cooperation was possible, but it would take time to arrange.

  Paine got a chance to meet with Dryden’s old contact, academician Blagonravov, in early May 1970 when they met at an informal dinner in New York City. While the U.S. State Department briefed Paine prior to the dinner to not to expect much in response, Paine’s own advisers at least felt that while Blagonravov wasn’t necessarily involved directly in matters of space policy anymore, he could at least report his experience back to Keldysh about Paine’s sincerity.

  During their brief talk, joint cooperation in a future space venture came up, but Blagonravov replied that he couldn’t really speak on such matters. The two men did make headway on allowing astronaut Neil Armstrong, already scheduled to attend the next COSPAR meeting in Leningrad within the month to deliver a paper, the chance to visit Star City afterward.

  Neil Armstrong received a very warm welcome in Leningrad when he delivered his paper and had a productive visit to the Star City complex. While the COSPAR meeting took place, NASA deputy administrator George Low met with Soviet officials in Leningrad for behind-the-scenes meetings. On the second day of these meetings, Low met with Keldysh in person. While a plan was not yet in place as to how the two nations would cooperate in a space project, both men agreed to study it further. And the direction that mission would take would be influenced in a small way by a recently released motion picture.