Space Race

by Deborah Cadbury

  One of the aims of the mission was to establish whether the communications systems worked in the Vostok, and whether a human voice could be heard. An automatic recording would be placed inside the dummy. The Soviet mania for keeping everything secret now asserted itself. Radio stations around the world would pick up what was being said; they could not therefore have anything that sounded like a cosmonaut. A recording of a Russian man singing was suggested. But then listening Americans would assume that the Soviet Union had sent a man up into space, who had promptly gone off his head as the ‘Song of the Volga Boatman’ resonated around the world. Finally, a recording of a choir was deemed suitable. No one would think a choir had been sent into space. On 9 March, a nervous-looking Ivan Ivanovich, fidgeting constantly as his wriggling animal insides settled down, took his first jaunt into space and was so entranced by his journey that every so often he sang like a heavenly choir.

  Korolev was delighted. It was a perfect flight. The only unanticipated stumbling block, according to Mark Gallai, was that Blackie turned out to be a ‘foam-eating dog’ who insisted on consuming all the foam padding around her in her space cabin – causing concern that she would become ill. Blackie, however, suffered no ill effects from her curious diet. Another trip was scheduled for Ivan Ivanovich for the end of March. If that was a success, the next mission would be manned.

  With the Americans apparently so close to claiming victory, Korolev could hardly bear to waste a day. He had had his fill of dogs, snakes, guinea pigs and singing dummies. He wanted a man in space; flesh and blood and intelligence that would see and feel the wonder of it. He would quite willingly have gone himself. He felt so close to his original vision, almost touching the infinite. ‘We are getting ready and believe in our work,’ he told Nina. ‘It is important that all should believe that everything is going to be fine and I myself should believe in that also …’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Which one should be sent to die?’

  ‘It’s hard to decide which one should be sent to die,’ General Kamanin noted in his diary, unable to decide between Yuri Gagarin and Gherman Titov. Gagarin impressed his tutors with his serious attitude to work. He was committed; his actions were measured and careful; he didn’t make rash decisions. And he was charming, with an innate sense of tact; he wore a permanent welcoming smile, as though he stood in perennial sunlight. Wrestling with the decision, Kamanin noted: ‘I have kept an 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.’ Yet he was equally impressed with Titov, who had also come through the training programme brilliantly. ‘He does his exercise and training more accurately and doesn’t waste his time on idle chatter. Titov has a stronger character.’ More complex in character and not so obviously popular, he was known to question authority and challenge what he called ‘silly questions’.

  Korolev had no such doubts. Since their first meeting he had known Gagarin was his man: the peasant boy from Smolensk, a product of the Soviet system, the tough graduate of a welding school who had had the sensibility to remove his shoes before entering the hallowed ground of Korolev’s beautiful Vostok. When Korolev had asked Gagarin the question he had asked all the trainee cosmonauts after the session in the pressure chamber – what had he been thinking about? – the usual reply was, ‘all my life passes in front of me’. Gagarin’s reply was: ‘What have I been thinking about? I have been thinking about the future, Comrade Chief.’ Korolev liked that answer. ‘Bloody hell! Comrade Gagarin,’ he had replied. ‘One could only envy your future!’ He later confided in a colleague, ‘I like this boy, he is so communicative and so gentle.’ Korolev’s mind was made up. Gagarin would be first. Titov would be the backup. This decision also found favour with Khrushchev who liked the idea of a man, like himself, from the rural heartland. Titov was certain to be an excellent choice, but Gagarin was a man of the people. It was a time to show the world what the communist system could produce.

  In the tense atmosphere of the final few weeks, the Soviet testing programme lost its first cosmonaut. In Moscow, at the Institute of Aviation and Space Medicine, Valentin Bondarenko, was coming towards the end of a two-week spell in the dreaded isolation cell of silence. As he was waiting for the session to end, he stripped off the irksome sensory equipment worn throughout the test and soothed his reddened skin with cotton wool dipped in alcohol. In seconds, the room, freshly topped up with oxygen, was ablaze as one of his pads landed on the cooker. He was, of course, locked in and as the cell was soundproof no one could hear his cries. He tried to put out the fire but his clothing caught alight. Eventually, those on duty came to the rescue but it took several minutes to open the door. He was terribly burned and had lost every inch of his skin and all his hair; his eyes had melted completely. He was taken to hospital but death came within a few hours. News of the accident was suppressed for twenty-five years.

  The very next day, Korolev heard that von Braun had launched a successful unmanned flight. On 24 March, the additional Mercury-Redstone launch he had requested had gone perfectly to plan. Alan Shepard followed its path; its journey burned into the landscape of his mind. He could have been on that flight. He could have made history. The sounds of success would have rung in his ears for a lifetime. ‘We had ’em by the short hairs and we gave it away,’ he declared, now convinced they would lose the race. Von Braun was prepared to agree that the next launch would be manned. Shepard’s chance would come soon and he could yet be the first man in space. The date was confirmed for 25 April. Thousands of miles away, Korolev was left to wonder whether this was von Braun’s defining ‘test’ flight? Was this the one that would signal an American flight in space?

  Two days later, in freezing March weather, he nervously sent the R-7 and its Vostok into orbit. This would decide his own fate. If it was a success, a manned flight would be next. Korolev watched as the second Ivan Ivanovich and his dog went into orbit. With his menagerie of animals and the tape of the heavenly choir, now with the addition of recipes for cabbage soup, to confuse any listening Western ears – he made the perfect flight. Dressed in a cosmonaut’s orange suit, his dumb presence was witness to the soaring flight. His sightless eyes took in a God’s-eye view of the world. His unhearing ears heard the retro engines fire to perfection. His unfeeling limbs felt the rush as he landed on a quiet edge of the woods in falling snow near a remote village.

  Baffled villagers watched a man with a parachute fall from the sky. When he came to earth he remained motionless. He must desperately need help. They looked at his deathly face, his lumpen body, his wide-open eyes, but before they could do anything to help, soldiers appeared and drove him away – with casual disregard for the fact that the flying man appeared to have died.

  When the military brought Ivan Ivanovich back from the snowy woods, the success of the flight was confirmed. On 28 March, Korolev presented his case to the State Commission in Moscow and requested the final go-ahead for a manned flight. Originally he had hoped that the first manned flight could be timed to coincide with the great Soviet May Day holiday on 1 May, but Khrushchev, weighing the record of success and failure, had objected. If the smiling face of Gagarin, riding his fiery chariot, was blown into a million pieces somewhere in the great black void of space, it would be an unhappy image for May Day, and for all the May Days to come. The Russian soul would be full of grief. Korolev decided to bring the date forward. On 3 April, the Presidium of the Central Committee approved the launch of Vostok 3A with a cosmonaut aboard. Yuri Gagarin said goodbye to his wife and two children on 5 April – without telling them where he was going – and flew with the other cosmonauts to Baikonur.

  Arrangements were made for TASS to announce the event the moment Vostok was in orbit. Three sealed envelopes were sent to TASS. The first provided information in the event that Gagarin reached orbit successfully. The second was a short statement prepared in the event that he should die. The third
was to facilitate his safe return if errors occurred in the trajectory and he landed outside the Soviet Union. Should something go wrong on the flight and the cosmonaut be forced to eject, rescue would be speeded up if the world was on alert. And with TASS blazing it over the news wire, no one could accuse Gagarin of being a spy.

  Flying between Moscow and Baikonur for last-minute preparations, Korolev hardly slept, fitting in a few hours here and there between essential work. When he woke up, he seldom felt refreshed. His fatigue was entrenched, the result of endlessly pushing himself beyond endurance. Korolev knew he was not well. Yet who could rest with the day that had seemed out of reach all his life finally in sight? He knew of von Braun’s planned April launch. That clever, articulate German was near, so near, to claiming victory. From his perennial position in the shadows, within a week Korolev would begin an unstoppable process. He would give the final command that would focus all his years of accumulated knowledge into one daring adventure, and the world, never aware of who had pulled the strings, would be astonished.

  On 9 April, a reception for the six cosmonauts was held in an improbable summerhouse at Baikonur on the banks of the River Syr Darya. It had been built by the now-departed Marshal Nedelin for use between icy winters and burning summers. With its archways and columns and blue-painted pillars, it suggested a bygone aristocratic taste. But no ghosts from Tsarist Russia would have dared to be present on such a day. This was a formal occasion for the Communist Party to celebrate achievement. At least seventy people attended; the elite of the Soviet defence and space programme were there to acknowledge their young hero, a man tried, proven and hand-picked from among the ordinary Soviet people.

  Starched white cloths covered the tables. Wares rarely seen at Baikonur, many of them in crystal and silver, were displayed as though they belonged there; delicious dishes were presented among the abundant piles of oranges and other fruit; wine and vodka flowed. The final improbability was the heavy perfume wafting in on the breeze from the desert thick with its spring flowering.

  The Commander of Strategic Missile Forces, Marshal Moskalenko, gave a speech congratulating Gagarin on the ‘high and important task given to you by the Motherland’. Korolev also spoke, unable to resist setting out his hopes for the future when he believed a clutch of cosmonauts would man a space ship. The press was busy snapping away as Yuri Gagarin stepped forward to receive his commission. Surrounded by the might of officialdom in splendidly decorated uniforms, he looked far too young for the weight of the task. He smiled his confident smile, resolved and ready to venture into the vast, uncharted emptiness and begin the most extraordinary journey in the history of the world.

  On 11 April, Korolev walked solemnly beside the great R-7 rocket, adapted with an upper stage that would take Gagarin into the future. The rocket was slowly moved the two and half miles to the launch pad. It was mounted on a rail car and held very carefully in tension. If any small thing went wrong, Korolev had to know. Only he could interpret how the unevenness of the road might unsettle its complicated temperament. With every step he took, his ears were listening for the infinitesimally different sound that might signal delay. The launch was set for the next day, 12 April 1961. Whatever the outcome, the date would be burned in his memory. Although it was only April, the weather was warm and Korolev had removed his hat. He moved slowly at the base of his R-7, a dark, determined figure guarding the great obelisk, pale and gleaming in the hazy sunshine.

  In the afternoon, Korolev and Gagarin went to the Vostok alone. From their position high up at the top of the pad, Korolev explained the procedures for the launch the following day. There was so much still for Korolev to impart and Gagarin listened with complete concentration. But as he listened, he watched the older man grow pale and hesitant. Korolev was ill. His heart was troubling him. He had to be helped down to rest. A doctor was summoned: he patched him up and gave him pills and warned him he had to rest. Korolev felt too weak to disobey.

  Gagarin and Titov spent the night before the launch in a cottage near the pad. Gagarin was trying not to show his elation at being chosen for the first space flight; Titov was trying not to show his desolation at having been rejected. There was, of course, the remote possibility that Titov would take over if Gagarin, for some reason, could not go. The quiet cottage was meant to provide a good night’s rest, but they discovered that the doctors, anxious to monitor their reflexes to the last, had placed sensors on their mattresses to register movement. As a consequence they dared not move in bed and hardly slept at all. Korolev, recovered enough to ignore his doctor’s advice, came to say goodbye and wish them well. ‘In another five years we shall be able to fly into space as we now fly to holiday homes,’ he joked.

  At 2 a.m., Korolev had finally finished work. He walked to the small wooden house he stayed in at Baikonur. The housekeeper, Elena Mikhailovna, brought him the strong tea and rusks he requested. She drew his attention to his insubstantial diet, telling him that his wife had called reminding him to eat well. Korolev replied that there were more important things on his mind just now. It was impossible to rid himself of the worries concerning the launch now that he was alone. There would be no sleep. He was responsible for Gagarin. The young man trusted him completely, but nothing was guaranteed.

  In a conversation with Khrushchev on sending a man into space, the Soviet leader had demanded: ‘Is there 100 per cent guarantee?’ ‘Everything possible has been done,’ Korolev had replied, adding, ‘of course something unexpected is always possible in this business.’ That was the unpleasant truth. The last two launches with Ivan the dummy had been successful, but nagging at Korolev’s peace of mind was the knowledge that, of the last sixteen launches of the R-7 using the same engines that would put Gagarin in space, eight had failed, several with failure of the upper-stage engines. If they did not succeed this time, Gagarin would be flung into the stormy seas around Cape Horn and to certain death. Knowing that Khrushchev’s desired 100 per cent guarantee was a dream, the possible failure of the upper-stage engines haunted him.

  There were so many uncertainties. The launch was the most dangerous time, particularly the first forty seconds. Then there was weightlessness: the doctors still took it very seriously, unsure what effect prolonged exposure to it might have. And there was nothing guaranteed about Isayev’s retro engines. If they did not perform correctly would Gagarin be burned alive or doomed to wander space forever? There was a backup plan if the retro rockets failed. He could return to earth in a decaying orbit as the rocket gradually slowed down over the next eleven to twelve days, and food was supplied. Although strictly forbidden, Korolev had given Gagarin the three-number code that would unlock the system to give him some manual control in an emergency. If Gagarin completely lost his reason during weightlessness, as some experts suggested would be the case, would an unbalanced act borne from loss of sanity put the mission in danger? Sleep evaded him as the endless worries took their turn in the spotlight of his mind. At five in the morning his wife, Nina, rescued him. She telephoned to wish him well. He lied and said his health was good and, yes, she had woken him from his sleep.

  Korolev joined Titov and Gagarin for a real cosmonaut’s breakfast – concentrated food squeezed from tubes. Gagarin was shocked to see how exhausted Korolev looked. He wanted to hug him as a son would hug his father, he wrote later, and impart something of his own strength and health. Titov and Gagarin tried to reassure him. ‘Everything will be all right. Everything will be normal,’ they said. An old woman who had once lived in the cottage where the cosmonauts spent the night was determined to present Gagarin with some flowers. Her own son had died as a pilot in the war, she said.

  While being kitted out in his space suit, Gagarin was taken aback when some of the technical staff asked for his autograph. ‘It was the first time he seemed momentarily at a loss,’ reported one witness. ‘Is it really necessary?’ he asked. He was taken by bus to the launch gantry. Korolev was waiting there with Kamanin and Moskalenko. They stood dwarfed at the ba
se of the huge rocket. ‘After leaving the bus, everyone got a bit emotional and started hugging and kissing,’ recalled Kamanin. ‘After wishing him a nice journey some were saying goodbyes and even crying. We practically had to tear him away from the crowd by force.’ At the last minute, Mishin recalls, there was a sudden concern that, if Gagarin landed in foreign territory, he might be seen as an enemy rather than recognized as the world’s first cosmonaut. Paint was hurriedly fetched and the letters ‘USSR’ were daubed in gold on his helmet.

  Oleg Ivanovsky and the technicians escorted Gagarin on the two-minute journey in the lift to the top of the Vostok and helped him into the ejection chair made to his specific measurements. His straps were tightened and life-support systems plugged in. In the bunker, lights confirmed his pressure suit and oxygen supply were connected. At 7 a.m. the communications system was switched on. The ground call signal for Gagarin was ‘Kedr’ (cedar). The call signal for Korolev was ‘Zarya-1’ (dawn). Launch was set for 09.07 hours. The transcript from the Russian State Archive of Scientific and Technical Documentation shows Korolev trying to maintain a light-hearted tone with Gagarin while launch preparations and communications tests were underway:

  Korolev: There are tubes of food waiting for you in storage – your lunch, dinner and breakfast.

  Gagarin: That’s clear …