Race for the Moon

The time is the 1950s. The United States and the Soviet Union⁽¹⁾ are intently playing history's most dangerous game of chicken, aiming thousands of nuclear bombs at each other's cities, according to a doctrine aptly named MAD. As in Mutual Assured Destruction.
(1) The Soviet Union was a secretive regime that included the states now known as Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, covering 22.4 million square kilometers (8.6 million square miles) against the United States' 9.8 million square kilometers (3.8 million square miles). It broke up in 1991.

Figure 1. The Soviet Union and the United States. Source: Wikipedia.

These two military superpowers are vying for control of the ultimate high ground: space. They both view spaceflight as an opportunity to lob atomic annihilation more efficiently and to prove to the world their technological prowess and the superiority of their social system. Space is propaganda.

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union stuns the world by actually launching, as announced, the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. The fact that Sputnik overflies the US and the rest of the world with absolute impunity and has been hurled into the sky on one of the intercontinental missiles that Russia, like the US, is building to deliver nuclear warheads in mere minutes onto enemy targets is not exactly lost on Western public opinion.

The United States launches a crash federal program to recover from the political humiliation of being beaten by what was considered a backward country. It belatedly accelerates its fledgling space program, which had already achieved remarkable results, such as the first ever photographs taken from space.⁽²⁾ The program also seeks to close the academic, military and technological gap that the Sputnik had eloquently exposed. But at first the only result of this effort is further embarrassment.
(2) Towards the end of the 1940s, the United States had modified German V-2 rockets to perform brief vertical flights to altitudes of 160 kilometers (100 miles), carrying scientific instruments and cameras into space. In the early 1950s, the US, like the Soviet Union, had developed intercontinental missiles to deliver nuclear warheads, but US rockets were not as powerful as Soviet ones because American nukes were lighter. The Soviets, saddled with heavier warheads, had simply built bigger rockets, which came in handy for spaceflight. Thus, ironically, part of the Soviets' space success was due to their inferior technology.

One month later, on November 3, 1957, the Soviets set another record with Sputnik 2, which carries the first living being into orbit around the Earth, the dog Laika, before the United States has placed anything at all in orbit. Laika dies a few hours later from overheating and stress, but this is kept secret. The flight has been planned as a one-way mission anyway, because the technology for returning from space is not yet available.

Finally, on December 6, the US makes its first orbital launch attempt. The Navy's Vanguard TV3 rocket rises all of four feet and then explodes dishearteningly on the pad, in front of a television audience of millions (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Kaboom.

The United States manages to place a satellite in orbit on 31 January 1958: Explorer 1 was launched on a US Army Redstone rocket designed and modified by Wernher Von Braun, creator of the infamous Nazi V-2 rockets that had been used to bomb London and other cities during the Second World War. Von Braun had defected from Germany in 1945 and was now working for the US military. America is in space at last.

Nevertheless, the measly 14 kilograms (31 pounds) of Explorer 1 are nothing compared to the 500 kilos (1,120 pounds) of Sputnik 2 and the 1,300 kilos (2,925 pounds) carried into space by Sputnik 3 on May 15.

The Soviet lead

In August 1958, the United States tries to get ahead of the Russians with an attempt to reach the Moon with an automatic probe, Able 1. The launch fails 77 seconds after liftoff. The next three attempts (Pioneer 1, 2 and 3) suffer the same failure, whereas on January 2, 1959, the Soviets launch the Lunik 1 probe, which two days later achieves the first lunar flyby, missing the Moon by 6,000 kilometers (3,700 miles),⁽³⁾ and becomes the first vehicle to go into orbit around the Sun. America's fifth lunar attempt, Pioneer 4, achieves solar orbit but fails to get any closer than 60,000 kilometers (37,000 miles) to the Moon on March 4.
(3) Throughout this book, distances and altitudes are given in kilometers and statute miles unless otherwise specified.

The Soviets achieve another first on September 13, 1959: the Lunik 2 probe crash-lands on the Moon. Less than a month later, Lunik 3 reveals to the world the very first pictures of the far side of the Moon.

It will take the US five more years, and nine more attempts, to reach the Moon with a space probe. For the time being, America has to make do with science missions in Earth orbit, such as Explorer 6, which provides an almost complete map of the Van Allen radiation belts that encircle our planet and returns the first television pictures of Earth from space; monkeys Able and Baker are recovered successfully after suborbital flights into space. But the headline-grabbing space launches are all Soviet.

The US catches up

In 1960 the United States achieves a few records: first imaging weather satellite (TIROS-1, April 1), first electronic intelligence satellite (GRAB-1, July 5), first recovery of a satellite after reentry from Earth orbit (Discoverer 13, August 11) and first imaging spy satellite (Discoverer 14, August 18).

These are mostly military achievements, prompted by the need to replace urgently with satellites the top-secret U-2 spy planes that had been conducting vital covert reconnaissance flights over Soviet territory. On May 1, 1960, one of the planes had been shot down and the pilot captured, causing huge diplomatic embarrassment to the United States.

Once again the Soviet Union grabs the space headlines: in August, Sputnik 5 carries plants and animals (two dogs, forty mice and two rats) into space and for the first time returns them safely from orbit.

The first man in space

1961 sees a new Soviet shocker: on April 12, Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to fly in space. He orbits just once around the world in a 108-minute flight aboard Vostok 1.

Figure 3. Shock in the USA.

Americans are stunned (Figure 3) and beaten to the draw once again. The best they can do is a fifteen-minute suborbital hop with Alan Shepard in a Mercury spacecraft on May 5, because US rockets powerful enough to carry an astronaut into Earth orbit have the unpleasant tendency to explode during test launches, while Russian ones appear to be outstandingly reliable (failures are not disclosed).

So with a grand total of fifteen minutes of human spaceflight on its track record and a bunch of exploding rockets as its future assets, the United States throws down a daring gauntlet: on May 25, 1961, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy challenges the Soviet Union to a race to the Moon.

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

The President's strategy is as simple as it is ambitious: set a grandiose goal that will impress the world, boost America's morale and is far enough in the future to give the US aerospace industry the time to get its act together, close the rocket reliability gap and do better than the Russians.

Kennedy, however, will not live to see the outcome of his challenge. He will be shot in Dallas two years later, on November 22, 1963.

Meanwhile the Russians march on relentlessly. Before America manages to achieve a single human orbital flight, Gherman Titov repeats and extends Gagarin's mission, performing seventeen Earth orbits in early August 1961 aboard Vostok 2.

Finally, on February 20, 1962, nearly one year after the Russians, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit around the world aboard Friendship 7. So the Soviet Union ups the ante: in August, two spacecraft (Vostoks 3 and 4) fly simultaneously and cosmonauts Nikolayev and Popovich are briefly less than 5 km (3 miles) apart. The double flight is not a rendezvous, but that's how Soviet propaganda presents it. Nikolayev also sets a new endurance record: four days in space. His picture is broadcast by onboard television cameras to Russian viewers.

In June 1963, Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space, aboard Vostok 6. She is also the first civilian spacefarer, since all previous astronauts and cosmonauts had been members of the US or Soviet military. Her 48-orbit flight lasts longer than the combined times of all the American astronauts that had flown until then. No other woman will fly in space for the next 19 years.

On October 12, 1964, the Soviet Union accomplishes the first multiman mission: Voskhod 1 carries into orbit three men before the US is able to fly even two. The flight is essentially a propaganda stunt: in order to squeeze three astronauts into a vehicle designed for two, they are recklessly forced to fly without spacesuits.

The first spacewalk is also a Russian record, set on March 18, 1965 by Alexei Leonov aboard Voskhod 2. All the US can do is send the first successful probe to Mars (Mariner 4). The first soft landing of a space probe and the first pictures from the surface of the Moon are also a Soviet achievement, with Luna 9 in February 1966.

But in the meantime the US space program has been acquiring experience with human spaceflight and with the techniques required for a manned Moon landing. Between 1965 and 1966, the spacecraft of the Gemini program (Figure 4) carry two-man crews that achieve orbit changes, long-duration flights (up to 14 days), spacewalks and rendezvous with docking, and set a new altitude record for human spaceflight: during the Gemini 11 mission (September 12-15, 1966), Charles "Pete" Conrad and Richard F. Gordon fly to a distance of 1374 kilometers (853 miles) from the Earth and become the first human beings to see their home planet as a sphere.

Figure 4. The Gemini 7 spacecraft.

Meanwhile, the Lunar Orbiter robot probes take detailed photographic surveys of the Moon's surface and the Surveyor vehicles land on it, testing its nature and consistency. The US has caught up with the Russians.

But the Apollo program, meant to put an American on the Moon, is in deep trouble. On January 27, 1967, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee die in the fire of their Apollo 1 command module during a routine test on the launch pad (Figure 5). The nationwide shock prompts a drastic redesign of the ill-conceived spacecraft.

Figure 5. The charred Apollo 1 crew capsule.

1967 is also a tragic year for Russian space endeavors. On April 24, Vladimir Komarov becomes the first person to die during a space flight.⁽⁴⁾ His Soyuz 1, prepared hastily to appease the Soviet government's craving for propaganda coups, crashes fatally upon return from space.
(4) Some researchers (such as the Italian Judica Cordiglia brothers) claim that they intercepted radio signals from other Soviet manned flights that ended tragically and were kept secret. However, so far the cross-checks of spaceflight historians (James Oberg and others) have found no evidence to support these claims and have pointed out several inconsistencies.

Apollo gets up to speed

The massive US investments in space begin to bear fruit. The huge Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral has risen from the Floridian swamps in record time. A series of unmanned flights allows to test the Apollo spacecraft, the giant Saturn V Moon rocket designed by Wernher Von Braun, and the ground support hardware and staff.

Figure 6. Time, December 6, 1968.

Meanwhile the Soviet space program nets another first: on September 18, 1968, the Zond 5 automatic probe takes the first living beings around the Moon. Turtles, wine flies, meal worms, plants, seeds and bacteria are returned safely to the Earth, none the worse for the trip. What's more, the spacecraft is clearly big enough to carry a man.

On October 11, Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham take Apollo 7 into Earth orbit for eleven days on the first manned test of the redesigned Apollo hardware, the first American three-person mission and the first manned test of the Saturn IB rocket, Saturn V's smaller brother. There's no time to waste: the US government knows that the Soviets are secretly getting ready to beat America to the Moon.

So two months later, Apollo 8 is the first manned flight of a Saturn V, and although the giant booster has only flown three times, the goal is already tremendously bold: to fly three hundred times farther than anyone has ever done and take three astronauts around the Moon.

On December 24, 1968, for the first time in history, human beings see the Moon with their own eyes from as little as 110 kilometers (70 miles). Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders orbit the Moon ten times, taking unforgettable photographs of their destination and of our home planet as a distant, delicate blue marble suspended in the blackness of the cosmos. The contrast with the harsh, lifeless lunar horizon could not be more eloquent and striking in its message to mankind (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Us. NASA photo AS8-14-2383.

The worldwide emotional impact of this mission is huge. The live TV broadcast from Moon orbit on Christmas eve is the most watched event up to that time. The astronauts read verses from the Book of Genesis as the onboard camera shows the cratered surface of the Moon rolling past.

At least in the eyes of public opinion, the flight is an unmitigated American media triumph that marks the defeat of the Soviet space propaganda machine. Little is said, at the time, about the disastrous conditions aboard the spacecraft: vomiting and diarrhea caused by space sickness, outgassing of sealant that fogged up the windows and hindered navigation based on star sighting, and water pooling dangerously in the crew cabin. But the race to the Moon is not over yet.

The real conspiracy: secret Soviet moonshots

The Soviet Union has secretly been developing the N1-L3 system: a giant rocket, the N1 (Figure 8), as big as a Saturn V and capable of sending two cosmonauts towards the Moon in a vehicle, known as L3, that includes a lunar lander designed to carry one Russian to the surface of the Moon.

Figure 8. Preparing the N1 rocket.

None of this will be known to the public for more than twenty years, but the US government is well aware of the Soviet attempt thanks to spy satellite photographs of the massive rocket and of its launch facilities at the Baikonur Cosmodrome (Figure 9).

Figure 9. An N1 rocket on its launch pad, caught by a KH-4 Corona spy satellite. Credit: C.P. Vick.

The N1, however, is underfunded and plagued by interpersonal rivalries among top Soviet rocket engineers. Its thirty-engine first stage is a nightmare to coordinate and control. The Soviet military oppose the project because they see it as an expensive propaganda gimmick with no practical military use, differently from all the previous space rockets.

The giant booster flies for the first time in February 1969 for an unmanned test and explodes 66 seconds after liftoff. As a result, in May the Soviet Union publicly states that it has never intended to send cosmonauts to the Moon because it will not risk human lives in such an endeavor and will use robot probes instead.

The second launch is an even worse disaster. On July 3, just before the American moon landing, an unmanned N1 falls back onto the launch pad moments after ignition. The simultaneous explosion of its 2600 tons of fuel is the most violent in the history of rocketry. US spy satellites take photographs of the launch pad, destroyed by the catastrophic blast along with Russian hopes to be the first to walk on the Moon. The failure is silenced. Officially, the N1-L3 project never existed.

Attempts will continue in total secrecy for a few more years, testing the lunar lander (Figure 10) in Earth orbit, but after two more disastrous launch failures the N1 will be abandoned. No Soviet cosmonaut will ever walk on the Moon.

Figure 10. The Soviet lunar module.

The US government knows that Russia is out of the race, but can't tell the public, as this would reveal the capabilities of its spy satellites and the political grounds for the Moon shots would vanish. Secretly, there's no more rush to get to the Moon, but there's still a murdered president's pledge to be kept. And for public opinion, unaware of the N1 disaster, the race is still on.

Dress rehearsals, then the real thing

Kennedy's deadline is looming and the Apollo project advances at full speed. In March 1969, Apollo 9 flies in Earth orbit to test the lunar module, the navigation systems, the lunar spacesuits and the docking maneuvers. In May, Apollo 10 soars to the Moon and rehearses every step of a Moon landing mission except for the touchdown itself. Apollo 10's lunar module carries Thomas Stafford and Gene Cernan to within 14.4 kilometers (47,400 feet) of the lunar surface.

The next mission is the real thing. Apollo 11 takes mankind to the Moon, live on worldwide TV, on July 20, 1969. Commander Neil Armstrong gingerly sets his left foot on the surface of the Moon at 10:56 EDT (2:56 UTC). Lunar Module Pilot Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin then joins him (Figure 11) and together they plant the flag of the United States on the surface, conduct scientific experiments, collect Moon rock samples and take historic photographs while the third crew member, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, waits in lunar orbit to take them home.

Figure 11. Buzz Aldrin on the Moon. NASA photo AS11-40-5903.

The Soviets make one last attempt to steal the show by trying to retrieve a lunar soil sample with the Luna 15 unmanned probe before the American astronauts get home. But Luna 15 crashes on the Moon while Armstrong and Aldrin are getting ready to return with 21.5 kilograms (47.5 pounds) of Moon rocks.⁽⁵⁾
(5) The Luna 1969B and 1969C missions, in April and June 1969, may also have been failed attempts to retrieve lunar soil samples (Tentatively Identified Missions and Launch Failures, NASA).

Between 1969 and 1972, the United States lands on the Moon six times, with increasingly advanced, extended and complex missions. Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 carry twelve men to the Moon and return over 382 kilograms (842 pounds) of carefully selected lunar rocks and a wealth of scientific data that is still being used and analyzed today.

Figure 12. The Apollo 11 crew: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin. Official NASA portrait, March 1969.

Figure 13. Aldrin, Armstrong and Collins in 2009, during a visit to the Smithsonian.

Apollo 13, too, is planned as a lunar landing mission but has to be aborted due to an oxygen tank rupture on the way to the Moon. The crew narrowly escapes death and their drama captures the world's attention, highlighting the perils of space travel that the success of previous missions had caused many to underestimate.

Since December 14, 1972, when geologist Harrison Schmitt and Commander Eugene Cernan climbed back up the ladder of Apollo 17's lunar module and closed the hatch behind them, no human being has set foot on the Moon.