Two dates from space age

Today, Yuri Gagarin would be 75...

And two days ago Dmitry Kozlov, the designer of the carrier Vostok, that took Gagarin into space, has died in Samara.

Dmitry Ilyich Kozlov was born in 1919. In 1937 he entered the Leningrad military mechanical university. In 1941 he volunteered to join the Soviet army and fought near Leningrad. When in winter truck convoys began crossing the frozen Ladoga lake to bring food to the blockaded city, Kozlov was to guard one of the first trucks. Because of the wind he lost his cap, he jumped out of the car, and when he found it, the truck was hit by German shells and went under the ice. Kozlov survived, and in 1944 he was discharged after the explosion of a Finnish mine tore away his left hand.

in 1946 he was sent to Germany to research the remains of German V-2 missiles. Upon his return he was appointed the chief of the 3rd department of the NII-88 (scientific research institute 88), and began designing intercontinental ballistic missiles. He worked together with Sergey Korolyov, the demi-god of the Soviet space program. Korolyov developed the ballistic missile code-named R-7 and in 1958, when a new missile factory was started in Kuibyshev (Samara), Kozlov became the chief designer. "Only a beautiful rocket is a good rocket", he used to say. R-7 was the rocket that made the plans of mass strikes on the USSR, like Operation Dropshot or Plan Totality, totally useless.

The R-7 began its life as an ICBM, but it had a huge potential and most Soviet space carriers, including Vostok, Voskhod, Molniya and Soyuz (which means also the Chines Shenzhou) were heavily based on this Korolyov's project. Since 1964 the factory led by Kozlov became the leading organization of the Soviet space industry.

The same factory, now known as TsSKB-Progress (literally Central Specialized Design Bureau), designed and built a huge number of Soviet satellites, military and intelligence, and civil Fram, Resurs-F1, Resurs-F2, Bion and Yantar. Yantar was able to produce the images of extremely high quality, and for some years NASA purchased the films made by Yantar from the USSR. A commercial modification Resurs-DK was named after Dmitry Kozlov.

Actually, not a single company in the world can compete with TsSKB-Progress. 1740 successful launches. More than 870 successful re-entries and langings.

In 2005, Kozlov was awarded with the Gold Space Medal by FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale):

Mr Dmitry I. Kozlov - Designer General of the State Research and Production Space Rocket Centre TsSKB "Progress", was a close colleague of Sergei P. Korolev. In the late 1950s, he played a decisive role in establishing the Central Specialized Design Bureau, one of the leading developers of space rocket technology, which under his supervision produced eight types of space systems, including "Soyuz-FG", "Molniya-M", "Soyuz-U", "Soyuz-2", in addition to many types of unmanned spacecraft for various purposes. Mr Dmitry I. Kozlov paved the way for international cooperation in space exploration, having produced highly reliable manned and unmanned spacecraft ("Soyuz" and "Progress"), thus ensuring the operation of the International Space Station. For his great contribution to the design, production and operation of many types of unmanned and manned spacecraft, and for the organization and development of fruitful international cooperation in space exploration, Mr Dmitry I. Kozlov is a deserving recipient of the FAI Gold Space Medal for 2005.

November 20 in Russian history

1998

Nine years ago, at 0940 (Moscow time), the first module of the International Space Station named "Zarya" (The Dawn) was launched from Baikonur launch site. It was designed and built in Moscow, in Khrunichev Space Center, but the construction was funded by NASA and its status is somewhat ambiguous: it belongs to the USA, but on the plans it is often drawn as a part of the Russian segment of the ISS. This way or the other, this is not too important now, when it turned from the hub of the station to a mere passageway between Zvezda and Unity. Zarya was built in time, but launched 17 months past the scheduled date, due to the delay of the Zvezda module, caused by insufficient funding. Two weeks after Zarya was in place, Unity was attached to it.

In spite of the continuing criticism of ISS program in the USA and lack of attention to it in Russia, I am absolutely sure that this was a step in the right direction. Rovers and landing and orbiting unmanned missions are extremely useful, but only manned flights will eventually lead to the settling and developing of the outer space. And without each other, USA and Russia would not be able to complete anything equal to the ISS. USA provided funding and the Shuttles, while Russia contributed her immense experience in building and maintaining orbiting stations and the reliable Soyuz and Progress vehicles to keep it running. I am just a bit afraid that the ISS will end up as the only example of that close cooperation in space :(.

However, the ISS is still under development, and two weeks ago Russian Federal Space Agency has announced that by 2011 Russia will attach three more research modules and increase the staff from 3 to 6 people. The ever increasing participation of European and Japanese space agencies will make sure the ISS will still work even if NASA withdraws from the program.

June 21 in Russian history

1897: Birthday of Alexander Ignatyevich Shargey. He was born in Poltava (modern Ukraine). In this year in a St.Petersburg prison a young student Maria Vetrova, arrested as a participant of a revolutionary group, burnt herself in a suicidal act of protest. The parents of Alexander participated in the students' revolts in Kiev caused by Vetrova's death. Alexander's father, Ignaty, left the university, and his mother, Lyudmila, was arrested. While in prison, she was diagnosed as having a mental disease. Ignaty left the family and went for study to Germany, but soon returned to St.Petersburg. In 1910, he died. Alexander was raised by his grandmother and grandfather. Being a smart boy, he was deeply interested in science fiction stories, engineering, science. He had even attempted to develop a spaceship. In 1916, Alexander graduated from a gymnasium with a silver medal and entered a Polytechnical institute in St.Petersburg. Two months later he was drafted to the army and became an ensign. In 1917 he was sent to Caucasus, but when the Southern front fell apart in 1918, he and his friend decided to go home. On the road, they were recruited to the Volunteer Army (the White Guard). They fled from the army and stayed in Poltava. Because of the social turmoil, he preferred to stay at home and enjoyed reading. In those days he found an article in a magazine talking about Tsiolkovsky's achievements. Then he moved to Kiev to his step-mother, Elena Kareyeva. He began working. In free hours he wrote a brochure titled "To those who will read in order to build" (published in 1919). The brochure discussed the general theory of jet rockets, optimal trajectories of flights to various planets, space navigation, usage of mirrors to concentrate the solar energy, intermediate space bases, planets gravitation as a way to change the flight direction and so on.

In 1919, the White Guard troops entered Kiev and Shargey was drafted again. On the road, he escapes again. His step-mother finds the documents of someone Yuri Kondratyuk, who died in 1921. This was necessary to save him from Cheka, who persecuted the officers of the tsarist army.

In 1925 he at lasts manages to find books by Tsiolkovsky and he is deeply disappointed when he learns that most of his own work had been done before. Nevertheless, he publishes his second book, "Conquering the interplanetary space" where he further develops his ideas from the first book and it receives praises from V.Vetchinkin, outstanding scientist of those times. In the books he also proposed to use giant guns for acceleration of cargo ships sent to the orbital station. He also developed a gliding landing module. His life goes on and he becomes a constructor of grain elevators. So, he builds a unique grain elevator "Mastodon" in Novosibirsk, without a single metal joint, since iron was in very short supply in Siberia then. This absence of metal parts became a ground for accusation in sabotage in 1930. The local authorities decided that the elevator will fall apart when 10,000 tons of grain will be put there. The "Mastodon" elevator worked for 50 more years, but Shargey-Kondratyuk was arrested and sentenced for three years in Gulag camps. Instead of the camp, he was sent to a specialized construction bureau, so called sharashka (a research lab staffed with gifted Gulag inmates). In this laboratory Shargey designed powerful and effective wind power stations, which were built later in Crimea. In 1937 the Crimean wind power project was closed and he begins to design hydrogen power stations. In 1941, when the war began, he volunteers to join the Soviet army. He was missed in action in October 1941. It was found out later that he survived and joined another regiment, where he fought till February 1942, when he was killed. His body was not found and a part of his notebook was found later in the archives of Wernher von Braun. This fact gave birth to a legend that he was captured by Germans and sent to Peenemünde and after the war was secretly transported to the USA. Others say that he was von Braun himself. Unfortunately, this is not so.

When the space age began, it suddenly turned out that a lot of Shargey-Kondratyuk's ideas were extremely useful. Dr. John Houbolt of NASA, who developed the Lunar Excursion Module, repeated the discoveries of Kondratyuk, who proposed the idea of a separate landing module and developed the optimal landing trajectory for the Moon. Houbolt said later that when he was watching the launch of Apollo-9, he thought about Kondratyuk. Neil Armstrong visited Novosibirsk and gathered a handful of the soil near the house of Kondratyuk, saying that this soil means just as much as the Moon probes for him.

In 1970, Kondratyuk was rehabilitated. In 1977, the court ruled that he committed no crime when he had changed his name.

June 20 in Russian history

1774: A 14,000 army of Alexander Suvorov defeated 40,000 Turks led by Abdul Rezak near Kozludja village in Bulgaria. Another detachment led by M.Kamensky overcame 15,000 Turks on the right flank, near Turtukay. After the victory, Suvorov and Kamensky blockaded Shumla and cut communications between Shumla and Constantinople. Turks offered a truce which was rejected by Russians and then they agreed to discuss the terms of a peace treaty which was signed on July 21 in Küçük Kaynarca (Kuchuk Kainarji). This was the end of the first Russo-Turkish war. Twelve more were to follow…

1803: The first flight of a hot air balloon in Russia. Emperor Alexander I granted a flight permission to a French aeronaut, the inventor of the parachute, André-Jacques Garnerin, who arrived to Russia with a commendation from Talleyrand-Périgord. Inhabitants of St.Petersburg, who could afford the two silver rubles fee, entered the garden of the Cadets Corps and gathered around the balloon. At noon the balloon successfully took off and

1881: The first telephone line in Russia is put into service. Strange, but it did not happen in Moscow. It was in Nizhny Novgorod.

1924: A group of enthusiasts (about 200 people) gathered in the hall of the observatory of the Moscow department of education and decided to found the Society for the Study of Interplanetary Communication. The Civil War was over. The New Economic Policy led to the reconstruction of industry. End of prodrazvyorstka (governmental food expropriation) led to a better life in rural areas (even compared to the pre-revolution period). The Soviet society was bubbling with enthusiasm. Brave new future was coming.

1924 was the year of the Great Opposition of Mars, when the distance between Earth and Mars was minimal. In 1924 the movie Aelita: Queen of Mars based on the science fiction story by Alexey Tolstoy was released. The novel itself was published in 1923 and told about the travel of a Soviet engineer to Mars where he helped the Martians to dethrone their king. Soviet newspapers published articles about the plans of Robert Goddard to send a rocket to the Moon. Soviet scientists Tikhomirov and Artemyev experiment with powder rocket engines. On May 30, a prominent engineer Mikhail Lapirov-Skoblo read in the Polytechnical Museum a lecture titled "Interplanetary travels". The success was overwhelming — the tickets were sold long before the lecture, the books were also all sold out, the administration of the Museum had to ask militia for assistance, so large was the crowd. After the lecture it was announced that all attendees may join the Society for the Study of Interplanetary Communication and visit the organizational meeting of the society which was to take place soon. At last, on June 20, the meeting begins.

The Society elects three honorary members: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a legendary figure of the Russian and Soviet science, the author of the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation; Yakov Perelman, the author of famous popular science books (some were translated into English); and the infamous Felix Dzerzhinsky, the head of Cheka…

The goals of the Society were scientific and engineering research, popularization of the space exploration, collection of information about such explorations in the USSR and abroad, joining the efforts of all scientists working in this area, preparation of specialized lectures, exhibitions and libraries, book publishing. The executive committee of the Society included seven people, among whom were Friedrich Zander (author of many projects of spaceships), Valentin Chernov (outstanding celloist and astronomer) and Grigory Kramarov (the chariman of the executive committee). There were three sections in the Society: the jet propulsion section, the popular science section and the literature section. The tasks of the first and the second ones are more or less clear. As for the last one, they had to publish the Society's journal and prepare a movie script about the interplanetary travels.

There was yet another interesting person linked with the Society, Yuri Kondratyuk. Tomorrow will be his 110th birthday and I will write more about him then.