The unsung champion of the Space Race.
There are some events in history which are rather insignificant from present's point of view, but can trigger a chain of events that can completely alter the timeline and our present. One such example is that of the Chief of Soviet Space Program, was he not sent to gulag in his 30s, USSR would be first country to land on moon. And mankind would've landed on Mars by 1980s.
Sergei Korolev was born in Zhytomyr, a city in the north western half of Ukraine. He attended the Kiev Polytechnic Institute for a degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1924, where he also built his first glider. He met another legendary engineer, young Mikhail Tikhonravov in 1927 when latter designed glider called Firebird, which Sergei flew and gained his his pilot license. He held Korolev in extremely high regard, joined him and worked under him till his death.
By 1931, He started GIRD, a group for developing missiles and rocket planes. Korolev and Tikhonravov successfully tested the first Soviet liquid propulsion rocket that used jellied gasoline and liquid oxygen. GIRD was later merged with Gas-Dynamic Lab and he was appointed dept. chief of Jet Research Institute.
In1938 Korolev was arrested during the Great Purge by Stalin, after being accused of deliberately slowing the work of the research institute. He was tortured in the Lubyanka prison to extract a confession and was tried and sentenced to death as the purge was waning, He spent two years in jail and sent to far-east of Siberia to work in a goldmine. Work camp conditions of inadequate food, shelter, and clothing killed thousands of prisoners each month.
Korolev sustained injuries, torture, a heart attack and lost most of his teeth from scurvy before being returned to Moscow in late 1939. He rarely talked about his experience in the Gulag, living under constant fear of being executed for the military secrets he possessed, and deeply affected by his time in the camp, becoming reserved and cautious.
After the end of WWII, all the allies rushed to Germany to recover german missile tech. 2000 german scientists including Wernher Braun surrendered and went to US, under Operation Paperclip. Britain and USSR also took engineers and german designs. Korolev was brought to Germany, as the chief of project along with many other experts to recover the technology of the German V2 rocket.
The A4 aka V2 aka Vengeance rocket literally became the foundation of all further space launch vehicles by US, USSR, Britain and China. Soviet R-2 was the exact copy of V2 manufactured in USSR, The Redstone, first american ballistic missile was direct descendant of V2
Mikhail Tikhonravov developed a theory of parallel multi-stage rockets, which he called "packet rockets". In his scheme, three parallel stages were fired from liftoff, but all three engines were fueled from the outer two stages, until they are empty and could be ejected. This was more efficient than sequential staging, because the second-stage engine is never just dead weight. This so idea profoundly influenced Korolev’s thinking on an intercontinental ballistic missile, that resulted in the development of R-7 Semyorka, the first ICBM in the world.
The R-7 was so significant that it became the basis for Sputnik, Luna, Vostok and Voskhod launchers, and even Soyuz variants, which few years ago was the only way for astronauts/cosmonauts to go to ISS. Where today, hangs a portrait of Korolev.
Korolev was fascinated by space since he designed and flew gliders. They wanted to launch a satellite but the soviet govt. considered it a waste of money. In 1954, his group planted fake articles in Moscow newspaper, claiming USSR was planning to launch a satellite. Resulting in Eisenhower administration in US decided to launch a satellite before the Soviets. He sent a letter to Soviet govt. asking to design and launch a satellite before US, foring them approve the project in May, 1956. Korolev literally sparked the Space Race.
Korolev planned to launch an 1800 pound engineering marvel, that had all important instrumetnts to study geophysics. Tikhonravov suggested to build a simple satellite, so they wouldn't have to rely on contractors and could complete the project on before US.
Sputnik 1 was designed and constructed in less than a month by the Tikhonravov group, with Korolev personally managing the assembly at a hectic pace. The satellite was a simple polished metal sphere no bigger than a beach ball, because it was an elegant and dynamically stable design. It contained batteries that powered a transmitter using 4 external communication antennas and heat management devices. Sputnik 1 was successfully completed and launched into space on October 04, 1957, becoming the first ever artificial satellite in orbit.
Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev was so pleased with this achievement, that he encouraged the launch of a more advanced satellite to celebrate 40th anniversary of the October revolution. This new Sputnik 2 spacecraft had six times the mass of the Sputnik 1, and carried the space dog Laika as a payload.
The entire vehicle was designed from scratch within four weeks, with no time for testing or quality checks. It was successfully launched on November 03, 1957 and Laika was placed in orbit. Although they had no idea how to bring her back. Laika died from oveheating or asphyxiation. (surprisingly, Laika wasn't the first dog in space, although she was the first dog in orbit. The first dogs in space were Tsgan and Dezik successfully launched to space and brought back alive in 1951. That's a different story.)
Korolev was always interested in Moon. He came up with the idea of sending a package to the Moon, approved in 1958. First three failed, Luna 1 launched in Jan 1959, missed by 6000 km, becoming the first manmade object to reach near moon and into sun's orbit. Luna 2 impacted on moon on Sept 14, becoming first manmande object to land on moon. Luna 3, on 7 Oct was the first spacecraft to photograph the other side of moon. Luna 4,5,6,7,8 crashed, or missed. But Luna 9 under Tikhonravov, became first object to soft-land on moon.
Sergei started planning for manned mission since 1958, designing the future vostok spacecraft. It was a fully automated, single passenger capsule that had an escape mechanism, soft-landing and ejection system for recovery. After multiple unmanned orbits, launching space dogs including Belka and Strelka and multiple failures, govt. approved modified R-7 to launch Yuri Gagarin. On April 12, 1961, Vostok 1 once again became the first manned spacecraft into orbit. Subsequently, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman cosmonaut in space aboard Vostok 6. By November, 1963 they were able to demostrate first complete flyby of Mars by Mars 1. He also headed the first probe to impact on Venus, Venera 3.
For the Moon race, Korolev's staff started to design the immense N1 rocket, counterpart of the US Saturn V, in 1961, using the NK-15 liquid fuel rocket engines. He also was working on the design for the Soyuz spacecraft that was intended to carry crews to the Moon.
Korolev wanted to prepare for landing on moon before the US, But Nikita Khrushchev wanted more, cheaper firsts. He made him to work on Voskhod-2. On March 18, 1965, Alexei Leonov became the first man to step out of his spacecraft and perform the first ever spacewalk.
It was also discovered that he was suffering from a kidney disorder, a condition brought on by his detention in the Soviet prison camps. He was warned by the doctors that if he continued to work as intensely as he had, he would not live long. Korolev became convinced that Khrushchev was only interested in the space program for its propaganda value and feared that he would cancel it entirely if the Soviets started losing their leadership to the United States, so he continued to push himself.
He suffered cardiac arrhythmia, heart attacks, fatigue and hearing loss. On Jan 14, 1966, Korolev passed away. The actual reason is unclear, one version states that doctors could not intubate him during the surgery because his jaws were injured in Gulag had not healed properly.
With him, ended the Soviet dream of landing on the moon and winning the space race. For his entire life, he was unknown to the general public. His identity was never allowed to be revealed by the Soviet govt. till his last day, fearing foreign assasination. He was only ever referred by the title of Chief Designer. Korolev had the reputation of being a man of the highest integrity. He was a skeptic, a cynic and a pessimist who took the gloomiest view of the future of USSR. But he always believed in the capacity of makind, that no engineering challenge could unsolvabe.
The time will come when a spacecraft carrying human beings will leave the Earth and set out on a voyage to distant planets - to remote worlds. Today which may seem only an enticing fantasy. The way to the stars is open.