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Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-48178-8 All rights reserved. First published in 2014 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. GOVERNMENT RIGHTS NOTICE This work was authored by Slava Gerovitch under Contract No. NAS1- 02081 with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting this manuscript for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to reproduce, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and perform publicly and display publicly, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. All other rights are reserved by the copyright owner. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Voices of the Soviet space program : cosmonauts, soldiers, and engineers who took the USSR into space / by Slava Gerovitch. pages cm Interviews translated from Russian. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Aerospace engineers—Soviet Union—Interviews. 2. Aerospace engineers—Soviet Union—Biography. 3. Astronautics—Soviet Union— History—Sources. I. Gerovitch, Slava. TL539.V65 2014 629.4092247—dc23 2014024994 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: December 2014 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To the memory of the polar explorer and space history enthusiast Valery Spitkovsky This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Figures ix Note on Transliteration xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction Multiple Perspectives on Soviet Space History 1 Part I The Soldiers Chapter 1 Commanding Officer Abram Krayzman 19 Chapter 2 Construction Engineer Sergey Safro 27 Part II The Engineers Chapter 3 Engine Designer Anatoliy Daron 39 Chapter 4 Guidance Engineer Sergei Khrushchev 67 Chapter 5 Control Engineer Georgiy Priss 77 Chapter 6 Radio Engineer Felix Meschansky 99 Chapter 7 Display Designer Yuriy Tyapchenko 107 Chapter 8 Computer Designer Viktor Przhiyalkovskiy 127 viii CONTENTS Part III The Cosmonauts Chapter 9 “Cosmonaut 13”: Vladimir Shatalov 143 Chapter 10 Test Cosmonaut Mikhail Burdayev 179 Chapter 11 Scientist Cosmonaut Ordinard Kolomiytsev 205 Chapter 12 “Second Backup”: Valentina Ponomareva 217 Chapter 13 Stress Psychiatrist Ada Ordyanskaya 237 Notes 243 Selected Bibliography 285 Index 291 Figures 1.1 Abram Krayzman and Valery Spitkovsky, 2008 19 2.1 Sergey Safro, 2009 27 3.1 Anatoliy Daron 39 3.2 Anatoliy Daron at work in Glushko’s design bureau 45 3.3 Anatoliy Daron 50 4.1 Sergei Khrushchev, 1990s 67 6.1 Felix Meschansky, 2009 99 7.1 Yuriy Tyapchenko at the Specialized Experimental Design Bureau of Space Technology, 2002 107 8.1 Viktor Przhiyalkovskiy, 2002 127 10.1 Mikhail Burdayev on board a sea ship, 1973 179 10.2 Mikhail Burdayev and Vladimir Alekseyev at the funeral of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, 1967 183 10.3 Mikhail Burdayev after zero gravity and stress tests, 1971 188 10.4 Mikhail Burdayev during zero gravity training, 1972 191 10.5 Mikhail Burdayev during a zero gravity flight, 1975 196 10.6 Mikhail Burdayev receives the Order of Honor from acting president Vladimir Putin, 2000 201 12.1 Valentina Ponomareva, 2002 217 12.2 Valentina Ponomareva in uniform 221 12.3 Tatyana Kuznetsova, Irina Solovyeva, Valentina Tereshkova, and Valentina Ponomareva 223 12.4 Valentina Ponomareva in parachute gear 227 12.5 Valentina Ponomareva in spacesuit 231 13.1 Ada Ordyanskaya, 2014 237 This page intentionally left blank Note on Transliteration To ensure consistency in publications on Soviet space history, this vol- ume uses the same modification of the US Board on Geographic Names system (also known as the University of Chicago system) for transliterating Russian names and terms, as used in Asif A. Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo: The Soviet Union and the Space Race, 1945–1974, NASA SP-2000–4408 (Washington, DC: NASA, 2000), and in Boris Chertok, Rockets and People, NASA SP-2005/2006/2009/2011–4110, 4 vols. (Washington, DC: NASA, 2005–2011). Russian alphabet Modified US Board on Geographic Names system А, а a Б, б b В, в v Г, г g Д, д d Е, е ye [initally and after vowels] / e Ё, ё ye [initally and after vowels] / e Ж, ж zh З, з z И, и i Й, й y К, к k Л, л l М, м m н Н, n xii NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION О, о o П, п p Р, р r С, с s Т, т t У, у u Ф, ф f Х, х kh Ц, ц ts Ч, ч ch Ш, ш sh Щ, щ shch ъ Ы, ы y ь Э, э e Ю, ю yu Я, я ya The modifications are as follows: M Russian letters “ъ” and “ь” are not transliterated, for ease of reading; M Russian letter “ë” is denoted by the English “e” (or “ye” initally and after vowels). Exceptions to these rules were made for the names of those individu- als who preferred a different spelling, for example, Sergei Khrushchev, Felix Meschansky, and Valery Spitkovsky. Acknowledgments Interviews in this collection have been accumulated over several con- secutive oral history projects. The first interviews were obtained dur- ing my trip to Russia in 2002 under the History of Recent Science and Technology (HRST) project, funded by the Sloan Foundation and the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology. I am thankful to David Mindell, who led a historical study of the Apollo Guidance Computer under the HRST project and involved me in interviewing American space veterans, and then encouraged me to expand the study into the history of the Soviet space program. Two more trips to Russia in 2004 and 2006 were made under the proj- ects, “Trusting the Machine: On-board Computing, Automation, and Human Control in the Soviet Space Program” (2003–2005) and “Designing a Cosmonaut: The Technopolitics of Automation in the Soviet Human Space Program” (2006–2007), funded by the National Science Foundation. Finally, in the years 2008–2010, additional inter- views were collected, annotated, and prepared for publication under the project, “Oral History of the Soviet Space Program,” supported by the NASA History Program. I wish to thank William P.