The Moon, photographed from just outside Earth’s atmosphere.
TEMPTING FATE
After the Vostok missions, the Soviet space program became bogged down by incompetent planning, delayed schedules and a desire to produce space “spectaculars”—instead of developing the next phase of exploration using their Soyuz spacecraft. This strategy put lives at risk and also damaged the Russians’ chances of putting a human on the Moon before the Americans.
As early as March 1963 NASA had established guidelines for performing spacewalks during the forthcoming Gemini program. By January 1964 officials at Houston had completed the final details of the plan. The flight of Gemini IV, then scheduled for February 1965, would include an astronaut opening the hatch and standing up for a short period. Perhaps the US would even carry out the first spacewalk, or EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) on this mission.
The successor to the increasingly outmoded Russian Vostok capsule was to be the Soyuz capsule. It was designed with a voyage to the Moon in mind, but by early 1964 it was clear to Korolev that it would not be ready by late 1964, or even early 1965. The Communist Party and the USSR Council of Ministers had already committed itself to the Soyuz in a joint decree on December 3, 1963, with its ultimate goal of a manned flight around the Moon.
With the two-man Gemini flights just months away, Soviet space officials were faced with a difficult situation. None of the four projected Vostok missions planned for 1964 would compare favorably with a Gemini flight. They were all designed to carry only a single cosmonaut; none of them included a spacewalk and none of them would have the capability of changing orbits. The Soviets were paying for their lack of organization, departmental rivalry and wasteful dilution of effort and use of space for political statements. In this climate an unlikely idea emerged, as audacious as it was dangerous.
Where the idea originally came from is lost in time. Some say that Khrushchev called Korolev and ordered him to convert the one-man Vostok spacecraft into a vehicle capable of carrying not two, but three, cosmonauts. According to Kamanin, Korolev was not pleased to receive such an order, as he recalled:
It was the first time that I had seen Korolev in complete bewilderment. He was very distressed at the refusal to continue construction of the Vostoks and could not see how to reequip the ship for three in such a short time. He said it was impossible to turn a single-seater ship into a three-seater in a few months.
However, the account given by Khrushchev’s son differs. He maintains that it was Korolev’s idea. It is certainly true that Korolev was considering a three-seater Vostok as early as February 1963, and he certainly had a pathological desire to beat the Americans at all costs. But wherever it came from, the decision to upstage Gemini proved to be one of the most disastrous decisions in the history of the Soviet space effort, ignoring any natural progression of space vehicles and the resulting gain in knowledge and inserting instead a showy diversion. It was the very antithesis of what the Americans were doing—an incremental acquisition of abilities and technology. For the Soviets, the space race had degenerated into little more than a circus act of one-upmanship. Ultimately it cost them the Moon.
While the Soviet Union was engaged in falsely presenting the image of a nation at the cutting edge of space exploration, the Soyuz program—the real future of the Soviet space effort—was put on hold. They called the new project Voskhod (Sunrise) hoping no one would realize that it was a strained and stretched Vostok packed with three worried cosmonauts.
Konstantin Feoktistov, the resourceful engineer who played a critical role in the design of the Vostok, was on the Voskhod design team. Adding to the view that it might have been Korolev’s idea after all, he later recalled how Korolev neutralized internal opposition:
We argued that it would be unsafe, that it would be better to be patient and wait for the Soyuz space ship to be built, but in the end, of course, Korolev got his way. In February 1964 he outwitted us. He said that if we could build a ship based on the Vostok design, which could carry three people, then one of those places would be offered to a staff engineer. Well, that was a very seductive offer and a few days later we produced some sketches. Our first ideas were accepted.
Feoktistov proposed getting rid of the ejection seat and spacesuits from the Vostok, thus allowing three men to cram into the spherical capsule in regular clothing. Many objected to this move but it was really a foregone conclusion; it would have been impossible to fit them in any other way. By the time the draft plan was completed it was also clear that there would not be a tower-equipped launch escape system ready for the Voskhod launch, but Korolev and his engineers took the risky step of moving on with the launch despite this blatant disregard for safety. It was stated that it would be “difficult” to rescue the cosmonauts up to the first 25 to 44 seconds of a launch. That was wrong. If a failure occurred during that period, the crew would be doomed.
Korolev’s health continued to decline. In February 1964 he suffered a heart attack and spent several days in hospital. Doctors had prescribed a long holiday, which was delayed by urgent work. He was allowed to fly to Czechoslovakia for a brief holiday, the only time between 1947 and his death that he left the Soviet Union. Upon returning to Moscow he immersed himself in the Voskhod preparations. A drop test with an engineering version of the capsule was carried out in September. It was a disaster; the parachute hatch failed to open and the capsule was smashed to pieces.
Then there was the question of which engineer was to fly on the mission. Feoktistov knew more about the design of the Vostok and Voskhod spacecraft than anyone, but he was not considered fit enough to be a cosmonaut. When Kamanin heard that Feoktistov was an option he was reported to have blurted out:
How can you put a man into a space ship if he is suffering from ulcers, nearsightedness, deformation of the spine, gastritis, and even has missing fingers on his left hand?
The air force objected as well, but Korolev backed his engineer and they eventually capitulated. Korolev yelled in frustration:
The air force is perpetually jamming up the works! Looks like I’m going to have to train my own cosmonauts.
The casually attired Voskhod 1 cosmonauts (from left) Vladimir Komarov, Boris Yegorov and Konstantin Feoktistov on their way to the launch pad on October 12, 1964.
The launch was set for the morning of October 12. Korolev was more nervous and irritable than anyone had ever seen him. The three cosmonauts arrived at the launch pad at 10:15 a.m. local time dressed in lightweight gray woolen pants, shirts and light blue jackets. Korolev and Gagarin saw the three men up to the elevator before they removed their jackets and boots, donned slippers and entered the spacecraft: Boris Yegorov first, then Feoktistov, followed by Commander Vladimir Komarov. The tension was higher than perhaps during any other mission since Gagarin’s. Without a viable launch escape system during the first minute of the mission, there was absolutely no way of saving the crew in the event of booster failure. Korolev was so nervous he was shaking uncontrollably.
To his immense relief Voskhod 1 got into orbit without a flaw. Once again, the reaction from the West was unprecedented, prompting another speculation that the ultimate Soviet plan was to go to the Moon. Within two to three hours of the launch Feoktistov and Yegorov began to experience disorientation but despite this the short mission proceeded without much incident. When they landed there was relief all round. Because they had no room for three ejector seats a solid-fuel braking rocket was added to cushion the impact of the capsule with the ground. The flight had lasted one day, 17 minutes and three seconds and achieved nothing except propaganda. They had been lucky to get away with such a gamble.
It was later that day that Korolev and Kamanin heard of the changes back in Moscow. News had come in that there would be a special meeting of the Central Committee the same evening. Within hours Khrushchev was no longer in power and had been replaced in his two posts by Alexei Kosygin and Leonid Brezhnev. Kamanin was instructed to alter the cosmonauts’ speeches. Instead of saluting Khrushchev, they would salute Brezhnev and Kosygin.
It was clear to Korolev that the second Voskhod mission should include a spacewalk. NASA’s announced plans to carry out an EVA during the Gemini program once again compelled him to try and beat the Americans. But how could a Voskhod capsule be modified so that a spacewalk could take place? Soviet engineers could not consider the Gemini method of depressurizing the entire spaceship during an EVA, because their life-support systems were not good enough and the instruments in the Voskhod capsule were not designed to operate in a vacuum. Instead, they drew up a plan for an airlock, made of rubber, to be unfolded on the outside of the spacecraft. Both cosmonauts would wear pressure suits throughout the flight. During the space walk one cosmonaut would crawl into the airlock, shut the hatch behind him, evacuate it, open an outer hatch and then step out into space. A 5-meter (16-ft.) cord would connect the cosmonaut to the space ship during the EVA. The maximum time in space was limited to between ten and 15 minutes.
By this point, the best candidates for the primary crew of the Voskhod 2 spacewalk mission were Belyayev and Leonov. The 39-year-old Pavel Belyayev had been the oldest candidate from the “Gagarin group” of 1960. He had graduated from the Yeisk Higher Air Force School in 1945 and flew combat missions against the Japanese during the final days of the Second World War. Later, in 1959, he graduated from the famous Red Banner Air Force Academy, and thus he was only one of two cosmonauts in the 1960 class who had received a higher education. Belyayev might have flown into space earlier had it not been for a severe ankle injury sustained in August 1961 during a parachute jump, which left him out of the running for a whole year. Thirty-year-old Aleksei Leonov was born in Siberia, and graduated from the Chuguyev Higher Air Force School in the Ukraine in 1957 before serving as a jet pilot in East Germany.
Chief Designer Severin recalled:
The Americans planned to do their EVA in three months and had announced it beforehand. So we felt very rushed. We were hurrying and were nervous.
The first Voskhod 2 test spacecraft was launched into orbit successfully on February 22, 1965. Designated under the catch-all Kosmos classification, the media did not realize its true function. The fully equipped spacecraft was to simulate all the necessary airlock operations. Meanwhile, the ground tests for these aspects of the mission were beset by failures. Severin recalls:
The situation was really grave. Almost the entire testing program had been disrupted. Only part of it was completed in the unmanned flight. There was even talk of postponing the flight until better results were obtained on the ground. The competition with Gemini reached such a state that Soviet security personnel arrived at Baikonur. It’s possible that the KGB thought that all of our accidents were the result of sabotage. They imposed strict monitoring, which made us very nervous.
Voskhod 2 lifted off successfully and the two cosmonauts began preparations for the EVA as soon as they reached orbit. First, Belyayev expanded the Volga airlock to its full length. Then, aided by Belyayev, Leonov strapped on his life-support pack. Once the pressure between the airlock and the ship was equalized, Belyayev opened the inner hatch, allowing Leonov to crawl head-first into the airlock and hook himself up to the tether. Then Belyayev shut the inner hatch and depressurized the airlock. Leonov emerged, becoming the first human to walk in space. At first, he just poked his head out, but then gradually extended his entire body. The Sun almost blinded him. His first words were: “I can see the Caucasus.” But after 12 minutes in open space Leonov found himself in a perilous situation:
Near the end of my walk I realized that my feet had pulled out of my shoes and my hands had pulled away from my gloves. My entire suit stretched so much that my hands and feet appeared to shrink. I was unable to control them. I couldn’t get back in straight away. My space suit had ballooned out and the pressure was quite considerable. I was tired and couldn’t go in feet first as I had been taught to do.
Leonov decreased the pressure in his suit hoping that it would make it more flexible:
Then I felt freer and I could move about more easily. Then I pushed myself into the airlock head first, with my arms holding the rails. I had to turn myself upside down in the airlock in order to enter the ship feet first and this was very difficult.
His pulse raced to 143 beats per minute, his breathing was twice normal levels and his body temperature rose to 38 °C (100.4 °F). Drenched in sweat and exhausted, he closed the outer hatch behind him. Leonov had experienced depressurization for 23 minutes and 41 seconds. The cosmonauts cast off the airlock and then settled down to a one-day mission. But there was to be yet another problem.
The hatch on the space ship had not been shut properly and was leaking air, which was being compensated for by the life-support system. The result was that the capsule was becoming rich in oxygen, which increased the possibility of a fire; a tiny spark could set off an explosion. They tried to lower the oxygen content during the remainder of their mission, bringing it down to manageable levels before reentry. It would not be the last time that an oxygen-rich atmosphere inside a capsule would pose a risk. But for Voskhod 2 the problems kept coming. By the 30th orbit, pressure in the cabin tanks had dropped from 75 to 25 atmospheres, bringing with it the possibility of the complete depressurization of the spacecraft. Fortunately it stabilized. When the moment for reentry burn came around Belyayev calmly reported: “Negative automatic retrofire.” Korolev immediately told Belyayev to use the manual system—although he was probably ahead of the craft’s chief designer in thinking about how to orientate for reentry. Once the numbered code to unlock the attitude controls was found it was handed to Gagarin who transmitted the information to Belyayev.
The exercise of orienting the spacecraft became an ordeal. They had to use an optical sighting device but both men were clad in bulky spacesuits. In the cramped space Belyayev, optical device in hand, had to lie horizontally across both seats of the capsule, while Leonov remained out of the way under his seat. At the same time, Leonov held Belyayev in place in front of the porthole so he could use both his hands to orient the ship with respect to the Earth’s terminator—the boundary between day and night—using the hand controls. After this was done they quickly returned to their seats to reestablish the ship’s center of gravity before firing the retrorocket. The 46 seconds it took to get back in position before Belyayev hit the fire button resulted in a serious overshoot of their original landing point.
As with several previous Vostok missions, the instrument compartment failed to separate from the descent capsule and the two modules remained connected loosely to each other with steel straps. It resulted in a steeper than usual descent and more G forces. It burst blood vessels in both men’s eyes as the load reached 10 G.
Incredibly, ignoring the obvious risk they had taken, Korolev raised a toast to the future:
Friends! Before us is the Moon. Let us all work together with the great goal of conquering the Moon.
But the Soviet Union was not to launch a single manned spaceflight for two years. Voskhod was the last in a series of spectaculars, and subsequent Vostok-based missions were canceled. The Soviet space effort had flirted with disaster. Next time they would not get away with it.
TIMELINE
| 1964 | February Soviet rocket scientist Sergei Korolev suffers a heart attack |
| July 28 US probe Ranger 7 is launched toward the Moon and sends back 4308 television pictures | |
| October 12–13 The first three-member Soviet crew orbits Earth on board a Voskhod spacecraft | |
| 1965 | March 18 Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov conducts the world’s first spacewalk during Voskhod 2 mission |
| April 6 The US launches Intelsat I, also known as the “Early Bird” communications satellite | |
| July 15 US space probe Mariner 4 completes flyby of Mars | |
| July 16 First Soviet Proton rocket blasts off from Site 81 in Baikonur |
