Red Moon Rising Sputnik and the Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age - Matthew Brzezinski [120]
“That’s what we need,” a clearly animated Khrushchev continued. “A dog. Give us a dog. But,” his features darkened in a vaguely ominous, finger-wagging way, “make sure you are ready for the holidays.”
It was Korolev who now nodded with forced sincerity, since he had little choice. “We will do our best, Nikita Sergeevich,” he promised, sounding somewhat less certain, being sure to use the collective we in case blame later had to be spread.
“We are agreed then, Sergei Pavlovich,” Khrushchev said, standing up to indicate that the interview was over. “You will have whatever you need. You can ask my man Kozlov”—another new Politburo appointee—“for whatever you want. Meet with him tomorrow to go over the details. But remember,” Khrushchev admonished, “we need this for the holidays.”
• • •
Twenty-six days. The number must have reverberated in Korolev’s head like an oppressive drumbeat, like the pounding of a migraine that could not be dulled. What had he gotten himself into? Twenty-six days to design, build, test, and launch a spacecraft. Scratch the testing; there would be no time for that. The design phase would also have to be severely curtailed if he had any hope of meeting his deadline. There would be no special drawings. His engineers would have to make crude sketches and give them directly to machinists, to be produced without quality control. But what about the overall concept? How big would the craft have to be to keep an animal alive? And for how long? They would have to feed their canine cosmonaut remotely, monitor its progress electronically, process its waste hydraulically, and provide it with a steady supply of fresh oxygen. That was a lot of equipment to haul into orbit. Would Glushko’s engines carry the extra weight? What about the heat? How would they shield their passenger from the forces of friction and solar rays? Would the capsule require a special shroud? And how would it separate from the launch vehicle once it had reached orbital velocity? Ejection systems were complex and prone to malfunction. They couldn’t risk one, not without extensive testing. Perhaps they could weld the satellite to the R-7’s core booster and try to blast the whole thing into space. But that solution presented its own problems.
Dilemmas and technical conundrums swirled through Korolev’s mind as his black limousine pulled out of the Kremlin gates. The Chief Designer was not particularly introspective or prone to soul-searching panic attacks. But he could not have failed to wonder whether his ambition and supreme self-confidence had exceeded his better judgment on this occasion.
Even if Mikhail Tikhonravov, his resident satellite expert—the “chief theoretician of cosmonautics,” as he would soon be called—could sketch a few rudimentary blueprints, they would have to build PS-2 on the fly, improvise virtually every step. The hardware would have to come entirely off the shelf, since there was no time for new components or anything fancy. Korolev hated cutting corners. But he hadn’t left himself a choice.
Nor would there be room for error. This time Khrushchev would be watching, and the entire Presidium would be expecting results. This launch was pure politics, and that was always dangerous ground. If Korolev was successful, he could write his own ticket. And he had ambitious plans to cash in his political chips.
The Chief Designer had not idly proposed orbiting a dog with PS-2. He had not wildly blurted out the suggestion. It had been premeditated, a prelude to his ultimate goal: to plant the seeds for a space program that would someday put human beings in orbit and ultimately a man on the moon. Officially, the Soviet Union had no such designs. Satellites, to Khrushchev, were offshoots of missiles. Korolev wanted to change that perception and make space a politically viable destination in its own right,