Red Moon Rising Sputnik and the Rivalries That Ignited the Space Age - Matthew Brzezinski [166]
5: Desert Fires
95 wads of rubles that Korolev kept in an office safe: Harford, Korolev, p. 4.
96 building nine tracking stations deep in the Kazakh desert over the first 500 miles: Siddiqi, Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge, pp. 156-57.
A gigantic vise with collapsible jaws, pivots, and counterweights: Semenov, ed., Raketno Kosmicheskaya Korporatsiya Energiya, pp. 76-77.
a combination of silica and asbestum with textalyte: Prudniko, Aviatsiya I Kosmonavtika, p. 39.
97 The pace of construction at Tyura-Tam had been so frenetic: Baikonur Cosmodrome Foundation: http://www.russianspaceweb.com/baikonur_foundation.html.
a fire alarm was inadvertently triggered, setting off sprinklers: Siddiqi, Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge, p. 157.
98 “What the hell are you doing?”: Boris Chertok, Rakety I Lyudi, vol. 2 (Moscow: Mashinostroyeniye, 1996), pp. 185-86.
“Get him out of here”: Yuri Mozzhorin, ed., Dorogi v Kosmos, vol. 1 (Moscow: MAI, 1992), p. 114.
“That was Korolev”: Sergei Khrushchev, Nikita Khrushchev, p. 221.
99 “Give me a crane, some cash”: Mozzhorin, ed., Nachalo Kosmichiskoy Eri, p. 67.
“Take it away”: Chertok, Rakety I Lyudi, vol. 2, p. 177.
Korolev developed strep throat and had to take frequent penicillin shots: Siddiqi, Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge, p. 159.
“We are working under a great strain”: Cadbury, Space Race, p. 159.
100 “We are criminals”: Vladimir Parashkov and Konstantin Gerchik, eds., Niezabivayemi Bajkanur (Moscow: Rosijskoye Kosmichiskoye Agenstvo, 1998), p. 107.
“What can they do to us?”: Chertok, Rakety I Lyudi, vol. 2, p. 183.
101 “He was a brilliant scientist”: Author telephone interview with Sergei Khrushchev, February 15, 2006.
They were “worthless”: Cadbury, Space Race, p. 159.
One general had famously groused: Author interview with Peter Gorin, Williamsburg, Virginia, March 6, 2006.
“You can’t count on Malinovsky”: Chertok, Rakety I Lyudi, vol. 2, p. 184.
102 Korolev was fixated on the notion: Harford, Korolev, p. 3.
“And you and your rocket”: The following exchange is quoted in Yaroslav Galovanov, Korolev: Fakti I Mythi (Moscow: Nauka, 1994), pp. 502-8.
103 “When things are going badly”: Siddiqi, Sputnik and the Soviet Space Challenge, p. 159.
“Sergei was about three”: Ishlinskiy, ed., Akademik S. P. Korolev, p. 29.
104 As a side business, the family had a small but highly successful brine operation: Natalia Koroleva, Otets, vol. 1 (Moscow: Nauka, 2001), p. 27.
“He didn’t have any friends of his own age”: Harford, Korolev, p. 19.
that his estranged father, whom he was not permitted to see, would try to kidnap him: Koroleva, Otets, vol. 1, p. 65.
“I felt I needed to keep him at home”: Ishlinskiy, ed., Akademik S. P. Korolev, p. 30.
Korolev built giant dollhouses and cried frequently: Koroleva, Otets, vol. 1, p. 62.
“A poster appeared”: Ishlinskiy, ed., Akademik S. P. Korolev, p. 29.
No one in Nezhin had ever seen an airplane before: Koroleva, Otets, vol. 1, p. 68.
105 “Mother, can you give me two new bed-sheets”: Ishlinskiy, ed., Akademik S. P. Korolev, p. 30.
“Hunger, chaos”: Ibid.
106 “hang onto the barbed wire”: Ibid.
“He was not interested in small talk”: Koroleva, Otets, vol. 1, p. 116.
1922 daily planner: Ibid., p. 134.
“Oh Mother, if you could only see”: Ibid., p. 121.
107 “That was the definitive moment”: Ishlinskiy, ed., Akademik S. P. Korolev, p. 32.
Polytechnical Institute of Kiev, which produced such graduates as Igor Sikorsky: Harford, Korolev, p. 26.
“To my dear friend Piotr Frolov”: Koroleva, Otets, vol. 1, p. 325.
when he met two rocket enthusiasts, Friedrich Tsander and Mikhail Tikhonravov: Georgy Vetrov, Korolev I Kosmonavtika: Pervye Shagi (Moscow: Nauka, 1994), p. 33.
108 “the air of a man who had already sampled the mysteries”: Cadbury, Space Race, p. 124.
Tikhonravov would coin the term cosmonaut: V. Davydova, “100-letie So Dnya Rozhdeniya M. K. Tikhonravovna,” Novosti Kosmonavtiki, October 2000, p. 61.
Korolev hit upon the idea of grafting it to a tailless, trapezoidal glider: Vetrov, ed.,