Volume IV: The Moon Race The Moon IV: Volume Rockets Rockets and People RocketsVolume IV: and People About the Author The Moon Race Boris Yevseyevich Chertok was born in 1912 in Poland, and his family moved to Moscow when he was three years In this last volume of his four-volume set of memoirs, the old. In 1930, he began work as an electrician at one of the and famous ussian spacecraft designer Boris Chertok, who largest aviation factories in the Soviet Union, Factory No. RocketsVolume IV worked under the legendary Sergey Korolev, continues 22 (where the current Khrunichev State Space Scienti c- his fascinating narrative on the history of the Soviet space Production Center is located). In 1934, he began work The Moon Race program, this time covering 1968 to 1974, the peak years at the design bureau of Viktor Bolkhovitinov, a noted People of the Soviet human lunar program. designer of bombers. There, during the war, he contrib- uted to the development of the BI, the rst Soviet rocket- Chertok devotes a signi cant portion of the volume plane launched under its own power. He graduated in to the origins and development of the N-1 rocket, the 1939 from the Moscow Power Institute. superbooster developed by the Korolev design bureau in the 1960s as a counterpart to the American Saturn V. After the war, in 1945 and 1946, he was involved in Soviet Chertok’s department at OKB-1 was responsible for e orts to recover German rocket technology. In Germany, developing the control systems for the N-1, a monu- he played an active role in founding the Institute Rabe, mental and challenging task made more complicated by where many prominent Soviet engineers studied wartime the use of 30 rocket engines on its rst stage. Chertok’s rocket technology. Beginning in 1946, Chertok headed the descriptions of the four failed launches of the N-1 com- control systems department at the famous NII-88 institute bine a keen sense of the technological issues with the outside of Moscow and worked hand in hand with leg- human dimensions of scienti c and technical work. endary Chief Designer Sergey Korolev. Chertok became one of Korolev’s closest aides in developing control systems One of the values of this volume is Chertok’s lengthy for ballistic missiles and spacecraft, eventually becoming description of the origins of the Soviet space station pro- deputy chief designer of the famous OKB-1, the organiza- gram, which began with the Salyut space stations in the tion that spun o from NII-88 in 1956. Chertok partici- early 1970s and concluded with the multimodule Mir pated in every major project at OKB-1 (now known as complex in the 1980s. Chertok shows how the space by Borisby Chertok the Energiya Rocket-Space Corporation, RKK Energiya) station grew out of a combination of dissatisfaction with until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, when the Moon program, available hardware from a military he retired from active work. space station project known as Almaz, and the initiative of a group of senior designers (including Chertok) at the Chertok was elected a full (active) member of the Russian Korolev design bureau. Perhaps the most poignant chap- Academy of Sciences in 1991. He still serves as the Chief ters here are the ones on the tragic Soyuz-11 mission Scienti c Consultant to RKK Energiya. His four-volume when cosmonauts Dobrovolskiy, Volkov, and Patsayev memoirs Rakety i lyudi (Rockets and People) were originally ISBN 978-0-16-089559-3 F ro as el t yb eh S epu ir tn e edn tn fo D co mu e tn .U s S G , . evo r emn tn P ir tn i O gn eciff I tn re en :t skoob t ro e . opg . vog enohP : lot l f eer ( 668 ) 215 - 0081 ; D C a er ( a 202 ) 15 -2 0081 were killed on reentry. published in Moscow between 1994 and 1999. 90000 aF :x ( 202 ) 215 - 4012 aM :li S t I po CCD W , ihsa gn t no D , C 0402 -2 1000 ISBN 978-0-16-089559-3 Chertok concludes the book with a lengthy descrip- tion of the end of the N-1 program and the birth of the About the Series Editor Energiya-Buran program under the leadership of Valentin Asif A. Siddiqi is an associate professor of history at Glushko. His account provides a fascinating inside look Fordham University. He received his Ph.D. from Carnegie 9 780160 895593 at the political, technological, and personal con icts at Mellon University in Pennsylvania. Dr. Siddiqi is the a time when the Soviet space program was at its zenith. author of a number of books on the history of space ight, including The Red Rockets’ Glare: Space ight and the Soviet National Aeronautics and Space Administration Cover: The leadership of TsKBEM stands in front of an N1-L3 stack at the Imagination, 1857–1957 (Cambridge University Press, assembly and testing building at Site No. 112 at Tyuratam. From left to right are 2010) and Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Of ce of Communications Ya. P. Kolyako, V. V. Kosyakov, G. N. Degtyarenko, V. A. Kalashnikov, O. I. Race, 1945–1974 (NASA, 2000). He lives in New York. History Program Of ce by Boris Chertok Malyugin, I. A. Zubkov, V. F. Gladkiy, A. N. Voltsifer, K. K. Pantin, Yu. P. Ilin, V. V. Simakin, P. I. Meleshin, G. A. Fadeyev, D. I. Kozlov, P. F. Shulgin, A. P. Washington, DC NASA Asif Siddiqi, Series Editor Abramov, I. S. Prudnikov, A. P. Tishkin, K. M. Khomyakov, V. K. Bezverbyy, NASA SP-2011-4110 SP-2011-4110 F. I. Ryabov, M. I. Samokhin, P. A. Yershov, K. D. Bushuyev, S. S. Kryukov, V. Ya. Litvinov, N. N. Ganin, V. M. Klyucharev, V. P. Mishin, I. A. Mordvinov, M. S. Khomyakov, B. G. Penzin, Yu. P. Antonov, and A. N. Ivannikov. Credit: Asif Siddiqi Rockets and People Volume IV:The Moon Race ISBN 978-0-16-089559-3 F ro as el t yb eh S epu ir tn e edn tn fo D co mu e tn .U s S G , . evo r emn tn P ir tn i O gn eciff I tn re en :t skoob t ro e . opg . vog enohP : lot l f eer ( 668 ) 215 - 0081 ; D C a er ( a 202 ) 15 -2 0081 90000 aF :x ( 202 ) 215 - 4012 aM :li S t I po CCD W , ihsa gn t no D , C 0402 -2 1000 ISBN 978-0-16-089559-3 9 780160 895593 ISBN 978-0-16-089559-3 F ro leas b y t eh S pu e ri tn e dn e tn D fo co mu e tn s , .U Svo . e G r mn e tn P ri tn i gn fficeO I tn er en t: koob s t ro e. opg . vog : Plot l nohf ree e ( 668 ) 215 - 0081 ; C Da re a ( 202 ) 15 -2 0081 90000 Fa :x ( 202 ) 215 - 4012 il:M S a t po DCI C, W a hs i gn t no , D C 0402 -2 1000 ISBN 978-0-16-089559-3 9 780160 895593 Rockets and People Volume IV:The Moon Race Boris Chertok Asif Siddiqi, Series Editor The NASA History Series National Aeronautics and Space Administration Office of Communications History Program Office Washington, DC NASA SP-2011-4110 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chertok, B. E. (Boris Evseevich), 1912– [Rakety i lyudi. English] Rockets and People: The Moon Race (Volume IV) / by Boris E. Chertok ; [edited by] Asif A. Siddiqi. p. cm. — (NASA History Series) (NASA SP-2011-4110) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Chertok, B. E. (Boris Evseevich), 1912– 2. Astronautics— Soviet Union—Biography. 3. Aerospace engineers—Soviet Union— Biography. 4. Astronautics—Soviet Union—History. I. Siddiqi, Asif A., 1966– II. Title. III. Series. IV. SP-2011-4110. TL789.85.C48C4813 2011 629.1’092—dc22 I dedicate this book to the cherished memory of my wife and friend, Yekaterina Semyonova Golubkina. Contents Series Introduction by Asif A. Siddiqi ix Introduction to Volume IV xxi A Few Notes about Transliteration and Translation xxxiii List of Abbreviations xxxv Introduction: Voice of the People… xli 1 Rocket-Space Chronology (Historical Overview) 1 2 U.S. Lunar Program 39 3 N1-L3 Lunar Program Under Korolev 59 4 A Difficult Conversation with Korolev 101 5 N1-L3 Control 117 6 We’re Behind, but We’re Not Giving In 133 7 KORD and ATG 145 8 Once Again We’re Ahead of the Whole World 153 9 “Sort It Out, and Report on Your Endeavors” 171 10 1969—the First N-1 Launch 189 11 After the Failure of N-1s No. 3 and No. 5 211 12 Long-Duration Space Stations Instead of the Moon 243 13 Preparing for the Launch of DOS 279 14 Launching Salyut 321 15 Sun City 339 16 The Hot Summer of 1971 357 17 The Last N-1 Launch 409 18 People in the Control Loop 449 19 Valentin Glushko, N-1, and NPO Energiya 521 Epilogue 583 Afterword 611 Index 625 NASA History Series 651 vii Series Introduction In an extraordinary century, Academician Boris Yevseyevich Chertok has lived an extraordinary life. He has witnessed and participated in many important technological milestones of the 20th century, and in these volumes, he recollects them with clarity, humanity, and humility. Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an aviation factory near Moscow.