I grew up at the same time the American space program was growing up. I remember looking at the night sky in 1957 to see the Soviet Union's Sputnik I satellite and wondering why the United States had not accomplished that first.
I remember poring over this Life magazine issue in 1959 which profiled the first seven American astronauts and reading about John Glenn who hailed from another small Ohio town like I lived in at the time.
A couple of years later I remember the shock when hearing that the Soviets had put Yuri Gagarin into space and safely brought him back to earth after a full orbit around our planet.
The United States got Alan Shephard into space on a sub-orbital flight a month later in 1961 and followed with another sub-orbital flight with Gus Grissom in charge but it was clear we were behind the Soviets.
John Glenn did not make his first orbital flight until February 20, 1962--10 months behind the Soviets.
All through the early 1960's the Soviets kept beating the Americans in the space race. They did the first interplanetary fly-by (Venus), they were the first to have a crewman spend an entire day in space, they did the first space walk and they were the first to accomplish a soft landing on the moon. In between all of that they also put the first woman into space.
It appeared that the United States would never catch the Soviets. We were always behind.
However, beginning in the period 1965-66 the United States space program started to gain momentum with its Gemini program. At the same time, the Soviets seemed to not be advancing on the same arc any more.
It all culminated in the United States successfully landing two men on the moon in July, 1969. one of which was another Ohioan---Neil Armstrong. However, in many respects to those of us who witnessed it, the December, 1968 space flight from earth that circled the moon with Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders on board was just as impactful. This was the first time man had left the earth's orbit and totally escaped the earth's influence.
It was almost too much to believe especially when you consider that it had been just over 60 years since another two Ohioans, Wilbur and Orville Wright, had first demonstrated powered flight with a man onboard.
I still remember looking up at a full moon on Christmas Eve on 1968 thinking that there were three human beings orbiting that faraway orb that evening. It was one of the most memorable nights of my life.
The crew of Apollo 8 also returned with images of the first Earthrise. This is a picture taken by William Anders on December 24, 1968.
A similar image formed the basis for this commemorative stamp honoring the mission.
Yes, a first class stamp was 6 cents. Yes, God was mentioned on a U.S. government issued stamp. Yes, times really have changed.
Despite all of the American success in reaching the moon, I have always wondered what happened to the Soviets? Why did they falter when they appeared to have everything going their way early in the space race? It is something I have always wondered about.
I got the answer recently when I read the book "Two Sides of the Moon" which details the cold war space race from the perspectives of two who were right in the middle of it---U.S. astronaut David Scott and Soviet cosmonaut Alexi Leonov.
Scott and Leonov were on different sides of the race to the moon but they eventually became good friends when they were brought together in the planning for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project that culminated with U.S. and Soviet crews doing a joint flight project. They later collaborated on the book to provide their unique insights of what was going on inside each program and what each was thinking about their adversary. It is a fascinating retrospective on the space race.
In the book I also got the answer to my question of why did the Soviet space program stall on the way to the moon? And is often the case, it came down to one man making the difference.
For the Soviets that man was Sergei Korolev. Korloev was the leader behind the Soviet space program. He is considered the father of practical astronautics by many. He was considered so valuable to the Soviets that he was officially only referred to as the "Grand Designer" within Russia for fear that he would be the subject of possible U.S. assassination attempts. It did not come to that with Korolev. Instead, he died on an operating table for what was thought to be a fairly routine surgery to remove an intestinal polyp. He was only 59 when he died in early 1966 exactly at the time that the United States was gaining momentum in space.
The Soviet space program would never recover from the loss of Korolev on its mission to the moon. They had great engineers and cosmonauts but Korolev's successor was, according to Leonov, "hesitant, poor at making decisions and reluctant to take risks."
I don't know how many times I have seen it in my life. You can have the greatest technology. A great team. Fantastic financial support. However, if you do not have that one person with the vision, the vitality and the tenacity to see it through, you will not succeed.
It takes "the right stuff" as author Tom Wolfe would put it.
In space... or in leadership on earth.
Sergei Korolev. The Grand Designer. A man with the right stuff that you never heard of. A man who made a world of difference when he was alive. And might have been the key difference in the United States winning the space race when he was no longer alive.
No comments:
Post a Comment