Reaching for the Moon: A Short History of the Space Race

256 Pages·2019·6.116 MB·English

by  Roger D. Launius

Reaching for the Moon
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Reaching
for the Moon
A Short History of the Space Race
Roger D. Launius
New Haven & London
Published with assistance from the Mary Cady Tew Memorial Fund.
Copyright © 2019 by Roger D. Launius.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustra-
tions, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108
of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press),
without written permission from the publishers.
All photographs are NASA images.
Yale University Press books may be purchased in quantity for educational,
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[email protected] (U.S. office) or [email protected] (U.K. office).
Set in Janson Roman type by Integrated Publishing Solutions,
Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950632
ISBN 978-0-300-23046-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992
(Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Prologue: U.S./USSR Early Postwar Rocketry 1
one
Sputnik Winter 12
two
The First Race to the Moon 39
three
Star Voyagers 59
four
The Decisions to Go to the Moon 89
five
The Game of One-Upmanship 115
Contents
six
Creating the Moon-Landing Capability 140
seven
Realization 170
eight
Revelations 194
Conclusion 215
For Further Review 221
Index 237
vi
Reaching for the Moon
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Prologue
U.S./USSR Early Postwar Rocketry
Soviet rocket builders Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko had
been rivals for years when they started working together at the end of
World War II. Each had been excited by the prospects for rocketry
early on. When he was a boy, Glushko had even corresponded with
Russian spaceflight godfather Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Both Glushko
and Korolev went on to play key roles in rocket experiments in the
1930s. Korolev became a leading light in the Moscow rocketry or-
ganization GIRD (Gruppa Isutcheniya Reaktivnovo Dvisheniya, or
Group for Investigation of Reactive Motion) and its successor, RNII
(Reaction Propulsion Scientific Research Institute). Glushko worked
there as well, but Korolev’s ideas gained primacy, and he went on to
build the RP-318, the Soviet Union’s first rocket-propelled aircraft.
Glushko worked in Korolev’s shadow, his bullheadedness and ego-
tism feeding his resentment at Korolev’s success.
However, in 1938, at the peak of Joseph Stalin’s purges, and before
the RP-318 aircraft could make a rocket-propelled flight, Glushko
and Korolev, along with other aerospace engineers, were impris-
1