Rockets

EARLY SOVIET ROCKET DEVELOPMENT

The enabling technological step towards lunar and planetary space flight was the development of the military intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). From this, it is only a small incremental step to the development of a rocket capable of launching Earth-orbiting satellites, and then only another small step to one capable of sending spacecraft on trajectories to the Moon and beyond. The developers of ICBMs in both the US and USSR dreamed about space flight from the very beginning, and always in the back of their minds knew that the weapons on which they were working could ultimately be used for space exploration. This was as true for Sergey Korolev in the Soviet Union as for Wernher von Braun both in wartime Germany and later in the US. Each rapidly adapted their large rockets for flights to Earth orbit and beyond. The launch of Sputnik and the first Soviet launches to the Moon were made during the initial months of testing the R-7, the Soviet Union’s first ICBM. Subsequently, various versions of the R-7 became standard launchers for both military and civilian Soviet space missions. The ‘space race’ in the 1960s between these two nations was essentially defined by the development of ever more powerful rockets on both sides. The first intercontinental rockets developed in the US were the Atlas and Titan, and both were used in the civilian program for manned and robotic missions. However, the giant Soviet N-l and American Saturn V rockets were developed to land men on the Moon, and hence were far larger than required for military applications. Military rockets were modified by both nations to send spacecraft to the Moon and planets by adding upper stages for the extra boost required to achieve interplanetary velocities. Without these military rockets and the development of their associated upper stages, there would have been no access to space for interplanetary missions.

The history of rocketry in Russia can be traced back to their use by the military in the 13th Century – the same time that rockets made their appearance as a weapon in western Europe. A Rocket Enterprise was founded in Moscow’ in the 1780s. and in 1817 the Russian engineer Alexander Zasyadko wrote a manual on the production of

W. T. Huntress and M. Y. Marov, Soviet Robots in the Solar System: Mission Technologies and Discoveries, Springer Praxis Books 1, DOl 10.1007/978-1-4419-7898-1_4,

© Springer Science 4-Business Media, LLC 2011

rockets and their use for artillery bombardment. By the beginning of WW-I, Russia had developed the artillery rocket into a significant weapon with a range of almost 10 km. This development gained momentum after the Russian revolution in 1917, as the newly established Soviet Union became an industrial state with a large military force. The establishment of the Gas Dynamics Laboratory in Leningrad in 1928 for development of military missiles marked the beginning of the later powerful Soviet military rocket design bureaus.

The first consideration of the rocket for use other than as a military weapon was by the Russian visionary Konstantin Tsiolkovskiy, whose book ‘The Exploration of the World’s Space with Jet-Propulsion Instrument’ wfas published in 1903; the same year as the Wright brothers’ first powered flight. Tsiolkovskiy, a schoolteacher, laid the theoretical foundation for space flight and interplanetary space travel using the rocket. In the 1930s, his work led a number of enthusiasts to found an organization called the Group of Research in Jet Propulsion (GIRD) whose first project was to construct a rocket-powered airplane. Sergey Korolev, the famed ‘Chief Designer’ of the Soviet space program in the 1960s, was a founding member. The government

The Cold War race to build an I CBM 33

began to sponsor the organization in 1932. and the group launched both a hybrid engine rocket and a liquid-fueled rocket in 1933. They were merged with the Gas Dynamics Laboratory in September 1933 as the Jet Propulsion Scientific Research Institute (RMI).

Progress was slow and resources very limited for these amateur rocketry pioneers in the 1930s. At that time, no government was interested in supporting a program to develop peaceful exploration of space. Military applications were the only hope for obtaining state budgetary support, and this happened first and most successfully in Germany during WW-II.