by Jamie Doran
A less realistic dummy had preceded Ivan on March 9. With these two tests successfully completed, Korolev decided that Vostok was finally ready for a real pilot. He had no choice but to take some risks. NASA’s Mercury programme was about to send an American into space. They, too, were prepared to fly brave military volunteers atop missiles with a less-than-perfect launch history, just so long as they could beat the Soviets.
Incidentally, Mazzhorin and his guidance experts had access to many of the documents openly published by NASA, but they also received secret Intelligence reports about forthcoming launch preparations at Cape Canaveral, including the engineering delays and unmanned test failures that dogged the early phases of the Mercury project. This helps to explain why so many Soviet space successes pipped their US equivalents to the post by just weeks, or even days on some occasions. ‘I remember once I got this three-page document, data about various secret orbits that the American satellites were following, and I said, “What do I need this for? This is just Newton’s Laws of Gravitation.” But I reckon our spies had to get those numbers from somewhere. Of course the Americans knew what we were doing, but they stayed silent because we stayed silent. Each side was pretending not to know the other’s business. It wasn’t a very adult game to play, but it led to great technical progress on both sides and a global space industry with benefits for everybody.’
Quite apart from these complex games of international strategy, the simplest and cheapest security measure that Mazzhorin ever had to organize was for the cosmonauts’ benefit alone. ‘We put a pistol into Vostok’s survival kit, just in case our man landed in the African jungle or some such place, and had to protect himself against wild animals. Not against people, of course. He was supposed to ask any people he came across to help him. He wasn’t supposed to shoot them.’
5
PRE-FLIGHT
By the end of 1960 six men from the cosmonaut squad of twenty had been selected as potential candidates for the first Vostok flight. The list was based on the cosmonauts’ abilities and their training record over the previous year; however, there was a more arbitrary factor at work – height, or rather, the lack of it. Vostok’s ejector seat could only accommodate a crewman of modest stature. Gagarin’s short frame made him ideal, as did Gherman Titov’s. Alexei Leonov was a highly proficient candidate, but he was too tall for Vostok in its current configuration.
On March 7, 1961 Valentina Gagarina delivered a second child, Galya. Three weeks after this happy event, Gagarin had to leave for Baikonur, where he and Titov were scheduled to rehearse their final pre-flight checks. By now, they were the only serious candidates in the running for the first flight, the list of six having been whittled down yet further. Both men were aware that a final selection for the first flight would not be made until the very eve of launch, scheduled for April 12. Competition was fierce, albeit understated. ‘Of course I wanted to be chosen,’ Titov explains today. ‘I wanted to be the first into space. Why shouldn’t I? Not just for the sake of being first – simply because we were all interested to see what was out there.’
Titov and Gagarin tried to outdo each other in their cooperation towards each other, knowing that a spirit of professionalism and teamwork would mark them out as suitable choices. A third potential candidate, Grigory Grigoryevich Nelyubov, miscalculated badly, deliberately trying to push himself forward as the only suitable man for the historic first flight. By the end of March, he was no longer in the running.
On arriving at Baikonur, the cosmonauts’ first task was to learn how to dress in their spacesuits. The decision to make the suits had only been taken in mid-1960, after a series of difficult discussions. Many designers thought that Vostok’s pressure-shell should be enough to protect its pilot, and Korolev was worried about the extra weight penalty imposed by the suit and its separate life-support system. However, he was swayed by the safety arguments. He turned to Gai Severin, Russia’s most experienced maker of pilot garments and ejection systems, and said bluntly, ‘You can have the weight allocation [in Vostok] but we need the suits in nine months’ time.’1
Severin based his suits on the high-pressure aircraft garments he had designed in the wake of the Korean War. The pro-communist pilots in Soviet-built MiGs often lost consciousness if they turned their planes too suddenly during combat, while their American enemies managed to stay awake. Severin realized that a tight pressure-suit could help against the g-forces. After he had dressed the pilots more suitably, the Americans became less keen on chasing MiGs round sharp corners. Using a similar design, his spacesuits would help to brace a cosmonaut against the acceleration of the R-7 rocket. The tight fit, especially round his legs, would prevent blood from pooling in his lower torso and starving the supply to his brain. The strong, airtight layers of the space outfit were made from a tough, blue-tinted rubberized compound, while the outer orange material – familiar to Western observers from publicity photographs – was not particularly important for survival. It was just a coverall to smooth out the various bumps and seals, made from a brightly coloured fabric so that a cosmonaut could easily be located if he came down in a snow-covered region. The Soviet Union in April had many snow-covered regions.
Severin was on hand now to teach the cosmonauts how his spacesuit worked, while the Chief of Cosmonaut Training, Nikolai Kamanin, watched carefully. This lesson was also for the benefit of the attending technicians, who had to be able to handle every component with flawless efficiency, so that nothing would be forgotten on launch day. Two spare outfits were allocated so that the ‘real’ suits would remain unblemished until they were needed. Then, fully suited up, the cosmonauts took turns clambering through the hatchway of a duplicate Vostok ball, while the pad crews practised strapping them down. Kamanin supervised mind-numbingly repetitive run-throughs of the emergency ejection routine: setting all the right control switches in the cabin, ensuring the suit and helmet were sealed, and above all preparing the body, tensing the muscles, for the violent shock to come. In a real emergency Gagarin and Titov would have to be able to do all these things without a moment’s thought.
On April 3 the two rival cosmonauts dressed up in the reserve spacesuits for one last time so that they could be filmed climbing into Vostok. They took it in turns to make a moving farewell speech at the foot of the launch gantry. No clear details of the R-7’s appearance were revealed in these shots, because the rocket was still sitting horizontally in the assembly hangar – and its design details were highly secret. The launch technicians mimed the procedures for sealing the cosmonauts up in the ball, these sequences being staged in another area of the main spacecraft preparation hangar, not at the launch pad itself. In the months to come, several faked scenes would be spliced into brief but genuine shots of the launch preparations, taken under much less favourable conditions by cameraman Vladimir Suvorov. On the big day, gantry staff would not be able to give him such full access as he could fake in the hangar.2
On April 7 Titov and Gagarin accompanied Kamanin to the launch pad. They inspected the gantry equipment in detail and rehearsed how to get off the pad if a fire broke out. If a cosmonaut was sealed into the ball and something went wrong before the R-7 rocket had even left the ground, the ejection seat would hurl him away from trouble, but at this low altitude he would never get high enough into the sky to open his parachute to its fullest extent. So the engineers had worked out the ‘catapulting distance’ of the seat and built a huge array of netting on the ground 1,500 metres away from the pad. The cosmonaut would fall into this, just so long as all the calculations were right. A mannequin had made this trip a few times, but now it was for real.
Kamanin reminded the cosmonauts about the manual option. If they were sitting on the pad awaiting lift-off and the blockhouse computers decided that something was wrong with the rocket, then the cosmonaut’s seat would automatically eject. Failing that, Sergei Korolev in the control bunker had a special key to activate the seat by remote control, according to his own judgement. Typically he woul
d not trust himself alone. He ordered that two other level-headed people in the bunker should also be assigned such keys. But what if none of these safety options worked properly in a crisis? Then the cosmonaut would have to fire the seat on his own initiative, just like a pilot consciously deciding to bail out of a stricken MiG.
At this point in the lecture, Titov made a casual but most unfortunate remark, as recounted in Kamanin’s diary for April 7. ‘Worrying about this is probably a waste of time. The automatic ejection system will work without a hitch.’
Kamanin then turned to his other candidate. ‘Yuri, what do you think?’
Gagarin considered carefully before answering. Reading his answer, one can assume that he did not want to embarrass Titov or insult the skills of all those engineers who had built the automatic systems, although Kamanin obviously wanted to hear a different opinion. ‘I agree, the automatic systems won’t let us down,’ Gagarin replied, giving Titov some covering fire and expressing proper confidence in the ship’s design. ‘But if I know that I can eject for myself in case of failure, then that’ll simply increase my overall chances.’ Kamanin made no particular response, but he carefully noted down the entire exchange:
I kept a close eye on Gagarin, and he did well today. Calmness, self-confidence and knowledgeability were his main characteristics. I’ve not noticed a single inappropriate detail in his behaviour.3
In fact, Kamanin seemed to be having a hard time deciding which man should be the first to fly. Only the day before he had been leaning towards Titov:
He does his exercises and training more accurately and doesn’t waste his time on idle chatter. As to Gagarin, he voices doubts about the importance of the automatic spare parachute release . . . I had already suggested in one of my earlier talks that the cosmonauts make a training ejection from an aircraft, but Gagarin appeared reluctant to do this.
Kamanin seemed to accuse each of the two prime cosmonauts of similar failings with regard to the parachute escape training. Ultimately his final recommendation may have been influenced by a factor beyond his control: the political requirement to favour a farmboy over a teacher’s son. However, his diaries suggest a more subtle reason for his ultimate recommendation:
Titov is of a stronger character. The only thing that keeps me away from deciding in his favour is the necessity to keep a stronger cosmonaut for a 24-hour flight . . . It’s hard to decide which of them should be sent to die, and it’s equally hard to decide which of these two decent men should be made famous worldwide.
Kamanin obviously believed that Gagarin was capable of flying the single-orbit mission that had now been decided upon for the first manned space flight. He kept Titov in reserve for a more demanding longer flight in the near future. In the circumstances, Titov could not possibly have been expected to see this reasoning as a compliment on his superior discipline.
Some while before he made his fatal mistake with the R-16, Marshal Nedelin constructed a wooden summerhouse at Baikonur as a pleasant change of scene from the usual drab barracks and drearily functional blockhouses. It had an open framework, more like a gazebo than a proper building; a wooden floor; archways, trellises and columns prettily decorated in blue and white. A cool stream trickled nearby. In the cold of winter it was impossible to make sensible use of the building. The airless summer was also impractical, but in April, when the steppe was in blossom for a few weeks and the air was sweet with the scent of wormwood . . . There were times when the summerhouse was perfect for a party.
Today, white-haired 63-year-old Gherman Titov bemoans the old summerhouse’s sorry state. ‘It’s windy here now. There were some elm trees, but they cut them down. They should have been replaced, but no one cares. New Russians aren’t interested. For them, flying into space is just a business. At least under Nikita Khrushchev cosmonautics was developing. Under the modern Democrats everything just falls down. What’s all this history for? Silly fools, they don’t understand that when they die, memories of them will also be destroyed. There won’t be a single bump left. Not even a grave.’
History is important to Titov, because it was in this summerhouse on April 9, 1961, just three days before the first manned Vostok flight was scheduled, that they celebrated his removal from greatness with vodka, fresh oranges, apples and other splendid foods laid out on a long table. Vladimir Suvorov, the official cameraman, caught the scene on colour film.
The previous day, Suvorov’s camera had recorded a more formal event in another part of Baikonur, a special State Committee headed by Korolev, Keldysh and Kamanin, during which the First Cosmonaut was selected. The six prime candidates were standing before them. At the pivotal moment a proud Yuri Gagarin stepped forward to receive his historic commission. In fact, the whole thing was staged. The Committee had already met the previous day, in secret session, with none of the cosmonauts present. Afterwards Nikolai Kamanin summoned Titov and Gagarin to his office and told them, just like that. Gagarin was to be commander and Titov his back-up, his ‘understudy’. No explanations. Nothing. Just the awful fact of it, and Gagarin suppressing his usual grin and promising to perform his duties well. Titov says, ‘Some people will tell you I gave him a hug. Nonsense! There was none of that. However, the decision had been taken. I understood that.’ Kamanin noted in his diary that ‘Titov’s disappointment was quite obvious.’
Titov mimed his way through the fake State Committee. There was a moment of purest idiocy, a farce within a farce: halfway through Gagarin’s carefully pre-rehearsed ‘spontaneous’ acceptance speech, Suvorov ran out of film. Korolev tapped his glass with a spoon and called the room to silence, as though he had some crucial announcement to make. ‘The cameraman needs to reload, so we’ll pause for a moment.’ Everybody laughed, then sat fidgeting while Suvurov reloaded. Then the First Cosmonaut repeated his earlier performance word-for-word. Meanwhile, Suvorov was struck by Gagarin’s youthfulness. ‘He was a small, sturdy man, but how young he looked! Like a boy, with a fascinating smile and very kind eyes.’4
Next morning there was the more relaxed celebration in the summerhouse, where Titov kept his emotions firmly under control. ‘I was upset, of course, but everything went by the script, as they say.’ Now he can only wonder if things might have gone differently that day. For he was absolutely convinced that it was going to be him.
Of course the selection of the First Cosmonaut was helped along at the highest levels. Fyodor Burlatsky, Khrushchev’s trusted advisor and speechwriter, knows exactly why Gagarin was favoured over Titov. ‘Gagarin and Khrushchev were alike in many ways. They had the same kind of Russian character. Titov was more reserved, his smile wasn’t so open, he had less charm. It wasn’t just Khrushchev who chose Gagarin. It was fate.’
Khrushchev and Gagarin were both peasant farmers’ sons, while Titov was middle-class. If Gagarin could reach the greatest heights, then Khrushchev’s rise to power from similarly humble origins was validated. Wasn’t that the truth? The real reason why they chose a simple farmboy against a properly educated and serious man? After a stiff jolt of vodka to ease the memory and blunt the sharpness of his pride, Titov can now admit, ‘I wanted to be the first one. Why not? Many years have passed, and I would like to say they made the right choice. Not because of the government, but because Yura turned out to be the man that everyone loved. Me, they couldn’t love. I’m not lovable. They loved Yura. When I visited his mum and dad in the Smolensk region after he was dead, then I realized it. I’m telling you, they were right to choose Yura.’
Gagarin’s old academic tutor Sergei Belotserkovsky suggests that another cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, came close to being assigned the first flight, ‘but a distant member of his family was subject to official repression at the time’. Belotserkovsky attributes Gagarin’s eventual selection to a lucky error. ‘I was surprised when I found out that Yura’s brother and sister had been captured by the Germans. Normally it’s a black spot in a person’s biography to have lived in occupied territories. Either the vetting authorities missed
that, or they didn’t take it into consideration. If you like, it was a mistake, but a very useful one. If we could have made more mistakes like that when selecting people for important positions, our country woudn’t have had so many problems. Leaders with an informal attitude to the rules, like Korolev for instance, usually turn out to have the higher standards of morality.’
At 5.00 in the morning of April 11, the doors of the main assembly shed rolled open and the R-7, with Vostok on its nose, trundled into the pre-dawn chill, supported horizontally on a hydraulic platform mounted on a railcar. Korolev paced along the track just ahead, escorting his rocket-child like an anxious parent. The railcar moved at slower than walking pace, so that the rocket would not suffer any vibration damage. All the way to the launch pad four kilometres distant, Korolev never left its side. As Titov explains, ‘The rocket was the Chief Designer’s baby, if you like. That’s why he walked along with it all the way, like a pedestrian. These transports to the pad are very slow. At a time like that, speed is always associated with problems. Vostok rockets are quite delicate as well as powerful – especially that first one.’
At one o’ clock that afternoon, Korolev escorted Gagarin and Titov to the top of the gantry for a final rehearsal of boarding procedures alongside the now-vertical rocket. All of a sudden Korolev became weak with exhaustion, and had to be helped down from the gantry and back to his cottage on the outskirts of the launch complex to get some rest. In time, Gagarin would discover that the Chief Designer’s stocky, rugged appearance disguised a very fragile man.5
