Scrapbook 2: Aug 1962 — Vostok 3 and 4

MOSCOW, Tuesday.

RUSSIA’S “heavenly twins,” as the Russian Press now calls the two cosmonauts, are still circling the earth to-night after two and a half days side by side in space. But there are signs they are planning to return to earth soon.

Major Nikolayev, code-named Falcon, and Lt.-Col. Popovich, code-named Golden Eagle, sang each other to sleep 150 miles above the earth. They sang verses from the cosmonauts’ song, “I believe, my friends.”

It is Major Nikolayev’s fourth successive night in space. He has covered well over a million miles. During the night Lt.-Col. Popovich will also log a million miles.

This afternoon they sent a joint radio message to the Russian people saying that “the outline of the programme will be fully completed.” Major Nikolayev reported later: “I am feeling fine.”

MOON “REHEARSAL”

Five-day journey

It is possible that the two spacemen will stay up for the five days equivalent to the time needed for a journey to the moon. Articles in the Press all this week have made it clear that these flights are a prelude to an attack on the moon.

The message also said that the two space capsules are still “close together.” Late this afternoon Moscow television showed two live broadcasts from space, showing the two fliers inside their capsules.

Lt.-Col. Popovich, who appears to be flying behind Maj. Nikolayev, was picked up on the television screen only a minute after the image of Major Nikolayev faded.

There is so far no sign of any attempt by the two cosmonauts to link their ships together or to transfer from one ship to the other in space. Their conversations have emphasised that they hope to meet when back on earth.

The television programmes have been impressive. They have brought the realities of the flights closer to the Russian people than any number of official communiqués.

Each ship has two television transmitters, one showing the pilot close up from in front, the other slightly further away in profile. The pilots can be seen making entries in their log books and eating sandwiches. Lt.-Col. Popovich said that after breakfast to-day he studied English for an hour.

This morning a Russian space expert, Academician Yevgeny Fedorov, condemned the American space programme and sneered at Telstar. He said: “They test systems that fail to work or explode at the launching sites.” This he called “hurried adventurism.”

The Soviet people, he said, honoured Lt.-Col. Glenn and Lt.-Cdr. Carpenter, the American spacemen, but were surprised at the casual way in which their lives were risked.

CAPSULES ARE FAR APART

SHORTER ORBITS

By Our Science Correspondent

The two Russian spacemen are almost 1,600 miles apart, according to calculations made at Jodrell Bank late last night. They have been picking up the radio signals from Major Nikolayev and Col. Popovich.

Sir Bernard Lovell, director of the station, said yesterday he thought the two spacecraft were moving in their own orbits without the pilots doing any manoeuvring. If they are still up by this morning, they will have logged nearly 3 million miles between them.

A report from Sweden yesterday stated that both orbit times were now less than 88 minutes. The Defence Research Institute said it was difficult to believe the two men would stay up in space much longer with such low orbit times.

Both flights already eclipse all previous flights by a very wide margin. The next American to go into orbit is intended to stay up for only six orbits, the number that both the Russians achieve in every nine-hour period that they stay up.

SPACESHIPS IN LOWER ORBIT

The Russian spaceships are steadily approaching the denser layers of the atmosphere. Moscow Radio reported that by 7 p.m. yesterday Vostok III had lost 23.12 miles in height at its orbit’s highest point and 8.12 miles at its lowest since launching.

Its apogee was last night 133.75 miles (156.82 miles at the start) and its perigee 106.25 miles (114.37). The apogee of Vostok IV is now 140 miles (158.75 at the start) and 108.1 miles (112.5).

Sir Bernard Lovell, who described the weekend’s events as the “most remarkable development man has ever seen,” said last night that he doubted whether there would be an attempt to rendezvous on this occasion, though the possibility could not be excluded. The launching of two manned spacecraft on successive days was a striking demonstration of the depth of Russian resources and was “quite fantastic.”

It was generally agreed that the best possible method of getting material into the orbit of the moon was by “popping little pieces up” and joining them, rather than by trying to lift the whole load together. Once that technique has been mastered there was no limit to the size of craft that could be added to day by day. Even if no attempt were to be made to join Vostoks 3 and 4, “the two flights will do a great deal to explore communication between vehicles in space and navigation in preparation for subsequent attempts to rendezvous in space.”

Sir Bernard said that a year ago he felt that both Russian and American space activity was moving towards an emphasis on the peaceful exploration of the solar system. “I don’t want to be pessimistic,” he said, “but you cannot divide the military and peaceful significance.”

American launchings

It would be quite wrong at this stage to underrate the compensating developments in the more sophisticated instrumentation of American unmanned satellites. There were grounds for suspecting that similar manoeuvres to those the Russians were now trying might have been attempted with American satellites this year. There had been 12 secret American craft launchings in the past twelve months and there was no information on what they were doing.

An official at Jodrell Bank said last night that although they had heard at 10 a.m. that Vostok 4 had been launched, their interception of the message from it half an hour later came as a surprise, as they had been tuning in to what they supposed to be Vostok 3’s frequency. They were lucky to have with them two Russian postgraduate students, who had arrived at Jodrell Bank quite coincidentally on Friday. On playing back to one of them a recording of the message, they were told that Colonel Popovich was sending greetings to Mr Khrushchev and the Soviet people.

Since the launching of Vostok 3 they had been keeping a listening watch, without using the radio-telescope, and estimated that the two craft were in roughly the same orbit. There seemed to be about four miles between them at perigee and apogee.

PERFORMANCES IN SPACE

RIDDLE OF WHO DESIGNED RUSSIAN SPACESHIP

By ANTHONY SMITH, Daily Telegraph Science Correspondent

THE statement on Tuesday by Prof. Keldysh, president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, that “my friend, the designer of the Vostok space ships,” has said space trips would soon be commonplace is a typically tantalising Russian remark.

No one in the West knows who might be the designer of the Vostok spaceships. The Russians have discouraged the linking of personalities with achievement. Each space firing is the result of “Soviet enterprise and Soviet science.”

But several names have emerged as being of importance in the Russian space programme, For instance, there is S. P. KOROLEV.

It has been reported that he is one of the chief designers of the sputnik and Vostok rockets. In 1934 he wrote a book about rockets and their flight into the stratosphere. Other big names are:

V. P. GLUSHKO, who was co-author of a rocketry book in 1935;

M. K. TIKHONRAVOV, who built and tested a liquid propellant rocket in 1934;

A. G. KOSTIKOV, who developed a small military rocket widely used on the Russian front in the last war;

Y. A. POBEDONOSTSEV, who looked after the German engineers from the V2 base at Peenemunde; and

L. S. DUSHKIN, who built a rocket-engine which was tested and flown in 1941.

These men have been interested in rockets from the start. Generally their names are linked with propulsion techniques but no one could start as a capsule designer. The rockets had to come first.

It is likely that one of them is the man behind the Vostok space craft. As soon as it was necessary to build a man-carrying craft, one of them might have devoted himself to the subject.

The Russian distaste for a personality cult, even in rocketry, does not extend to the recent past. They are always mentioning the early Russian heroes in the art.

Space manœuvres—key to the moon race

By PETER FAIRLEY

The “64,000 dollar question” now is whether Major Nikolayev and Colonel Popovich — or any third, fourth or fifth cosmonaut sent up after them — are actually able to link their spaceships.

For the power to manoeuvre is the key to winning the Moon race. Besides transforming a spaceman from a puppet into an active pilot, it also has tremendous military implications.

Given an engine at his back that can be restarted at will, a cosmonaut can not only nudge his spaceship alongside a second Vostok for peaceful purposes but can change his orbit to destroy enemy satellites, take evasive action, or head for any point on Earth to drop an H-bomb.

Immense value

And it is not until spaceships can be joined together after a rendezvous that a human cargo can be sent to the Moon.

The thing that would give the West a clue as to whether Russia has now jumped this far ahead is the weight of the latest Vostoks. But so far Russia is keeping mum.

If they are basically the same vehicles as those which sent Gagarin and Titov hurtling round the world then the Soviet Union would appear simply to be giving cosmonauts the “feel” of space rendezvous without giving them the tools to do so.

Such a blooding would be of immense value. Men need to know, for instance, how easy it is to judge the distance between two spaceships in orbit.

They need to know how the shape and colour of a Vostok stands out in the surrounding blackness.

They need to test the communications link between the two pilots, and try out “homing” devices which might enable them to close on one another.

But it would not add up to the major advance over America which many are suggesting.

It would show that Russia has developed an exceptionally reliable launching rocket whose final stage can guide a payload into orbit with a breathtaking degree of accuracy. But the West suspected that already.

It would also prove that prolonged weightlessness — that weird sensation of floating, when your forward momentum exactly equals the pull of gravity — is no obstacle to men as a breed.

But what the West really wants to know now is whether an entirely new spaceship has been developed—one which can roam freely anywhere its pilot pleases, or can be joined with other spaceships to form one huge vehicle.

Such a monster craft is the vital intermediate step to reaching the Moon with sufficient spare power to get a crew back. It would also act as an ideal “garage” in which military spacecraft could be serviced and refuelled while in orbit near the Earth. Or as a permanent reconnaissance platform.

Until Mr. K. discloses the size and shape of those bits and pieces he has popped up we just shall not know for sure.