As a youth, he’d been inspired by Robert Goddard’s first successful liquid fuel rocket of 1926 and was designing rockets from an early age. He’d created the first Soviet Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and had inaugurated the satellite age with Sputnik. He’d also launched the first animals into outer space. He’d initiated robotic space exploration in 1958 in a series of lunar probes, Luna 1, 2 and 3. He’d helped set up a deep space radio tracking station in the Crimea with its phenomenal range of 300 million kilometres.
Korolev combines the sophistication of a rocket engineer with the belligerence of a street-fighter. In him, the secrecy of a Soviet scientist meets the ambition of a Western-style inventor and industrialist. He’s driven and obsessive, living a monastic life outside of his work.
The Theoretician of Cosmonautics, Mstislav Keldysh, a calm, cultured fifty year-old mathematician and mechanical engineer, is also officiating at the launch of Vostok 1. An expert in the mathematics of missile and rocket trajectories, he’s the brains behind the precise routes which have been planned – and programmed – for Korolev’s rocket.
These two men, along with rocket scientist and engineer, Mikhail Tikhonravov, had effectively triggered the global Space Race by masterminding the development of the first satellite in space back in ’57. Tikhonravov had been the leading engineer behind Sputnik and the design of Vostok’s space capsule, a ball of reinforced metal encapsulating a cockpit and a highly automated flight system.
Everyone keeps checking their watches, waiting, apprehensive, the excitement and adrenalin building up towards the historic lift-off.
In contrast to the prevailing sense of nervousness at the Cosmodrome, Gagarin himself feels as cheerful as the sunshine bathing the plains. He’s beaming with pride and excitement. The hearty words and gestures of good-will from everyone in the welcome party have encouraged him.
And gazing up at the rocket itself, standing to attention before him, gives him added confidence. Transported the day before about four kilometres from the hangar bay to Site 1 on a Motovoz diesel-powered locomotive, it’s pointing purposefully towards the heavens, knowing where it’s going. To the young idealist, the spaceship isn’t just a machine designed by Korolev’s team of aeronautical innovators and automation experts at the OKB-1 Special Design Bureau in Kaliningrad. Vostok 1 is a work of art.
Everyone at the Cosmodrome is keen to get the launch underway, especially the Chief Designer, but the final preparations and checks seem to take hours. Korolev, his expansive forehead perspiring, is in a heightened state of nervousness after a sleepless night, his naturally dark complexion deepened by the shadows of worry. Earlier, the big man had experienced some chest pains from tension, and he had taken medication to bring down his heart-rate. Close to exhaustion, he’s struggling to stay calm.
Eventually, though, the time for lift-off approaches. Cosmonaut One strides up to the Chairman of the State Commission, a leading industrialist, to report for duty. It was the Central Committee of the Communist Party which had approved Korolev’s proposal, submitted on 19th September 1960, for this manned spaceflight, so the correct protocol is to report for duty to the most senior representative present.
“Lieutenant Gagarin is ready for the first flight in the spaceship Vostok,” the space pilot declares.
“Happy flight!” is the simple, heartfelt reply, accompanied by a firm handshake.
Gagarin then turns to the assembled guests, which include state-approved press and radio representatives. Elated that his dream of flying in space is finally coming true, words overflow in him as his voice echoes through the public address system.
“Dear friends, fellow citizens and people of all countries, in a few minutes the mighty spaceship will carry me off into distant spaces above Earth. To be first in outer space, to meet nature face to face in this unusual, single-handed encounter – could I possibly have dreamed of more? This is a responsibility to all the Soviet people, to all of humanity, to its present and future.”
The commander of Vostok 1 pauses, surveying his audience, picking out with his eyes the faces of individuals he knows and respects, sensing their support radiating out to him. He is on a mission for them, for his country but also for all oppressed human beings.
“I am saying good-bye to you, dear friends, as people always say to each other before a long journey. I should love to embrace all of you, friends and strangers!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
AFTER HIS FAREWELL SPEECH, Gagarin climbs up the metal stairway to the gantry elevator. Just before he enters the lift, he turns around and looks down at his comrades one last time, raising both arms in a final salute.
“See you soon!” he promises them.
The men in the crowd below wave back, reassured by the cosmonaut’s resolute gesture.
Gagarin ascends in the elevator to the upper section of the lofty machine. Embedded in the rocket stack is the spherical Vostok capsule, which resembles a giant metal eyeball, its main glass porthole like an eye. He’s about to see things no one has ever seen before.
Korolev, Keldysh and other senior officials make their way to the giant Assembly-Testing Building at the Cosmodrome. A communications control centre has been set up at site 2 in the offices of the Directorate of the launch range. The Chief Designer is keen to make voice contact with Gagarin as soon as the cosmonaut boards the vessel.
Cosmonaut One enters the capsule’s cabin through its compact circular hatch, about a metre wide, wriggling himself into the cockpit chair. Two members of the starting crew lean into the cabin to strap him in and plug his spacesuit hoses into the on-board life support system. A few final checks are performed.
Down at Ground Control, Korolev notes that the air supply to his cosmonaut is functioning well, with no leakage from the spacesuit.
The Vostok 1 seat is a complex piece of machinery. It has a built-in parachute as well as a catapult and ejection device. Also mounted on the seat are the ventilation system for the space helmet and the oxygen apparatus for the parachute. Several new metals and fabrics have been developed by Soviet designers for all of this space technology. At its base, are small rockets which can propel the chair through the circular hatch if required. Everything necessary for an emergency landing was packed into the seat, including supplies of food and water and a radio device which could double up as a direction finder. The cosmonaut’s survival kit includes a pistol in case he lands back on Earth in a jungle or other kind of hostile environment. And the reason his spacesuit is bright orange is that the designer, Gai Severin, has anticipated the scenario that the cosmonaut might land in areas of the Soviet Union which are still snow-bound even in April.
Oleg Ivanovsky, one of the design bureau’s most senior engineers, taps on Gagarin’s helmet. He whispers to him the secret three digit code which can switch control of the spaceship from the on-board automatic systems to manual.
“It’s 325.”
The code, when punched into a keypad on the control panel, will unlock the navigation systems from the computers.
Then the starting crew fasten down the hatch above the cosmonaut’s head, sealing the capsule. They check the electrical contacts around the rim of the hatch which are supposed to register a signal at Ground Control, confirming the vessel is airtight. Then they secure the thirty bolts on the exterior of the hatch with a special key.