How the Soviet Space Program Went Wrong

 

Those growing up in the 1950s and 1960s knew about the Space Race. The US and Soviet Union were contending for mastery in the High Frontier. It looked like the Soviets were winning: first satellite in orbit, first animal in orbit, first man in orbit, first woman in orbit. The US was hopelessly behind.

The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned, by John Strausbaugh reveals the reality. The Soviet Space program was a kludged mess. Its only goal through 1969 was one-upping the United States, doing what the US planned next in space before the US could. It existed to troll its enemy.

The book’s opening skips to the Voskhod I mission – the first time a spacecraft launched multiple people into orbit. Its real goal was beating the US’s upcoming first Gemini flight, planned to place two men into space in late 1964. Khrushchev ordered rocket designer Sergei Korolev to put three men into orbit before then.

Korolev stripped a Vostok capsule, putting three couches that fit three very small cosmonauts. Weight limits meant they had to fly in street clothes, not space suits. The three passengers had to lose weight before flying. It used the one-man life support of the Vostok, limiting available oxygen, and with inadequate thermal control for three. Temperatures became sweltering. Its new landing system failed when tested, destroying the test capsule. Everyone expected disaster. Miraculously everything worked, and the cosmonauts survived.

Strausbaugh shows this was typical. Sputnik 1 flew to beat out Explorer 1. Its only instrument was a radio transmitter – all Korolev could manage in the time available. Laika, the dog launched on Sputnik 2, died of overheating early in the mission. Gagarin’s first manned flight was done to beat out the upcoming Mercury suborbital flight. Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space because a cover article in “Look” magazine implied NASA was considering women astronauts. (NASA was not. Tereshkova’s qualifications were she was a loyal Communist and expert parachutist.)

Unnecessary danger prevailed to achieve space firsts. Vostok had a design flaw that nearly killed Gagarin. Uncorrected, it caused similar problems on future flights. The airlock added for the first spacewalk mission was so badly designed that the cosmonaut partially depressurized his spacesuit to reenter his spacecraft. On Soyuz 11 the crew was told to ignore a light warning the hatch was improperly sealed. They suffocated on reentry.

The Wrong Stuff is eye-opening. It reveals the Potemkin village nature of Soviet space and the length the Soviets went to upstage the US. It is well worth reading.

“The Wrong Stuff: How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned,” by John Strausbaugh, PublicAffairs, 2024, 272 pages, $30.00 (Hardcover), $18.99 (E-book), $19.49 (Audiobook)

This review was written by Mark Lardas who writes at Ricochet as Seawriter. Mark Lardas, an engineer, freelance writer, historian, and model-maker, lives in League City, TX. His website is marklardas.com. It appeared in a different form in Epoch Times.

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  1. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Wow!

    Thanks, Mark.  Good choice.

    • #1
  2. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    I vaguely recall from my obsessed observation of every second of the Apollo XI mission that the Soviets were said to have conducted a launch prior to the US liftoff. One theory was that they were going to attempt a landing that would use a robotic arm to scoop up a sample of lunar soil and send it back to Earth before Apollo’s return.

    Nothing more was ever reported about this phantom flight.

    • #2
  3. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Percival (View Comment):

    I vaguely recall from my obsessed observation of every second of the Apollo XI mission that the Soviets were said to have conducted a launch prior to the US liftoff. One theory was that they were going to attempt a landing that would use a robotic arm to scoop up a sample of lunar soil and send it back to Earth before Apollo’s return.

    Nothing more was ever reported about this phantom flight.

    It sounds like you are talking about Luna 15, a Soviet space probe that crashed on  Mare Crisium (the Sea of Crises) on 21 July 1969. It was attempting an unmanned return of Lunar samples to prove a manned mission to the Moon was unnecessary.

    • #3
  4. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Chernobyl was inevitable

    • #4
  5. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    I vaguely recall from my obsessed observation of every second of the Apollo XI mission that the Soviets were said to have conducted a launch prior to the US liftoff. One theory was that they were going to attempt a landing that would use a robotic arm to scoop up a sample of lunar soil and send it back to Earth before Apollo’s return.

    Nothing more was ever reported about this phantom flight.

    It sounds like you are talking about Luna 15, a Soviet space probe that crashed on Mare Crisium (the Sea of Crises) on 21 July 1969. It was attempting an unmanned return of Lunar samples to prove a manned mission to the Moon was unnecessary.

    There you go. Thanks for the information.

    The Weekly Reader’s coverage of the Soviet space program was noticeably spotty.

    • #5
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Percival (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    I vaguely recall from my obsessed observation of every second of the Apollo XI mission that the Soviets were said to have conducted a launch prior to the US liftoff. One theory was that they were going to attempt a landing that would use a robotic arm to scoop up a sample of lunar soil and send it back to Earth before Apollo’s return.

    Nothing more was ever reported about this phantom flight.

    It sounds like you are talking about Luna 15, a Soviet space probe that crashed on Mare Crisium (the Sea of Crises) on 21 July 1969. It was attempting an unmanned return of Lunar samples to prove a manned mission to the Moon was unnecessary.

    There you go. Thanks for the information.

    The Weekly Reader’s coverage of the Soviet space program was noticeably spotty.

    It turns out the rumors I heard were true, then.

    • #6
  7. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Chernobyl was inevitable

    Pretty much. When a society is built on comfortable lies, then that type of screw-up always happens.

    Just like the LA fires. Or the Afghan withdrawal. Honestly and accountability are necessary in any effort involving technology.

    • #7
  8. Richard Easton Coolidge
    Richard Easton
    @RichardEaston

    Sputnik 1 flew to beat out Vanguard 1 not Explorer 1. Explorer was not in the picture when Sputnik 1 was launched.

    • #8
  9. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Richard Easton (View Comment):

    Sputnik 1 flew to beat out Vanguard 1 not Explorer 1. Explorer was not in the picture when Sputnik 1 was launched.

    Love the mimeograph purple print! 

    • #9
  10. kedavis Coolidge
    kedavis
    @kedavis

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Richard Easton (View Comment):

    Sputnik 1 flew to beat out Vanguard 1 not Explorer 1. Explorer was not in the picture when Sputnik 1 was launched.

    Love the mimeograph purple print!

    Or, as one character was nicknamed in the movie “Teachers,”

    ditto.

    • #10
  11. Sisyphus Member
    Sisyphus
    @Sisyphus

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Richard Easton (View Comment):

    Sputnik 1 flew to beat out Vanguard 1 not Explorer 1. Explorer was not in the picture when Sputnik 1 was launched.

    Love the mimeograph purple print!

    Ditto.

    • #11
  12. Steve Fast Member
    Steve Fast
    @SteveFast

    The entire Soviet Union was kludged together, but they managed to put out the best PR in world history about the inevitable triumph of scientific materialism and atheism. And they brought vast unused and underused resources of peasant labor and natural resources into the economy. They had to kill a lot of people and destroyed a lot of economic value in the process, but they made it appear as though they were triumphing until Chernobyl blew up and sent a plume of radioactive debris into Europe. Gorbachev tried mightily to make the system work but thankfully killed it instead.

    • #12
  13. OccupantCDN Coolidge
    OccupantCDN
    @OccupantCDN

    I think the real problem with the soviet space program, it that it was almost entirely the engineering of 1 man. Sergei Korolev, when he died in 1966 there was nobody or even a group of people that could replace him or replicate him in the aggregate. (as Money Ball would say) Instead of congealing around new leaders and cooperating to move forward on a unified plan – they fell into internal squabbles and empire building.

    The bold vision and design acumen died with Korolev.

    • #13
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