There is a bitter irony in the long story of the Soviet/Russian space program. There can be little doubt that the colorful characters that conceived and built the world’s first space program did their job despite tremendous obstacles. Political commentators in the west still find it all too easy to dismiss the Russians, accusing them of creating inferior hardware or, even worse, not caring about their human cargo as much as their western counterparts. Since the 1990’s the real truth of the amazing adventure happening behind the iron curtain has finally been exposed. The Russians have had more than their fair share of hardships and grief in their long struggle to explore space. The principal players lived lives beyond the imaginations of a Shakespearean tragedy; some were tortured, some died, some fought epic battles of egotism and some were simply discarded. Clashes of personalities and political machinations, along with marginal funding ultimately demanded their price. Despite all of this there can be no denying the fact that, more often than they lost a race, they won.
Proton with ISS Krystall module is prepared for launch.
When the Soviets failed, they failed spectacularly. The N-1 lunar booster was a rival to the Saturn V and it might well have succeeded had it not been cancelled at the last possible moment. Likewise, the Buran shuttle proved it could do something the American shuttle could not: it flew on its own, without pilots. It even had jet engines attached to it and was able to take off from a runway. By all accounts its structure was more durable than the American shuttle (having derived many benefits from the thousands of man-hours of research done by NASA).The Spiral program could have easily rivaled Dyna-Soar, and did in fact leave a legacy that is still being discussed today in the form of Energia’s latest shuttle offering, the Kliper. While Vostok and Mercury stood side-by-side, it can hardly be said that Voskhod was any kind of rival to Gemini. In fact it was the Gemini program which clearly changed the status of the space race, more than any other factor, the decisions which led to Gemini and Voskhod won the race for the Americans. Comparing Skylab to Salyut and Mir is almost laughable. Skylab was an enormous and very capable facility but it was barely used before it ended up in the ocean. Salyut, Mir and now the ISS leave the Russians with a 20 year legacy of flying manned space stations. There simply isn’t anything on the American side that even comes close. While Buran only flew once into space and then fell victim to the collapse of the Soviet Union, it represents one of the great unanswered questions, now that the American space shuttle has failed twice; would Buran have been an able competitor or would it have fallen victim to its sister ships’ problematic design? Finally, there is the great Cinderella story of the first fifty years of space exploration, Soyuz.
Launch of Proton with Zvezda.
Korolev’s “answer-to-Apollo” has become the most versatile, durable and tenacious space faring vehicle ever built. While Apollo dashed away to the moon, returning with the garlands and laurels, Soyuz persisted. Just as Apollo lost its first crew, so did Soyuz, but out of that grim moment in 1967 came a spacecraft which continues to work like a faithful plow-horse. While Apollo lays enshrined behind glass in museums around the world, it’s Soyuz that has kept the International Space Station flying and habitable. As of spring 2006, Soyuz has flown an incredible 96 manned missions and countless unmanned flights of the Progress, Zond and other variations since its birth nearly forty years ago. Two missions proved fatal and two almost so, but liter ally hundreds of people have seen their home planet from the tiny windows of Korolev’s greatest legacy and returned home to spread the word, including the world’s first space tourist, Dennis Tito, who ultimately was able to parlay his ticket to Mir into a ticket to the ISS—flying on a Soyuz.
Next: Part 17
Prev: Part 15
top of page Products Home