Epic Rivalry (Armchair Astronaut, Jun. 2011)

                                 This month for the eighth Armchair Astronaut, I have chosen the book Epic Rivalry. Written by Von Hardesty and Gene Eisman, it chronicles space-related history from Wernher von Braun in Germany to Neil Armstrong on the Moon. However this is not just a book on American space history, it also deals with Soviet space history. Covering both sides of the space race is what makes me think this a book that goes above and beyond in space history.



Wernher von Braun

 The first chapter goes back even before Sputnik when the von Braun was working for Nazi Germany. At that time, von Braun and his rocket team were creating and launching V-2 rockets from their Peenemunde launch facility on the Baltic Sea. While WWII was wrapping up, von Braun and his team decided to surrender to the Americans. Epic Rivalry chronicles America's Operation Paperclip, whoose mission was to bring von Braun, his team, and important documents and rocket documents to America. Another important prize was many V-2 rockets, with which von Braun and his team could play around with near Fort Bliss, Texas. The German rocket team was promptly forgotten until a malfunctioning V-2 flew into Mexico and crashed into a cemetery! After that, Washington relocated their prize Germans to the town of Huntsville in northern Alabama.

Around 1955 or 1956, von Braun told Washington that he (and the Army, of which he was a part of) had a booster that could launch a satlilite before the Russians. Washington blew off von Braun, instead favoring the Navy's Vanguard booster which only existed on paper. When the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 in October of 1957, President Eisenhower finally, embarrassingly, gave von Braun the OK to use his Redstone booster. Eisenhower insisted, however, that the Redstone be renamed! The Americans showed the world that while they may be behind for a while, they were in the race and were determined to catch up with the Soviets.

But catch-up time was not yet. 1961 found the Soviets scoring several stunning victories: several Sputniks had already happened, and then Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space on April 12, 1961. Cosmonaut Gherman Titov followed Gagarin into the starry heavens the following August. Meanwhile American astronauts Alan Shepard  and Virgil Grissom flew sub-orbital flights in May and July of 1961, respectivly. Astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth in 1962, but America still wasn't caught up with Russia. The Soviets continued to jump ahead with space spectaculars, however, with the first two-person and three-person flights, and the first time two cosmonauts were in space at the same time (even if they were in separate capsules).

In March of 1965, Sergei Kololev, the number one guy and secret Chief Designer of the Soviet space program, had a talk with two of his cosmonauts. He told Pavel Belyaev and Alexei Leonov that it was their choice if they wanted to fly their mission now. It was an extremely dangerous and ambitious mission, Korolev told his cosmonauts, and there was only one capsule ready. Would they fly now, or later? Korolev told Belyaev and Leonov that the decision was totally their choice. The cosmonauts' mission, Voskhod 2, was planned to have Leonov perform the first spacewalk ever. Korolev did remind Belyaev and Leonov, however, that American astronaut Edward White was scheduled to perform a spacewalk in June of that year--just a few more months. If the cosmonauts flew now, Korolev reasoned, Belyaev and Leonov could achieve another space spectacular for their country. Belyaev and Leonov decided to fly in March, launching on perhaps the most interesting, dangerous, and history-making space mission ever.

An hour and a half after launch, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov began his 12-minute spacewalk. A video camera beamed live video images of Leonov against the earth to the earth. The problems started, however, when Leonov attempted to reenter his capsule. Moscow quickly stopped the live video coverage! The problem was that Leonov's spacesuit had stiffened to the point that Leonov could not conform himself to the capsule entrance. Leonov threw away the mission rules, and started bleeding off some of the suit pressure. Finally after much blood, sweat, and tears, Leonov marvelously made it back into the capsule.

 

The Voskhod 2 crew: Pavel Belyaev and Alexei Leonov

 But that was just the start of the adventure of Voskhod 2! Closing the hatch caused endless problems for the crewman, and then the automatic landing system promptly failed, forcing Belyaev and Leonov to use the manual backup. In their bulky spacesuits, the two cosmonauts were not able to get back to the center of gravity for 46 seconds. This caused serious consequences, indeed, this meant that Voskhod 2 would land almost 250 miles off target--in the very inhospitable Ural Mountains of western Russia. In the Ural Mountains, snow, trees, and bitter cold reigned supreme. And wolves and bears. Thankfully, rescue aircraft soon located the cosmonauts. But that was not the end of the ordeal! Belyaev and Leonov spent a night in their capsule while the heavily forested area was cleared for a helicopter to land. All told, the cosmonauts spent two uncomfortable nights in the Ural Mountains. Finally, the helicopter arrived and they were taken away.



The Soviet's N-1 moon rocket.

 Epic Rivalry also dedicated a chapter to the launch complexes of both the USA and the USSR. While I had known some things about Cape Canaveral, I had known almost nothing about the Baiknonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This launch facility was where every Soviet mission from Sputnik to Gagarin to Ron Garan (Yes, he's an American astronaut but flew courtesy of the Russians this past April) launched from. While Russia certainly had their share of successes, they also had their share of failures. Perhaps one of their biggest failures was their N-1 moon rocket, comparable to America's very successful Saturn V. At the time the Russian space program had very poor leadership (Korolev was dead by this point), and the N-1 just kept blowing up. The N-1--among other reasons--was one of the reasons that Russia never reached the moon.

Epic Rivalry does go on to tell how the Americans did reach the moon. With the mission of Apollo 11, NASA achieved the goal that President John F. Kennedy had set for his country just over eight years earlier.

Well, I should probably close this article now as I don't want to give away all this book's wonderful secrets and stories! Suffice it to say, if you want to read a throughly interesting and engrossing book about the epic rivalry of the Space Race, read Epic Rivalry: The Inside Story of the Soviet and American Space Race!