The Man Who Didn’t Exist  |  This Week In Space History

by michael shinabery

Officially, Sergei Korolev didn’t exist.

“Due to (the) secret nature of the Soviet space industry,” the website russianspaceweb.com stated, “Korolev’s contribution to the space program was publically recognized by the Soviet authorities only after his death.”

During his lifetime, according to Phillip Clark in the British book “The Soviet Manned Space Program” (Orion Books/1988), “Korolyov (sic) was not identified with the space programme by the Soviet authorities; he was referred to as being the ‘Chief Designer Of Rocket-Cosmic Systems.’ ”

The man who helped best America during the Space Race – he created the capsules that carried the first artificial satellite and first man into space, and orbited the first woman and first multi-person crew around Earth – died from a botched operation on Jan. 14, 1966.

Korolev, born in 1906, was just a child when his parents divorced. His education was extensive. Russianspaceweb.com documented that he spent his “senior year at the Odessa professional construction school.” His interest in aviation was most “likely ignited by his step-father, a well-educated engineer.” When he was 18, he built a glider. He became a member of the “newly created Friends of Air Fleet Society,” and then studied at “the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, where he joined a group of glider enthusiasts.” A transfer to MTVU, Moscow’s Bauman High Technical School,” put him in what is considered “the best engineering college in Russia, often compared these days to MIT in the United States.”

MTVU graduated Korolev in 1929. Two years later “he joined the Central Aero and Hydrodynamics Institute,” and in 1932, russianspaceweb.com said, “was appointed chief of Jet Propulsion Research Group, GIRD, one of the earliest state-sponsored centers for rocket development in the USSR. In 1933, the group was reorganized into the Jet Propulsion Research.” As deputy chief, “Korolev led the development of cruise missiles and of a manned rocket-powered glider.”

In 1938, “at the height of Stalin’s purges, Korolev was … sent to concentration camps in Siberia,” said russianspaceweb.com. Subsequently, in July 1940, the “chief of Stalin’s secret police, sentenced Korolev to eight years in labor camps on phony allegations of sabotage.”

“Along with several other scholars, Korolev was forced to work in a scientific labor camp, where they designed aircraft and weapons in support of the Allied war effort to defeat Nazi Germany,” said “The Handy Space Answer Book” (Visible Ink/1998).

Enduring such treatment damaged Korolev’s health.

According to Clark, Korolev was “finally cleared” of charges in 1957. Not long after, said the “Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight,” Premier Nikita Khrushchev assigned Sputnik to Korolev. The satellite lifted off on Oct. 4 of that year.

The Soviets repeated their technical and propaganda success on Nov. 3, after Korolev, at Khrushchev’s insistence, threw “Sputnik 2 together in less than four weeks,” Michael Neufeld wrote in “Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War” (Knopf/2008).

In 1958, as head of the Soviet space program’s design bureau, Korolev “was authorized to construct a satellite capable of supporting a man in space,” said “Who’s Who In Space: The First 25 Years” (G.K. Hall & Co./1987).” The result was Vostok, meaning “the East,” Buzz Aldrin and Malcolm McConnell wrote in “Men From Earth” (Bantam/1989).

In addition, Korolev designed “the intercontinental ballistic missile which was used to launch Sputnik and all later Soviet manned spacecraft,” said the “Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight.” The ICBM “was as powerful as 20 V-2’s (sic) put together.”

Among his other designs were the Voskhod manned spacecraft, the unmanned Luna probes, and Venera 3, the first spacecraft to land on another planet – Venus.

As the Space Race escalated, the “Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight” documented how Khrushchev “ordered Chief Designer Korolev to beat the U.S. in launching the first multiman crew. … Korolev revised plans to modify the Vostok to carry three people and changed its name to Voskhod. … The first Voskhod mission carried the first three-man crew, beating the first flight of the two-man Gemini. The second flight was dedicated to the first spacewalk … upstaging by less than three months the Gemini 4 (spacewalk) of Ed White.”

Korolev’s schedule had the Soviets launching “five unmanned tanker craft into earth orbit, each filled with rocket fuel,” in 1968, said “Moon Shot” (Turner/1994). “A group of cosmonauts would follow, gather the tankers like a flock of giant orbiting sheep, and herd them together into a single conglomerate. … Simple and yet demanding, it would give the Russians a clear shot of beating the United States to a lunar landing.”

The unrelenting, competitive pace further destroyed the health of Korolev and his assistant, L.A. Voskresensky, exacerbating physical problems going back to “their years in the gulag,” Aldrin and McConnell said. “Through the frigid winter months of 1964 and early 1965, Korolev and Voskresensky pushed themselves at a killing pace to get the Voskhod spacecraft ready. Week in and week out, 14-hour days, even 18-hour days, were commonplace.” When Korolev arrived home he was often “too tired to climb the stairs and had to sit for a while with his wife before mustering his strength to continue.”

A heart attack killed Voskresensky in 1965. The next year, Korolev entered “a special Politburo hospital … with the symptoms of bowel obstruction,” Aldrin and McConnell said. “The Soviet minister of health, Boris Petrovsky, personally operated on Korolev, even though he had not practiced surgery for several years. The surgical team discovered a malignant tumor, and Petrovsky decided to remove it. They weren’t prepared for a procedure of this scope. Korolev suffered a severe hemorrhage and his fragile cardiovascular system failed.”

Korolev was cremated and, said “Men From Earth,” his “ashes were interred in the Kremlin wall, an honored resting place for a man who had been kept anonymous for most of his career.”

Michael Shinabery is an education specialist and humanities scholar with the New Mexico Museum of Space History. E-mail him at michael.shinabery [at] state.nm.us.