FLYING FALCON, SOARING EAGLE

When Radio Moscow announced Nikolayev’s successful 11:24 am launch on 11 August, observers could be forgiven for wondering what this latest Soviet mission might entail. The answer became clear when Popovich roared aloft from Gagarin’s Start in an R-7 he had christened ‘Swallow’ at 11:02 the following morning and, within an hour of reaching orbit, he had established visual line of sight with Vostok 3. In his post-flight debriefing, Nikolayev would recount that, despite positioning his ship in the correct attitude, he had been unable to see Popovich’s launch from space. Over the following days, despite the paucity of reliable information from Tass, western analysts set to work plotting the two ships’ radio signals and estimated that they were flying some 120 km apart. This led to increased speculation about whether the Soviets had trumped the United States again by achieving what the Americans were not expected to achieve until their two-man Gemini spacecraft flew in 1964: rendezvous in orbit. If, indeed, they had achieved this remarkable feat of celestial mechanics, a Soviet man on the Moon by the middle of the decade was entirely possible. ‘‘Once they have achieved orbital rendezvous,’’ the British Interplanetary Society’s Kenneth Gatland said at the time, ‘‘they have taken a vital step toward lunar flight.’’

Strictly speaking, what had been achieved was not rendezvous. The wording of the official communiques allowed the interpretation that the spacecraft had manoeuvred to reduce their initial separation, but the reduction was due to orbital dynamics, after which the range increased again. Nonetheless, inserting two manned spacecraft into similar orbits at the same time was a feat that the United States could not hope to match for several years and the propaganda value of this was fully exploited. As announced, the purpose of the missions by Nikolayev and Popovich, callsigned ‘Falcon’ and ‘Golden Eagle’, respectively, was to check ‘‘contact’’ between two spacecraft flying in similar orbits. Although the minimum range is believed to have been 6.5 km, one account claimed that the cosmonauts had been able to see each other through their capsules’ portholes! Hence their ‘‘contact’’ seems to have been exclusively visual or by radio.

Indeed, the Sohio tracking station in Cleveland, Ohio, reported that after their initial close proximity, the two spacecraft drifted more than 2,800 km apart. ‘‘We’re convinced that if they had the proper equipment, they could have touched,’’ the station’s supervisor was later quoted as saying by Time magazine. Yet the dual mission did induce some concern in the Pentagon. ‘‘If the Russians can send Colonel Popovich up to look at Major Nikolayev,’’ said one officer, ‘‘they can go up and look at one of our birds. Why, they could knock out those delicate instruments in some of our satellites by hitting them with almost anything.’’ Others were more cautious, pointing out that the interception of one Vostok by another was simplified by the fact that both had launched from the same pad.

Unlike Gherman Titov, who had experienced space sickness shortly after reaching orbit, neither Nikolayev nor Popovich appeared to be affected by the ailment. Their spirits seemed high as they congratulated each other over a shortwave channel which linked their two ships and even engaged in a three-way radio conversation with

Sergei Korolev and his wife with the cosmonauts selected in March 1960 and a number of their trainers. Included in this portrait are five of the six Yost ok fliers. Gagarin is the only person wearing a tie; Titov stands directly behind Korolev’s wife; Popovich sits at the far left on the front row; Nikolayev is second from the left on the second row; and Bykovsky is second from the right, also on the second row. These cosmonauts, and, of course, Korolev himself, were responsible for some of the most remarkable triumphs in mankind’s early conquest of space.

fellow cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin at the control centre. Elsewhere on the ground, after the official announcement had been made, Muscovites gathered in their hundreds in the streets to listen as loudspeakers blared out the news of the latest Soviet spectacular in space. Possibly in an effort to show how much more ‘roomy’ Vostok was compared to the Americans’ cramped Mercury capsules, it was revealed that Nikolayev released his shoulder straps and floated ‘around’ the cabin.

Further details trickled out with the suggestion that he had worried about bumping into things as he moved around; Popovich, too, it was claimed, accidentally banged his head whilst floating across the cabin. Obviously, after the dimensions of Vostok were revealed to the world in April 1965, it became clear that neither cosmonaut had much room in which to move and the stories were simply a clever game designed to keep western listeners guessing about the spacecraft’s true size.

The Soviets clearly only revealed what they wanted the outside world to know and, indeed, when American networks asked to plug in on televised images of Nikolayev and Popovich via the Telstar communications satellite, they were politely refused. Instead, Soviet embassies released photographs of the cosmonauts at play with their families, at seaside resorts, riding pedal boats and even one of Nikolayev sniffing poppies. The two men, meanwhile, worked methodically through their detailed experimental programmes, photographing and – in Nikolayev’s case – filming Earth in colour for the first time. They checked their ships’ systems, monitored communications, verified guidance… and even found time to request the latest football scores. They chatted, too, about their food. Instead of the toothpaste – tube-like fare that Titov had endured, they were provided with packed meals: small, bite-sized chunks of veal cutlet and chicken, together with sandwiches and pastries. A disappointed Nikolayev, upon learning that Popovich had a small piece of dried fish in his food locker, asked for some; to which Popovich gamely invited him to ‘‘come a little closer and we’ll share what we’ve got’’.

Medical personnel hoped that the packed meals, which were more ‘normal’ than those consumed by Titov, might help avoid a recurrence of space sickness. ‘‘It was just as pleasant as a good restaurant,” Nikolayev would recall after landing and it would appear that neither cosmonaut experienced any of the dizziness, nausea or headaches suffered by Vostok 2’s pilot. In their post-flight debriefings, both would explain that they moved their heads sharply from right to left with no ill effects. However, an unfortunate misunderstanding appears to have curtailed Popovich’s mission. It was becoming clear that occurrences of space sickness might be linked to the reactions of individual cosmonauts, rather than as a result of long missions. Consequently, before launch, the cosmonauts had been given the callsign ‘‘observing thunderstorms’’ – ‘‘groza’’ – to report to ground controllers if they felt unwell and desired an immediate return to Earth. Unluckily for Popovich, it would seem that he really was observing enormous thunderheads over the Gulf of Mexico and made an innocent remark about them. Within hours, and just a few minutes after Nikolayev’s own landing, Popovich’s mission was over and he was back on Soviet soil.

Although he had tried to explain, whilst still in orbit, that he really was observing meteorological thunderstorms and was not ill, neither Nikolai Kamanin nor Yuri Gagarin wanted to take the risk, suspecting that he had experienced an attack of nausea, made the transmission and later relented, not wishing to admit to any weakness. To be fair, problems with Vostok 4’s life-support system had already caused the cabin temperature to plummet to just 10°C and some officials were pushing to bring the cosmonaut home on his 49th orbit. Additionally, since he had only expected to remain aloft for three days, Popovich had not conserved his on­board provisions with the same tenacity as Nikolayev; still, he remained cheerful, active and eager to complete a lengthy mission.

It is ironic that these events should have transpired because, by 13 August, optimism was high that both cosmonauts were sufficiently healthy to complete four – day missions: the only voice of dissent came from Kamanin, still fearful of the effects of long-duration flights on the human body. One such effect began to manifest itself midway through Nikolayev’s flight when he vented his frustration on personnel at a Soviet tracking station, who had provided him with incorrect timing information. “You were wrong by five minutes,’’ he barked. “Please give me a new time recording now. Can’t you hear what I say? Start the timing, for heaven’s sake!’’ Tension and fatigue, it seemed, were something even the Iron Man could not avoid.

Nikolayev’s feet touched Earth at 9:52 am Moscow Time on 15 August, in the hilly desert country close to the coal-mining city of Karaganda in north-central Kazakhstan, some 2,400 km south-east of Moscow. He was followed, barely seven minutes later, by Popovich, who landed a few kilometres away and at the same (48th) parallel; a similar landing principle would be adopted during the joint flight of Vostoks 5 and 6 in June 1963. Some observers have speculated that the reason was to deploy recovery forces in an east-to-west pattern. Both re-entries appeared to be smooth and not as eventful as those of Gagarin and Titov, with Nikolayev commenting only that his capsule “revolved randomly on reaching the denser atmosphere” and he experienced deceleration forces of 8-9 G. He also recounted that, although there were boulders in the landing zone, he was able to guide his parachute successfully and touch down in a clear area. After recovery, the two now – bearded cosmonauts were reunited, greeting each other, it is said, with embraces, kisses and spontaneous song. As they munched watermelon and chatted with locals in a crowded Kazakh rest house, their sole complaint was that the heat and discomfort of the desert was greater than it had been in space.