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Page 1: From red star rising to rocket’s red glare: space travel, the early years

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From red star rising to rocket's red glare: space travel, the early years

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2007 Phys. Educ. 42 335

(http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9120/42/4/001)

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Page 2: From red star rising to rocket’s red glare: space travel, the early years

SPEC I A L F E A T U RE : S P AC E F L I G H T

www.iop.org/journals/physed

From red star rising to rocket’sred glare: space travel, the earlyyearsSteven Chapman

Institute of Education, University of London, UK

Abstract‘We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, notbecause they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serveto organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because thatchallenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling topostpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.’ PresidentJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy, 12 September 1962.

It is now 50 years since the first artificial satellite was launched. Thisarticle looks at the early years of space travel and some of the key momentsduring that time.

On 4 October 1957 a converted missile carryinga small metal ball called Sputnik (travellingcompanion) blasted off from the Tyura-Tam rangein Kazakhstan and headed for orbit. Inside thesphere was a small radio sending out a beep.That October morning changed everything; afterSputnik nothing would be the same: the humanrace had begun to voyage into space.

The effects of Sputnik radiated out fromSoviet Central Asia and around the world. In theUnited States, gripped in a world of Cold Warparanoia and with the anti-communist witch-huntsstill fresh in the memory, the effect was a slapin the face. In the rest of the world there wasamazement at the achievement. How was it that acountry wrecked by the most brutal war in historya mere 15 years earlier was able to put a littletraveller above the heads of all Americans? Theinference was clear: if they could do this with asatellite they could do it with a hydrogen bomb.What happened to the United States’ vauntedtechnical hegemony?

The effect was most keenly felt in WashingtonDC, where President Eisenhower dismissed the

launch as a stunt. The R7 booster that launchedSputnik was actually an example of inferiorSoviet technology. The Americans had beenconcentrating on reducing the size of their missilesin order to launch them from submarines. Unableto achieve this, the Russians had instead developeda vast multi-engine rocket, the R7. It was,however, able to lift giant payloads well in excessof anything the Americans could. However,despite this technical confidence the psychologicaldamage was great. An eerie example of thishold on the public was the spontaneous openingof automatic garage doors as Sputnik passedoverhead.

The R7 had been designed by Sergei Korolev,Chief Designer of the OKB-1 design bureau. Keptsecret to all but a few of his countrymen, lest theCIA assassinate him, he was in sole charge of theSoviet space effort. Korolev had been involved inrocketry since the 1930s, but had sat out the war ina gulag, a victim of Stalin’s purges (Harford 1999).

In the United States, Eisenhower’s initialreaction was seen as complacency by the press.But stung by the criticism, the president acted

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Figure 1. The Vostok Six and Voshkod Five in full military uniforms. L–R: Yuri Gagarin, German Titov, AndrianNikolayev, Pavel Popovich, Valery Bykovsky, Valentina Tereshkova, Konstantin Feoktistov, Vladimir Komarov,Boris Yegorov, Pavel Belyayev and Alexei Leonov.

swiftly. German scientist Werner von Braunheaded the army rocket programme, basedat Huntsville, Alabama. Von Braun was acontroversial figure, to say the least. He headedthe team that had designed and built the V2 rocket(Vergeltungswaffen—revenge weapon). Hundredsof V2 rockets, the world’s first ballistic missile,had descended on London and Antwerp during1944 and 1945. The rockets were assembled usingslave labour at the Mittelwerk-Dora undergroundfacility in Germany. Many thousands of labourersdied as a result of this work, and the conditionsat the camp were awful, even by Nazi standards.Von Braun had held the rank of Colonel in the SSand he surrendered to the Americans in Austria,having fled both the advancing Soviets and theSS. Von Braun and a number of his associatesfrom Mittelwerk and the Peenemunde researchstation were taken to the United States as part ofOperation Paperclip. A number of other scientistswith similarly dubious backgrounds entered theUnited States in the same way. Eisenhower wasnaturally reluctant to fund von Braun, who hadspent a good part of Eisenhower’s time as SupremeAllied Commander in London trying to kill himwith V2 rockets.

Sputnik and the public’s reaction to it soonchanged the president’s mind.

President Eisenhower decided to bring to-gether the US space effort under a single or-ganization, the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration (NASA). This body would havesole responsibility for the American space ef-fort. The attempted launch of a satellite using anavy rocket ended when it exploded on the launchpad. The press were merciless: ‘Flopnik!’, they

cried. Von Braun seized his chance, and usinghis booster, the satellite Explorer 1 was launched.This achieved a major success with the discoveryof the Van Allen radiation belts around the Earth.NASA immediately decided to start a mannedspace programme called Mercury, and a search be-gan for the US’s first astronaut. What was requiredwas a skilled test pilot, with a college degree in sci-ence or engineering, nerves of steel, and above allone who was relatively short. The smaller the cap-sule the less weight that had to be lifted. Eventu-ally, after a series of rigorous and bizarre tests doc-umented in the book The Right Stuff (Woolf 1980),seven men emerged, the Mercury 7 (see figure 2).

Meanwhile, back in Moscow the OKB-1agency had been busy. They launched a dog,Leika, into orbit, and the dog was awarded a Heroof the Soviet Union medal. The dog did well infreefall, and performed a number of tasks. Theinference was clear: the Soviets were preparing fora human space flight. One thing the Soviets didnot mention was that Leika had burned up in hercraft as it re-entered the atmosphere: they had notactually worked out how to bring her back alive.Despite this, there was no shortage of volunteers tobe the first cosmonaut. Across the Soviet Empirepilots were being assessed for suitability for spaceflight (Gagarin 1961). Although the prospectivevoyagers did not need to be college graduates,something that had denied Chuck Yeager a placein the American team, they did need impeccableideological credentials. Crucially, ChairmanKhrushchev gave the programme his backing, ashe had been startled by the propaganda value ofthe success of Sputnik. More success arrivedwith the launch and safe return of the dogs Belka

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Figure 2. The Mercury 7 astronauts in full space gear.Front L–R: Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, John Glenn,Scott Carpenter. Back L–R: Alan Shepard, VirgilGrissom and Gordon Cooper.

Figure 3. President John Kennedy and John Glennexamine the Friendship 7 capsule (courtesy of NASA).

and Strelka. To add insult to injury, ChairmanKhrushchev took one of Belka’s puppies with himto Washington as a gift for President Kennedy(Taubman 2004).

Figure 4. Ed White’s EVA June 1965; note the Geminispacecraft reflected in the helmet (courtesy of NASA).

By now the key goal was getting a humaninto space before the other side did. Korolevhad developed a capsule called Vostok (East)that was designed to carry one person aroundthe Earth and back again. Vostok was a smallspherical craft containing barely enough roomto fit one person, let alone life support and anejector seat. Who would fill that seat was adifficult question. From the original 26 wereselected Bykovsky, Nikolayev, Popovich, Gagarin,Nelyubov and Titov. Korolev’s cosmonauts, orLittle Eagles (figure 1), were taken to see theircraft, and he watched them as they inspected thecapsule. Two stood out from the rest: a young pilotcalled Yuri Gagarin and German Titov, the sonof a teacher from Moscow. Both had impeccableflying credentials, but there was something aboutGagarin, with his good nature and his infectioussmile, that marked him apart. In addition, hecame from impeccable ideological stock; he hadworked as a foundry man before joining the airforce (Gagarin 1961).

In the United States the Mercury 7 were putthrough a number of training exercises, includingdesert training, simulators and the centrifuge (seeSchirra 1999 or Carpenter and Stoever 2004),and competition between them was encouraged.The astronauts themselves thought that US MarineCorps pilot John Glenn was going to be the choice:as well as being a fine pilot he was a natural

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Figure 5. Soyuz rocket (left), Space Shuttle (centre) and Energia-Buran (right) (drawn to scale). Rockets currentlyused to launch manned spacecraft into orbit.

politician. This was a key point about the wholeenterprise: despite the rocket science, the decisionto send someone into space was clearly a politicalone, and whoever went first would have to be botha wholesome example of the competing societies’ideological hinterland and a skilled pilot.

The American spacecraft capsule was calledMercury, and the astronauts were very keen notto be seen as just passengers or ‘spam in thecan’, as they referred to it (Grissom 1967). Thiswas mainly because they felt their status as toppilots and that the reputation of the United Stateswould be undermined if they were seen as merepassengers. The pilots were thus given somecontrol over the capsule, which had a heat shield

designed to generate lift on re-entry (see Swensonet al 1998).

The Americans had another problem: theAtlas booster needed to lift a man into orbit wouldnot be ready before the capsule was. Von Braundecided to attach the craft to the smaller but veryrobust Redstone rocket. Although it could not liftinto orbit, it could send someone into space in aballistic hop. It was hoped that should be enoughto claim to put the first man in space. The capsulewas tested first with a series of chimpanzees,notably Ham and Enos. The apes had to perform aseries of tasks inside the capsule, and they gavea good representation of the physiology of theastronauts. Rather too good, the press felt, and

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Figure 6. Colonel-Engineer Vladimir Komarov, pilot of the ill-fated Soyuz 1 (courtesy of RKK-Energia Archive),and the crew of Apollo 1 (L–R) Grissom, White and Chaffee (courtesy of NASA).

many of the astronauts were not happy at beingcompared with chimps. This was only exacerbatedwhen Enos appeared on national television anddecided to masturbate as soon as the cameras wereswitched on (Woolf 1980).

In March 1961, the Americans were ready tolaunch their first man into space. That man was tobe Lt-Cdr Alan B Shepard, a navy test pilot, andhis craft, Freedom 7, was to lift off very soon. Butthings were not perfect: von Braun wanted anotherunmanned test, using Ham the chimp. The NASAstaff, including James Webb the administrator,knew that the Soviets were planning to launch theirown man soon, but when? After a successful Hamflight, Shepard was due to be launched in earlyMay. Webb knew from the CIA (CIA 1961, 1967,1970 and 1971) that Marshall Niedelin, the headof the Soviet military rocket programme, had beenkilled in a massive explosion in 1960, and thishad destroyed a major part of the Tyura-Tam base;surely they would be first?

At the massive site in Soviet Central Asiapreparations were well under way for the firstlaunch. An unmanned capsule carrying a dummycalled Ivan Ivanovich and a radio transmitter hadreturned successfully, and all was ready. Korolevhad chosen 26-year-old air force pilot LieutenantYuri Gagarin to be his first pilot; his backup was tobe Titov, who, if the flight was successful, wouldfly the second Vostok mission (Hooper 1990).Gagarin would not only be an ideal pilot but alsoa goodwill ambassador, showing the world whatSoviet science and the Soviet system had achieved.

The night before the launch the two men werequartered in a gazebo on the edge of the giantspaceport in Kazakhstan. Each was wired up tomedical monitoring equipment, and both knew thatany sign of undue stress would mean the backuppilot was flying instead of Gagarin. Neither mancould sleep but both knew they had to pretend todo so. Sergei Korolev could not sleep either: all ofhis life he had dreamed about sending men to thestars, and tomorrow the dream was to come true.

The doctors woke both men at 5:30 am, andboth prepared as if they were going to fly. Titovgot dressed into the heavy layered suit first togive Gagarin more time to stay cool. Korolevgreeted Gagarin, his Little Eagle, and Gagarincommented how terrible Korolev looked. Gagarinthen proceeded to the bus that would take them tothe launch pad. At 9:06 am on 12 May 1961, ChiefDesigner Korolev began the countdown from hisbunker, well away from the R7 rocket. It hadbeen decided that he should be as far away aspossible after what had happened to Niedelin theyear before. The engines ignited, the gantries fellaway, and slowly the ship pulled away from theground, white vapours falling from the tanks as itrose above the steppe.

Inside, all Gagarin could feel was a slightvibration; as that grew and he felt the lift off, heshouted ‘Poyekhali!’ or ‘Here we go!’ AlthoughGagarin was a mere passenger there was a keypadto unlock the controls and allow him to fly thecapsule in case of an emergency. Korolev decidedhe wanted to trust his Little Eagle, and had given

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him the code anyway. It is interesting that Gagarinwas calmer than Korolev, as evidenced by thefollowing exchange 100 s into the flight:

K: T plus 100, how do you feel?G: I feel fine; how about you?(quoted in Siddiqi (2002) page 277)

Gagarin entered space, the booster cut out andwas jettisoned. He was in freefall, orbiting theEarth. He commented, ‘The sky is very dark; theEarth is bluish. Everything is seen very clearly’(Gagarin 1961).

On the ground, Radio Moscow made anannouncement telling the world that Major YuriGagarin (he had been promoted!) was orbitingthe Earth. Someone called the press officer atNASA, who said he was asleep and to call back:the headline read ‘US Sleeps while Soviets LeapAhead’.

Gagarin completed six orbits and then firedthe retro rockets for re-entry. These wouldslow the craft so that it could fall to Earth.This would generate a great deal of heat asthe capsule slowed from its high speed, dueto friction with the atmosphere. The enginesfired, and Gagarin expected to feel the servicemodule separate. Unfortunately a cable joiningthe two failed to break, and the craft began tospin violently about the centre of mass of thetwo sections. As the extreme heat generated bythe return to Earth increased, a layer of chargedparticles built up around the craft. These blockedthe communication between the craft and theground, and Gagarin was unable to say whatwas happening. Luckily, before he blacked outthe cable burned away, and the capsule’s motionbecame steadier. At 7000 metres he ejected anddescended by parachute. The craft fired retrorockets to land on the ground and Gagarin floateddown; surprised farm workers saw a bright redfigure in a space helmet landing in their field. ‘Ihave come from space’, he said.

Very soon Soviet News Agency TASS wasannouncing to the world what had happened.

In Cape Canaveral, the news galvanized theteam to get someone up as soon as possible. AnAmerican simply had to get into space. On 5May, Alan Shepard sat in his silver fitted suit ontop of the Redstone. There was another problem,another delay. He had been sitting there for manyhours and desperately wanted to relieve himself.

To unstrap would take many hours, so he decideto go in his suit. Unfortunately the liquid rose allof the way up his back. Shepard thought it couldnot get any worse than sitting in a lake of his ownurine on top of a ballistic missile. Finally theywere ready, and slowly Shepard’s ship, Freedom7, lifted him high over the Atlantic Ocean. Oncethe motors were off he experienced weightlessnessfor a few minutes before firing motors to slow thecraft down and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.Despite his not orbiting the earth and only having25 min and 22 s in space, the American publicwere delighted to finally have something to shoutabout. Shepard was given a ticker-tape parade inNew York, and he met the new president. He wasthen sent on a massive publicity tour.

A second Redstone Mercury launch wassuccessfully completed in July, when Virgil ‘Gus’Grissom flew into space for another few minutes.Unfortunately, after splashdown the explosivehatch bolts blew on his capsule. It quicklyfilled with water and Grissom barely escapedwith his life. This hatch failure was to haveterrible consequences for NASA, and Grissom inparticular.

Finally, in 1962 the Atlas booster was ready,and John Glenn was selected to be the firstAmerican to orbit the Earth in Friendship 7. Glennlifted off in the early afternoon of 20 February1962. Nearly five hours later, he returned to Earth,having completed three orbits of the planet. Butit was not a smooth ride: early in the second orbitas the craft passed over Florida a ground engineernoticed that the instruments were warning that hisheat shield was no longer attached to the craft. Ifthis was true, the only things holding the shield inplace were the straps of the braking engine unit.As the spaceship entered the atmosphere, Glennsaw parts of the craft fly past his window; luckily itwas the now useless retro pack. He splashed downin the Atlantic. As a result, he received a hugeparade in New York and became friendly with theKennedy family (figure 3). In fact he was askedby Mrs Kennedy to break the news of their father’sdeath to some of the Kennedy children. Six weeksafter President Kennedy’s death he resigned fromNASA to run for office. He finally was electedSenator for Ohio in 1974, and remained in officeuntil 1999. Glenn returned to space on the spaceshuttle in 1998, the oldest person ever to fly inspace.

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This positive step seemed to give confidenceto the American programme, and, convinced thatin the short term the Soviets were going to beatthem in any tit-for-tat contest, they decided to bebold. President Kennedy announced at the RiceUniversity Commencement in September 1962that America had set a goal to put a man on theMoon and return him safely before the end of the1960s.

Kennedy had reason to be ambitious; Wernervon Braun’s engines for the giant Saturn rocket hadbeen successfully tested just a few weeks before.However, the key reason cited for going to theMoon echoed George Mallory’s words about whyhe should want to climb Everest: ‘because it wasthere’. There was never any mention of a scientificreason to go, mainly because the key was beatingthe Soviets.

More Mercury flights followed: Carpenter,Schirra and Cooper all followed Glenn’s example.Cooper’s flight in May 1963 lasted nearly twodays and made him the fastest human being ever,something any test pilot would have relished.

Ironically, Chairman Khrushchev did notwant to go to the Moon; instead he wanted morepropaganda firsts (Taubman 2004). So Korolevlaunched the first woman into space in June 1963.Valentina Tereshkova, a keen parachutist, wasselected from a group of pilots, and all werepressed into the volunteer air force. Her Vostok6 flight lasted three days, and she completed48 orbits of the Earth. The flight was a jointone with Vostok 5, and the two craft passedwithin 3 km of each other. Again all did notgo as planned: she was rather unwell, did notcomplete all of her tasks, and only later wasit revealed that the craft kept ascending everytime it was supposed to descend. Luckily, theproblem was fixed before re-entry. It would be19 years before another woman flew into space.Interestingly, Korolev was extremely unhappywith Tereshkova’s performance in space, eventhough Titov in Vostok 2 had been space sicktoo. He was reported to have remarked ‘If I everget involved with broads again ...’ (Siddiqi 2000,p 372), which tells us a lot about the state of sexualequality in the Soviet Union at the time.

Upon her return, Tereshkova married Vostok3 pilot and all-round eligible bachelor AndrianNikolayev. This first space couple produced adaughter, the first person to have two astronaut

parents. The marriage did not last long, though forthe good of the party it was many years before theydivorced. It is thought by some that a high-rankingofficial or perhaps even Khrushchev intervened tomake the marriage happen.

More firsts followed. Voshkod (Sunrise) 1,launched in October 1964, contained threeastronauts, therefore trumping the American’snew twin-seat Gemini spacecraft. However, theastronauts had to give up wearing their spacesuitsand the ejector seat, i.e. their means of escape, inorder to fit into the craft. In reality the Voshkodwas a slightly improved Vostok. Then Voshkod2, in March 1965, produced another milestone.A collapsible airlock had been attached, andAlexei Leonov crawled out and completed thefirst spacewalk. Again it was timed to beat theAmericans, whose Gemini 4 crew was about to dothe same.

However, performing their programme insidea media microscope hindered the Americans. Notonly did the Soviets know exactly what washappening, but also millions saw each mistake.This was not the case for the Soviet programme.Leonov found that as the extra-vehicular activity(EVA) unfolded his suit stiffened (Portree andTrevino 1997) and blew up like a balloon. Thismade it very difficult to move, and Leonov wasunable to even operate the camera on his chest.As he tried to get back into the collapsibleVolga airlock—a sort of detachable shower-curtainairlock—he got stuck. He decided to risk the bendsby depressurizing his suit to get back in. He alsocarried a suicide pill in case Belyayev had to leaveLeonov in space. Things were no better upon re-entry: the ship overshot and landed in woods, snowbound, with the crew surrounded by wolves. It wassome time before they were rescued.

Had the same thing happened in the UnitedStates there would have been media uproar.

Later in March the first Gemini spacecraftwas launched. This was a real two-seat spacecraftdesigned to test a number of things neededto put people on the Moon. The programmewould cover such necessary milestones as EVA,rendezvous and docking. The spacecraft was hugecompared to Mercury, with each crew memberhaving a much bigger area and each craft havinga service module. The first Gemini missionwas commanded by Virgil Grissom, the mostsenior Mercury astronaut still on active duty.

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Alan B Shepard had developed Meniere’s disease,which affected his balance, and he was grounded.Following on from the first mission, Ed Whitebecame the first American to perform an EVA ashe and Jim McDivitt flew in Gemini 4. Whitesaid that coming inside after that first EVA was thesaddest moment of his life (figure 4).

From this start until the tenth and finalmission, the Gemini programme was a completesuccess, meeting every one of the targetsdemanded of it. That does not mean it all wentsmoothly. Elliot See and Charlie Bassett, the crewof Gemini 9, were killed when their aircraft hit theplant manufacturing their spaceship, and Gemini 8rolled out of control, threatening their crew whena thruster misfired. The commander managed tocontrol the violently rotating craft, remaining calmunder extreme pressure; the coolness under fireshown by this astronaut marked his card with theNASA hierarchy. His name was Neil Armstrong.The Gemini programme reflected the Americansuperiority paying off, as the vast sums of moneysequestered by the US Congress began to paydividends. There was a clear goal and structure,and at its peak 5% of the US budget was spent onthe space program. It is worth noting that whileabout $24 000 million was spent on the Moonlandings over ten or so years, in the year 1965–66alone $30 000 million was spent prosecuting thewar in Vietnam.

In the Soviet Union things were not goingwell: first Korolev was unwell. It had beennot only his brilliance as a designer but also hispolitical astuteness that had driven the programmeforward. He met with his two favourite LittleEagles, Gagarin and Leonov, one night in 1966before he was about to go into hospital for aroutine operation. He never came round from theoperation: his colon was riddled with cancer andhe died. Things were not well either with the giantN-1 Moon rocket or the Soyuz (Union) spacecraftit was to send into lunar orbit. Korolev’s deputy,Vasilly Mishin, took over the OKB-1 bureau.

In the US, Grissom had been selected tocommand the first of their Moon craft, or Apollocraft, as they were known. Slayton took Grissomaside and told him that he was to command the firstMoon landing as he wanted a Mercury veteran tobe the first man on the Moon (Slayton and Shepard1994). His first job was to get the spacecraftworking, let others test the Saturn V and the lunar-lander, and then he would go for the Moon some

time in 1968. His crew for the first test was EdWhite and new astronaut Roger Chaffee. In theSoviet Union the first Soyuz was to be commandedby Vladimir Komarov, a veteran of Voshkod 1, andhis backup was to be Yuri Gagarin, who sought areturn to active flight duty. Both craft were set tofly in early 1967 (figure 6).

As it was to turn out, 1967 was to be an annushorribilis for human space flight. The first launchof the new Apollo spacecraft was scheduled forFebruary, and the crew were taking the capsulethrough a series of tests to make sure everythingwould work in orbit. On 27 January, Grissom,White and Chaffee strapped themselves in for a‘plugs out’ test. This is where the capsule, sittingon the Saturn rocket, is isolated from the ground asif ready for launch. After an exhausting day theywere still having trouble with the communicationssystem. Grissom had been so frustrated by thefailures of the craft that he had hung a lemon inthe simulator. They decided to give the system onemore try. At 6:31 pm there was a voice: ‘Fire,we have fire in the capsule’. They were RogerChaffee’s final words. White, a hugely successfulathlete, began to pull the lever to open the hatch,but it would not budge: it opened inwards and thepressure from the air inside was keeping it shut.The designers had thought about fitting explosivebolts, but Grissom’s accident in the Liberty Bellput paid to that. Now that decision came back tohaunt them.

The atmosphere in the spacecraft was 100%oxygen designed to operate in space where con-vection currents would not form. Unfortunately,they were in Florida, and gravity was working verywell. A few seconds after the warning there was anexplosion, ripping the hatch out. It was 7 min be-fore the ground crew could get in. The astronautshad all asphyxiated as the raging fire had sucked allof the air out of their suits. The Accident Board ofInvestigation found that faulty wiring had becomefrayed as engineers and technicians had traipsed inand out, and what would have normally been anannoying fault became deadly in the 100% oxygenatmosphere. In particular, Velcro burned very eas-ily in such an environment, and as this was exten-sively used in the capsule it became a major haz-ard. The crew of the ship belatedly given the titleApollo 1 were buried with full military honours.

NASA’s top brass were devastated: they hadexpected to lose an astronaut in space eventually,

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but not on the launch pad in a test. It would be18 months before the craft would eventually fly,and the accident hung like a cloud over the wholeMoon programme. Would they be able to get therebefore the end of the decade, as the late PresidentKennedy had promised?

In the Soviet Union the death of Korolevhad hit their programme very hard. Mishin,while a willing and able deputy, lacked theleadership qualities and drive that his predecessorhad possessed. There was in-fighting within theprogramme, and where work was happening it waslate. The Soyuz spacecraft was not working well insimulations, but the Central Committee were keenthat it be launched in time for the May Day parade.

Realizing that it was looking more and morelike a suicide mission, Gagarin asked to be ableto replace Komarov. Although Gagarin was thenow ostracized Khrushchev’s protege, he wasstill the most famous Russian in the world, andhad some sway over the Politburo. He wasoverruled (Bizony and Doran 1998). On 23 April,Komarov lifted off from Tyura-Tam. Immediately,it became obvious that there was a problem. Oneof the solar panels failed to open, reducing thepower available, and there were several subsequentfailures. It was impossible for Komarov to controlthe craft easily, if at all. It was decided to bring himback after one day in orbit. His wife was broughtto the control room to speak with him before firingthe retro-rockets.

As the craft began its return to Earth hestruggled to control the craft. However, hemanaged to bring the ship into the atmospherestill under control. However, the lack of electricalpower meant that the parachutes failed to openproperly, and the craft slammed into the steppeat 400 km h−1. On the way down, as thecraft passed over Europe the CIA listening postsreceived the transmissions as Komarov told thePolitburo exactly what he thought of them (Bizonyand Doran 1998). Komarov was buried in theKremlin Wall and all 47 US astronauts sent theircondolences. Gagarin was incensed, as he feltthat Komarov had been as good as murdered. Hebecame very morose and within a year he wasdead too, killed in a jet fighter during a trainingaccident.

It was October 1968 before any people flew inspace again. The Apollo capsule was extensivelyredesigned and as a result was much safer, but

the programme had paid a terrible price. Therewas a new urgency though. Satellite photographyhad detected a number of large rockets at Tyura-Tam. This information had been obtained with theultra-secret Keyhole spy satellite technology (CIA1967). One was the powerful but unreliable Protonrocket and another was the giant N-1 Moon rocket.In October 1968, a modified Soyuz, launchedby a Proton rocket, circumnavigated the Moon,carrying animals, and it safely splashed down inthe Indian Ocean. Leonov pushed to be allowed tofly on the next mission (Leonov and Scott 2003)but was refused: more turtles were sent instead.

NASA changed their plans: instead of testingthe lunar landing craft first they would send threemen around the Moon and back again in the firsttest of the giant Saturn 5 rocket, the product of vonBraun’s team in Huntsville. At Christmas 1968,Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Andersin Apollo 8 were the first human beings to see thefar side of the Moon. Their television broadcastsfrom the Moon captivated the world.

The Soviets still had not given up: they werenow pinning their hope on Korolev’s legacy, theN-1 Moon rocket. Unfortunately, it was not to be,as the N-1 exploded just after take-off, causing ahuge explosion and severely damaging the launchfacility. Nothing could stop the Americans now,and following a test of the lander (Apollo 9) anda dress rehearsal (Apollo 10), Neil Armstrongand Edwin Aldrin walked on the Moon in July1969. This technological achievement was theculmination of many years’ work by hundredsof thousands of people, and the competition hadstirred the scientists on both sides of the IronCurtain. Unfortunately, it was not to last, and thesustained expenditure was beyond the means ofany one nation.

When Eugene Cernan climbed the ladder ofApollo 17’s lander in December 1972 he did notbelieve it would be nearly 50 years before anyonefollowed him. But it will be. Only 24 people andsome turtles and worms have travelled more thana few hundred kilometres from the Earth’s surface,and only 12 of those have stood on another bodyand looked back and seen the Earth shining downon them (Chaikin 1995).

All that is left now of these early pioneersare a few pieces of hardware lying on their sidein Florida and Houston. In Kazakstan pieces ofdiscarded N-1 rocket were used by farmers as

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shelters for their animals. The technology was tooexpensive to be sustainable and required nationallyorganized efforts to get anywhere. NASA decidedthat the reusable low-orbit space shuttle was theway forward, and the Soviet Union decided to lookat long-term space travel, setting up a series ofspace stations starting with Salyut and then Mir.

There is one other place where the earlypioneers are remembered. Just before leavingthe Moon, Armstrong and Aldrin left behind a‘package’ (Hansen 2005). Inside a clear plasticbag were an Apollo 1 patch, a badge of anolive branch and medals commemorating VladimirKomarov and Yuri Gagarin. The crew had decidedto leave them as a tribute to the fallen astronautson both sides of the globe who had paved theway for them. That bag still lies today in the Seaof Tranquility, waiting for the next lunar visitors(figure 5).

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank the staff of theScience Museum Library at Imperial College inLondon for their help with the sources for thisarticle.

Received 2 May 2007, in final form 11 May 2007doi:10.1088/0031-9120/42/4/001

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Steven Chapman is a lecturer in scienceeducation at the Institute of Education,University of London. As part of hiswork with the Science Learning Centre,London he gets to work with CharlieBrown, the Apollo 10 Command modulein the Science Museum.

344 P H Y S I C S E D U C A T I O N July 2007