Asif Azam Siddiqi is a Bangladeshi American space historian and a Guggenheim Fellowship winner. He is a professor of history with a specialization in the history of science and technology. Siddiqi’s book Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945-1974 is widely considered to be the best English-language history of the Soviet space program in print and was identified by The Wall Street Journal as “one of the five best books” on space exploration. Below are some excerpts from it:
“At an early meeting to discuss these specifications, Chief Designer Korolev presented the specifications for the would-be “cosmonauts.” The men, and only men were considered, were to be between twenty-five and thirty years of age, no taller than 1.70 to 1.75 meters, and with a weight no more than seventy to seventy-two kilograms-all requirements sufficient to allow for accommodation in the small 3KA capsule, the piloted variant of Object K, Korolev was candid about the skills of these would-be cosmonauts:
‘As has been repeatedly demonstrated in our automated flights and those with animals on board, our technology is such that we do not require, as the American Mercury project does, that our early cosmonauts be highly skilled engineers. The American astronauts must help control the rocket systems at every stage of the flight.’
While this was strictly not true, it was an indication of the depth to which automation was an intrinsic factor in the early Soviet-piloted space program. During the entire selection phase, Korolev emphasized repeatedly that one of the primary criteria for the pilots would be the necessity to carry out precisely programmed functions – a requirement that in truth left the candidates with much less control than they would have had flying a simple aircraft.
On February 25, Kamanin formally approved the final shortlist of twenty candidate cosmonauts selected by the end of 1959.
Of the group, five had not met the age criteria of being between 25 and 30, but this condition was waived because of their performances in the selection procedures. Two in particular, Belyayev and Komarov, were the most educated and experienced members of the team, having already graduated from Air Force academies. Because of the age restriction, none of the selected were test pilots, unlike some of their U.S. colleagues. Komarov had some experience as a test engineer flying new aircraft but the most experienced pilot, Belyayev, had accrued only 900 hours of flying time. Others such as Gagarin had flown only 230 hours. Only one pilot, Popovich, had flown what was then considered a high-performance aircraft. the MiG-19…
The candidates had to be intelligent, comfortable with high-stress situations, and most of all physically fit…
The Air Force eventually drew up a short list of six names on May 30. 1960. Informally titled “The Vanguard Six,” they were Gagarin, Kartashov, Nikolayev, Popovich, Titov, and Varlamov. To meet with them, Korolev visited the center for the first time on June 18. The cosmonauts had first learned of his existence only three months earlier, although even then he was simply referred to as the “chief designer” to conceal his identity. The Vanguard Six in turn repaid the honor with a visit to the OKB-I premises the following month, thus for the first time seeing the spacecraft they were destined to fly…
If all went according to Korolev’s plan, one of them would also have the distinction of being the first person in space…
The training of the core group of six cosmonaut-trainees selected as a pool for the first piloted mission reached a turning point in January 1961. By that time, all six had finished final regimes in simulators lasting three days, as well as full-scale parachute and recovery training…
This particular series of tests helped narrow down the pool of cosmonauts for the first mission to the three best candidates: Gagarin, Titov, and Nelyubov. Although nontechnical factors such as psychological characteristics and ideological issues would narrow the three men down to one for the very first mission, all three would travel to Tyura-Tam in a few months.
Even at this early stage, the twenty-six-year-old Yuriy Gagarin seemed to be the clear favorite.
By all accounts, he was a very likable and intelligent individual, and he had fortuitously made an extremely favorable impression on Korolev the first time the cosmonauts had met the chief designer in mid-1960.
For Air Force overseer Kamanin, a diehard old-school Stalinist… Gagarin, who was “quiet in character,” was a far more suitable candidate from an ideological perspective.
After the Korabl-Sputnik 5 mission, Korolev returned to Moscow on the evening of March 28. The following afternoon at a meeting of the State Commission presided over by Chairman Rudnev, Korolev presented the results of the complete Vostok program and declared readiness to launch a human into orbit on the next Vostok 3A spacecraft. Later in the evening, the leading members of the State Commission met once again to draw up a formal document requesting permission from the Communist Party to launch a human into space.
The memorandum, addressed to the Central Committee and classified “Absolutely Secret,” stated:
Two “Vostok-3A” satellite-ships have been prepared for this purpose. The first ship is at the [launch] range, and the second is being prepared for launch. Six cosmonauts are prepared for the flight. The satellite-ship with a human on board will be launched for one orbit around the Earth and will land on the territory of the Soviet Union on a line running through Rostov-Kuybyshev-Perm.
A section of the document detailed contingency procedures in the case of unforeseen events:
For the orbit chosen for the satellite-ship, in the event that the ship’s system for landing on the Earth fails, the ship can descend by natural breaking in the atmosphere over the course of 2-7 days, with a touchdown between latitudes of 65° north and south. In the event of a forced landing in foreign territory or the rescue of the cosmonaut by a foreign ship, the cosmonaut has appropriate instructions. In addition to a ten-day supply of food and water, the cosmonaut’s cabin is outfitted with a portable emergency supply of food and water that will last for 3 days, and also means of radio-communications and the “Peleng” transmitter whose signals can be used to determine the landing site of the cosmonaut. The satelliteship is not equipped with a system for emergency destruction of the Descent Apparatus.
Days before the scheduled launch, photographs and biographies of Gagarin and Titov were evidently sent to the Defense Department of the Central Committee, the curator of the space program. Each candidate had two photos, one in civilian clothing and one in military attire. Here a number of Party apparatchiks mulled over their files and reported to Ivan D. Serbin, the feared head of the Defense Department. Serbin then showed the photographs to Kozlov, who in turn showed them to Khrushchev. Upon seeing the photos, the Soviet leader was reported to have said. “Both pairs are excellent! Let them decide for themselves!”
In the end, at the State Commission meeting on April 8, Kamanin stood up and formally nominated Gagarin as the primary pilot and Titov as his backup. Without much discussion, the commission approved the proposal and moved on to other last-minute logistical issues.
Korolev did not sleep at all that night. Among the many worries on his mind, perhaps the most troubling was the prospect that the rocket’s third stage would fail during the ascent to orbit, depositing the Vostok spacecraft in the ocean near Cape Horn on the southern tip of Africa, an area infamous for its constant storms. The chief designer had demanded that there be a telemetry system in the launch bunker at Tyura-Tam to confirm that the third stage had worked as planned. If the engine worked nominally, the telemetry would print out a series of “fives” on tape; otherwise, there would be a series of “twos.” Despite all the precautions, all the testing, and all the preparations. Korolev still had his doubts. One military officer recalled, “For some reason, it was just Cape Horn that would not give Korolev a moment’s peace.”
At T (launch) minus fifteen minutes, Gagarin put on his gloves and ten minutes later closed his helmet. The tower was taken away from the pad at the same time. By this time, the tension was clearly rising, and Korolev and Voskresenskiy both took tranquilizer pills to calm their hearts.
Gagarin’s pulse rate reached an excited 157 beats per minute seconds before liftoff, although his tone remained completely calm. Finally, at exactly 0906 hours, 59.7 seconds on April 12, 1961, the Vostok spacecraft lifted off with its twenty-seven-year-old passenger, Senior Lieutenant Yuriy Alekseyevich Gagarin. His first exuberant words were: “We’re Off! “
Following the separation of the spent core and strap-ons, the RD-OI09 upper-stage engine ignited to accelerate the craft to orbital velocity. Korolev was literally shaking through all of this, having obsessed over the possible landing in the ocean south of Cape Horn if the upper stage failed. The incoming telemetry began to stream in a series of “fives,” indicating all was fine. Then, suddenly, the numbers changed to a series of “threes.” There were brief seconds of terror – a “two” was a malfunction, but what was a “three”? After a few agonizing seconds, the numbers reverted back to “fives.” Engineer Feoktistov remembers that “these interruptions, a few seconds in length, shortened the lives of the designers.”
During the powered leg of the flight, Gagarin’s pulse reached a maximum of 150 beats per minute. Although Popovich was officially the “capcom” for the mission, Korolev’s excitement most likely got the better of him, and he took over communications personally for a good portion of the ascent to orbit, constantly asking Gagarin about his well-being…
Immediately after entering orbit, Gagarin reported that he was feeling excellent and vividly described the images outside his porthole. In his secret postflight report, he recalled his feelings of being the first human being to experience prolonged microgravity…”
< Injustice towards Sergei Korolev after Gagarin’s flight
Ukrainian Who Opened Space to Humankind: Sergei Korolev >
