Russians in Space
The Soviet Union put the
first satellite in orbit, Sputnik, and the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin.
The space race was once regarded as a metaphor for the Cold War, and the
Communists seemed to be winning. Today the Russian space program is a joke,
symbolized by the space station Mir. What happened?
Sputnik was launched
on Oct. 4, 1957--the first man-made object to orbit Earth. Its eerie beep,
broadcast over U.S. radio, signaled the Soviet Union's commanding lead in the
space race. Masterminded by Sergei Korolev, the Soviet counterpart to the
United States' Wernher von Braun (and, unlike von Braun, a native product),
Sputnik seemed to represent a system superior to capitalism, and proved useful
in wooing developing nations that had yet to choose sides in the Cold War. Sen.
Lyndon Johnson declared, "Control of space means control of the world."
One month
later, Sputnik 2 carried Laika
the
dog in orbit for seven
days. Laika suffered the first death in space. With no means yet of safe
re-entry, she was put to sleep inside the floating capsule.
On Dec. 6, 1957, the first American attempt to put a
satellite in orbit exploded on the launch pad. It was instantly dubbed
"Flopnik," "Kaputnik," and "Stayputnik." The first successful American launch
came on Jan. 31, 1958.
The
Soviets, with their Luna
program (1959), achieved the first solar
orbit; the first impact on the moon; and the first photographs of the moon from
a lunar orbit, which allowed them to map and triumphantly name geological
features of the moon's far side. Their next program, the Vostok ("east")
series, shocked the United States even more. On April 12, 1961, Vostok 1
launched the first human into space. Yuri
Gagarin 's module was
controlled from the ground--engineers were unsure if he would function
competently in weightlessness. After 76 minutes of orbital flight, the capsule
began its descent. Gagarin ejected as planned at 23,000 feet, and parachuted to
Earth. The Soviet government did not reveal that Gagarin landed separately from
the craft. At Gagarin's post-flight press conference the pioneering cosmonaut
claimed, "While in outer space, I was thinking about our party and our
homeland."
Two days later, President Kennedy met with
advisers and asked, "Is there any place we can catch them?" Consensus held the
Soviets were so far ahead that only a manned lunar landing could win the space
race. On May 25, 1961, Kennedy addressed Congress and called for a moon
landing by the end of the decade.
Three weeks before this
announcement, the United States had launched its first manned flight: a
15-minute journey by Alan Shepard that didn't even reach orbit. By 1963, when
John Glenn orbited Earth three times in five hours, the Soviet Union was
launching daylong flights and a 48-orbit mission. Valentina
Tereshkova , the first woman in space, orbited Earth on June 16, 1963--20
years before Sally Ride. (Tereshkova announced, "Warm greetings from space to
the glorious Leninist Young Communist League that reared me.")
In March
1965, a Soviet cosmonaut took the first
spacewalk . A U.S.
spacewalk came that summer. But the Soviet Union racked up a series of unmanned
firsts between 1965 and 1968: the first
impact
on
another
planet (Venus), the first soft landing on the
moon , and the first orbit of the moon with
a safe return .
The Soyuz ("union") program, beset by vastly
inferior funding, marked the end of Soviet space domination. In 1969, Americans
walked on the moon as the Soyuz suffered from malfunctioning launchers. With
Soyuz 10 in 1971, the Soviet Union announced a shift in its goals. Introducing
the Salyut 1 space station (a "salute" to Gagarin), the Soviets began a
focus on long-term, orbital space living that endures today. Soyuz 11 blew a
hatch on re-entry, killing three cosmonauts, but after this early catastrophe
the Soviet program boasted constant space habitation and scientific
experimentation for more than two decades. The Soyuz craft ferried cosmonauts
to a series of Salyut stations, and once to a 1975 docking with Apollo 18, the
first international space rendezvous. The Soviet Union put the first man of
African heritage in space in 1980 (America's first black astronaut flew in
1983). The crew of Salyut 7 (1982) set a duration record of 211 days in
space--a record since repeatedly broken by various cosmonauts.
In 1986,
the core unit of Mir ("peace" or "world") was launched. As NASA reeled
from the Challenger disaster, the Soviet Union briefly enjoyed a return to its
dominant reputation. But as Mir floated in orbit, the Soviet Union fell apart.
Russia took over the space program--with massive expenditure cuts. Mir's life
span has been extended well past what it was designed for, as Russia cannot
afford a replacement.
Financial desperation has led Russia to
endeavors shunned by NASA. Russia's program places advertisements on its
rockets, and allows its cosmonauts to film
commercials (one for Israeli milk, another for Pepsi) in space, for a
fee. In 1990, a Japanese television network paid $12 million to send a
journalist to Mir for eight days as a ratings booster.
On June 25 this year, a
supply ship slammed into Mir. Since then, Mir's main oxygen system has
failed repeatedly (forcing its crew to burn chemical candles to
survive), its commander has developed heartbeat irregularities (caused by
stress), and a cosmonaut has accidentally unplugged its main computer (which is
less powerful than the chip in some cellular phones). Mir's crew was docked pay
for its incompetence. The main computer failed again Sept. 8, but the
replacement crew reported that the situation was "normal."
