Short History Of... - The Space Race

Episode Date: September 26, 2021

Humanity has always looked to the heavens, pondering what is really out there. But how did space travel turn from fantasy into reality? In the aftermath of World War Two, a group of scientists from Nazi Germany arrives in the United States. Their task? To kickstart America's space program. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union a covert team of engineers begins work on a series of rockets and satellites. The starting gun has been fired. Who will make it up there first? This is a Short History of the Space Race. Written by Luke Kuhns. With thanks to Robert Godwin, historian, and author of multiple books on the Space Race. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. It's 1950 in Huntsville, Alabama. A group of German rocket scientists arrives at the Redstone Arsenal, a US Army outpost. During World War II this was a chemical weapons facility. Now it's been repurposed to house these Nazi captives.

They've been brought to the States as part of Operation Paperclip. This secret intelligence program has been devised in the aftermath of the war, in order to siphon off the sharpest minds of Hitler's Germany and turn them into American assets. One of them is a man called Dr. Werner von Braun. After arriving stateside, von Braun will now put his efforts into building projectiles, not for the Fuhrer this time, but for the United States government. Back in 1942 in a secret laboratory on the Baltic coast, von Braun had created the V-2 rocket. This liquid propellant ballistic missile measured 46 feet in length and weighed in

at 27,000 pounds. It could fly at speeds of 3,500 miles an hour and deliver warheads 200 miles away. From 1944 until the war's end, V2s were used to pummel Allied targets. But that feels like a lifetime ago for von Braun, as he sits at his desk in the Redstone arsenal. He has made it safely to America, and is now in the pay of the former enemy. However Von Braun has other possibilities on his mind. Weapons were never his primary interest. He glances up into the blue cloudless sky and imagines a silver object in orbit, a satellite.

He pictures rockets shooting humanity into space, landing on the moon and travelling far beyond the stars of our solar system. Little did he realise that he will soon become instrumental, indispensable even, to the US government's space flight program. But von Braun is not the only dreamer out there. In Russia, a man called Sergei Korolev works in secret for the Red Army. Relations between America and the Soviet Union are fast souring after the conclusion of the Second World War.

America has opted not to share its findings from Operation Paperclip in a fast souring after the conclusion of the Second World War. America has opted not to share its findings from Operation Paperclip with their former allies in the East. However, Korolev, a genius in his own right, has displayed remarkable ingenuity. Using scraps from fallen V2s, as well as plans left behind by the Nazis and a handful of captured scientists, he's begun the USSR's own ballistic missiles program. Korolev, like von Braun, has ambitions for the missiles beyond their mere war application. He too has dreams of spaceflight. At this moment though, neither Korolev nor von Braun has the backing

of their respective governments. That will soon change as these two men become the crucial figures in the race to space. Dating back to antiquity, humanity has looked to the heavens, Dating back to antiquity, humanity has looked to the heavens, making pictures and gods out of constellations and planets. Using the stars to navigate ships, pondering what is really out there. In the words of one Russian rocket scientist, Earth is the cradle of mankind, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever. But mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever. Scientists and fiction writers alike conceived of rockets that could shoot humanity into the unexplored black ocean of space. They envisaged setting foot on other planets and discovering where we human beings fit

into the grand cosmological scheme. But it took the punishing heat of the Cold War to turn space travel from a fantasy into reality. America and the Soviet Union began endeavors never before attempted in human history. Humanity was about to take its first steps to a new frontier. I'm Paul McGann, and this is a short history of the Space Race. It's 1953, and in the wake of World War II,

tensions have risen between America and the USSR. With the threat of nuclear apocalypse now very real, the stakes could hardly be higher. And despite the death of Joseph Stalin, the Soviet premier since the 1920s, the Russian leadership remains hell-bent on developing intercontinental ballistic missiles. In this context, missile expertise is at an absolute premium. Both superpowers are desperate to recruit top minds wherever they can find them. Defeated Germany contains many such experts. The former Allies set about divvying them up. Robert Godwin is an historian and author of multiple books on the space race.

The Nazi scientists captured at the end of World War II were rounded up by both the British, the Americans, the French, and the Russians. And a lot of the paperwork came to the United States, and it was sort of secreted away on trains and planes and boats to get it out of the country, along with train loads of V2 rocket parts. And the Soviet Union were a little bit late to the game and were showing up and trying to sort of scoop up what was left. The names that we recognized that were involved with this was Wernher von Braun, who was the head of the German rocket program who came to America, and a guy called Sergei Korolev, who we really didn't know anything about until after he died in 1966.

Sergei Korolev is Russia's best kept secret. He's a rocket engineer and missile designer. He's also a man with a nervous disposition. This stems from his arrest back in 1938, when he was imprisoned in the Gulag in Siberia after being accused of hindering Soviet research. Despite being released with the charges dropped, Korolev is always looking over his shoulder. Now resident in Moscow and a member of the Soviet Communist Party, he's responsible for studying recovered Nazi V-2 rocket parts and documents, sifting through them to harness their expertise. He's a member of the team that manages to launch the R-5 rocket with a nuclear warhead on board.

In the months after this success, work begins on a much more powerful projectile, the R-7. But in the back of Korolev's mind, the tantalizing notion of spaceflight lingers. Korolev was a great engineer. He'd worked on gliders and that sort of thing early on in his career, and he worked on very primitive early liquid rockets. But his main skill was really in management. Korolev had an engineer called Mikhail Tykhonrovov, who was really the guy behind the spacecraft designs in the Soviet Union. So while Karalev was managing the rocket program, Tykhonrovov was the one who was saying, hey,

we could put a satellite on top of these rockets and put them in space. And Tykhonrovov actually proposed that as early as 1950. Karalev was very interested in the idea of putting things into space, but early days. You may be surprised to learn that at this early stage of the space race, the Soviet Union has established a commanding lead over the United States. By 1951, the Soviets had actually launched what's called a suborbital spaceflight with two dogs on board and brought them back to the ground in 1951. Well, this was almost a full decade before the United States did the same thing.

So it gives you some sense of the fact that the Soviets were thinking way ahead of where the United States was at this point, and were actually accomplishing things which are even considered to be miraculous today. The next item on the Soviet scientist list is putting a satellite fully into orbit. It's one thing firing missiles left, right and centre, but to place a man-made item up there in space, circling planet Earth, that would be truly extraordinary. It may well create an unassailable lead over America. truly extraordinary.

It may well create an unassailable lead over America. To get a satellite into orbit, the Soviets need an extremely powerful rocket to launch it, to carry it beyond the Earth's atmosphere. Both Korolev and Tikhonravov believe their R-7 rocket is capable of performing this task. But at this point, the powers that be deny Korolev's request to use the R-7 for this task. But at this point, the powers that be deny Korolev's request to use the R-7 for this purpose.

Satellites are interesting, certainly, but not a priority. Their minds are firmly set on gaining the upper hand in the Cold War. The Soviets were starting to build their H-bombs, and their hydrogen bombs were much too heavy for the missiles that they had available to them. And so it was realized that they were going to have to come up with some incredible new upgrade to their missiles to be able to deliver their very large hydrogen bombs to a target. Whereas the United States had much smaller bombs and so didn't need such large missiles. bombs and so didn't need such large missiles. This was what caused the development of the R-7 rocket, which became the workhorse of the Russian space program to this very day. They needed a very large rocket to take their hydrogen bombs to target.

Meanwhile, far away in America, Wernher von Braun and his team of German scientists continue their work for the US Army's missile program. Their efforts culminate in the Redstone rocket, from which the Jupiter-C and Mercury Redstone rockets will also derive. But von Braun is frustrated. He pulls a notebook from the top drawer of his desk. It's one he's had since he was 16 years old, inside are sketches of spaceships. Like his Russian counterpart, von Braun's true passion remains unfulfilled. In 1954, the Soviet Union begins the process of sending their captive

German scientists home. They have everything they want from them. America, by contrast, opts to keep their scientists where they can see them. From the director of The Greatest Showman comes the most original musical ever. I want to prove I can make it. Prove to who? Everyone.

So, the story starts. Better Man, now playing in select theatres. By 1954, the Soviets had decided they had got what they needed from the Germans that they had captured, and they sent them all home. They sent them all back to Germany, whereas the United States had barely begun to get what they needed from their German captives. So von Braun and the 130-odd captives, the rocket scientists that had been brought to America, were taken to Alabama in 1950 and allowed to become U.S. citizens and remain on to begin the American space program. Desperate to keep up with the Soviets,

in 1955, U.S. President Eisenhower declares America will attempt to launch a brand new series of satellites. Eisenhower announces this plan as part of an initiative called the International Geophysical Year. He does this because he's at pains to disguise the true purpose of the mission. In truth, he wants to launch a reconnaissance satellite to spy on the USSR. The International Geophysical Year was agreed upon in the United Nations. All the world's countries would come together and study the Earth as though it was one living, breathing organism.

And both the United States and the Soviet Union said that they were going to try and launch an Earth-orbiting satellite to actually become a tool in studying planet Earth. Despite von Braun's technical knowledge, he's denied the opportunity to work on this project. President Eisenhower and the Joint Chiefs of Staff do not want a German, an ex-Nazi at that, to have any part in launching America's first satellite. The job is handed over instead to the US Navy, who begin work immediately.

Von Braun is confident the Navy's Vanguard rocket is inferior to his Jupiter-C model. He doubts they'll accomplish a launch before the Russians, but all he can do at this point is bite his tongue. Von Braun knows that to really hold sway, he must distance himself from his Nazi past and fully embrace his new American citizenship. So that's exactly what he does. They integrated very rapidly into this little sort of rural town in Alabama and it became part of the social structure there.

You know, became regular churchgoers and members of the Rotary Club and did civic duties. And von Braun actually hand-built an observatory up on Montesano Mountain with, you know, saws and axes and stuff, cutting the trees down to build a nice observatory for the town to use. So, you know, they fitted in fairly well there without too much problem. In a blue shirt and terracotta necktie,

von Braun stands on a film set with white boards behind him. In front of him on a stand sits a silver model rocket. He looks into the camera. Action. Filming begins. Von Braun has partnered with the Walt Disney Corporation. He's hosting a series of mini-movies entitled Man in Space. The rocket scientist now has the platform to televise his ideas directly into the homes

of the American people. Wernher von Braun had learned when he was working for Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany, he had learned that you needed the support of big money and politicians and indeed the people to be able to finance something like a space program. One of the first things he did was he led a campaign to indoctrinate the American public on the notion that space flight was possible. Between 1952 and

1956, von Braun was all over magazines like Collier's Magazine and various other magazines, Popular Mechanics and Popular Science. It can't be said that the American public weren't prepared with the idea that space flight might be possible. It's questionable how many of them believed it, of course. Von Braun's ideas are percolating in the minds of ordinary Americans. Space flight, landing on the moon, these things are possible. The man on the TV said so.

As for Korolev, over in the USSR, his fortunes are also brightening. In 1956, the Soviet Union's Council of Ministers finally approves the construction of an Earth-orbiting satellite that Korolev has designed. It's to be named Object D. This satellite will measure density in the atmosphere, as well as taking readings of solar wind and magnetic and cosmic rays. Korolev himself is holed away deep in the harsh steppes of southern Kazakhstan. He's busy overseeing the construction of a launch pad for the R-7 rocket, the projectile that he hopes will carry Object D into space. This remote location is no accident.

In fact, it's strategic. They needed somewhere that was as close to the equator as possible because if you're close to the equator, you can get more bang for your buck from the fuel, you get more speed, the Earth is spinning faster at the equator, and so you can get a higher orbit and so forth. Korolev is feeling the pressure. Tests on the R-7 indicate that this rocket is not powerful enough to transport Object D after all. Korolev needs to think fast. In January 1957, he proposes a simpler satellite called Object PS. It will become better known by its nickname, Sputnik. It's much lighter than Object E, weighing just 220 pounds.

Construction, too, is more straightforward. Launching Sputnik is now the Soviets' top priority. forward. Launching Sputnik is now the Soviet's top priority. It's October 3rd, 1957. Anticipation is building in Kazakhstan. A fully fuelled R-7 with Sputnik on board is wheeled to the launch pad. Korolev escorts the craft. His eyes gaze up at the towering rocket.

Excitement and anxiety swirl in his belly. He's either about to make history or register a catastrophic failure. Korolev keeps his cool. He won't be rushed. He tells his engineers, nobody will hurry us.

If you have the tiniest doubt, we will stop the testing and make the corrections on the satellite. 24 hours later, it's launch day. The pad is illuminated with floodlights. Steam lingers around the base of the rocket. In the blockhouse nearby, the engineers check the system one last time. Everything is ready. At 10.28 pm, the command is given to launch.

The engines ignite, the booster lifts off. Korolev watches, his arms folded, as the rocket rises into the sky. The R7 soon reaches an altitude of 139 miles above sea level. It's now invisible to the naked eye. Now all they can do is wait. Korolev needs to hear Sputnik's transmission to confirm the satellite is in orbit. But so far, all they're getting on the radio is static. Has the mission failed?

101 minutes after takeoff, cheers erupt among the Soviet team. Sputnik's signal has been received on Earth. Korolev has successfully launched the first man-made satellite into orbit. There are four telephones in the private bedroom of Nikita Khrushchev, the first secretary of the Communist Party. At 2 am on October 5th, the white telephone rings. It's used by the most senior members of the Soviet government. Khrushchev hauls himself out of bed to answer.

Korolev relays the news. Khrushchev replies, still half asleep. Oh, frankly, I never thought it would work. He hangs up and goes back to bed. But the Premier's blasé response will not quash Sergei Korolev's excitement. He knows he's made history. It wasn't until October 4th, 1957, when the R-7 actually launched a payload into space,

the shock really hit the West. payload into space, the shock really hit the West. In Huntsville, Alabama, a dinner party is in full swing. The top military brass and scientists, including von Braun, are in attendance. The guest of honor is President Eisenhower's new Secretary of Defense, Neal McElroy. After dinner, an aide pulls von Braun to one side. The news of Korolev's achievement hits him like a freight train. Von Braun knows America is losing the race with Sputnik in the sky and his own government's lack of action.

The Navy's vanguard program, due to launch in December, lags too far behind. Von Braun doubts it'll even take off. Joined by two generals and the Secretary of the Army, Wilbur M. Brooker, Von Braun storms over to McElroy and confronts him. We could have been in orbit a year ago, he says. Vanguard will never make it. We have the hardware on the shelf. For God's sake, turn us loose and let us do something. We can put up a satellite in 60 days. Von Braun's army boss, Major General John Bruce Medaris, throws his weight behind this, but with one stipulation.

Not 60 days, Medaris says. Make it 90. The German engineer finally has the green light. But the clock is ticking. The reason that they hadn't allowed von Braun to launch a satellite was there was manifold reasons for it. But I mean, mainly it was because they didn't want the Germans doing it if they were going to do it.

And President Eisenhower very steadfastly decided that space should not be militarized. He was general. He knew what war was all about. The most advanced missiles that the Americans had were the ones that von Braun was developing for the army. So, of course, when Sputnik happened, the army and General Medaris in Huntsville, Alabama, virtually that day, they ordered von Braun to pull a redstone out of storage and prepare it for launching a satellite.

News of Sputnik's successful launch sweeps the world. Today, a new moon is in the sky, a 23-inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a Russian rocket. You are hearing the actual signals transmitted by the Earth-circling satellite, one of the great scientific feats of the age. Sputnik has captured the imagination of the American people and stoked their fears. The Communists have seized the future.

Perhaps it won't be long before the Soviets have the capacity to attack America from space without warning. The reaction was one of astonishment and concern, for it was now known that a potential enemy was at least temporarily ahead in developing means for space travel. President Eisenhower reassures the nation that Russia's success with the first satellite does not indicate a serious lag in American rocket research. On the morning of October 5th, 1957, the newspapers were filled with this story about Sputnik. And it really was a harsh realization for the average member of the

public because you could actually see the booster, the upper stage. You couldn't see Sputnik, it was too small, but you could actually see the upper stage, which was also in orbit, flying over the United States. And that actually terrified the average American citizen because they suddenly realized that the enemy, the Soviet Union, had proven that they could actually put a weapon anywhere on Earth. Of course, they hadn't proven that, but that's what it seemed like. anywhere on earth. Of course, they hadn't proven that, but that's what it seemed like. And so when Sputnik went flying over, there was this call to the US government to explain why the United States had been caught flat-footed. People were really, really terrified by this. And that's when the crash course began to prove that the United States was

at least equal to what the Soviets had done. Then, on November 3, 1957, Korolev achieves another symbolic victory for the Soviets. Another satellite is successfully launched. This one, Sputnik 2, even carries a passenger, a dog named Laika. This female canine is the first living creature to go into orbit. Sadly, she won't make it home.

There is no plan to retrieve Laika. She overheats due to a malfunction of the air conditioning unit and dies shortly thereafter. Few at the time question the use of animals in this way. For Korolev, they're just too useful. animals in this way. For Korolev, they're just too useful. Sputnik 2 furnishes him with invaluable data on how living organisms behave in space. Now with two successful launches behind them, it seems just a matter of time before the Soviets go for a manned spaceflight. Meanwhile, America is yet to launch a single satellite. Meanwhile, America is yet to launch a single satellite. Just days after Sputnik 2's launch, US Major General Madaris publicly announces his backing

for von Braun's audacious plan. 90 days to put a satellite into orbit. A crash program. An emergency. On December 6th, the US Navy attempt their own launch at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The vanguard rocket begins to lift off. Eager-eyed citizens watch on, full of hope. But within seconds, an enormous fireball engulfs the rocket. It's collapsing in on itself.

It begins to hurtle towards the ground, having lifted only three feet off the pad. The control room is stunned. They failed, just as von Braun predicted. Vanguard blew up on the pad in spectacular fashion. And this tiny little satellite, much smaller than Sputnik, ended up sort of in the grass at Cape Canaveral. And the press just were merciless. They called it Flopnik and Kaputnik and all kinds of things like that.

So they finally relented and turned to von Braun and said, go ahead, see what you can do. The following month, von Braun gets his shot at glory. He and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, design the Explorer 1 satellite. This new model now sits atop a Jupiter-C rocket at Cape Canaveral. It's come down to the wire for Von Braun. Today is the end of his 90 days.

The launch must happen now. At Cape Canaveral, Florida, the Army's Jupiter-C rocket is ready for America's second attempt to launch a space satellite. The hours-long countdown approaches zero. A moment of enormous tension, for every missile launching is still an experiment. Any one of tens of thousands of things can go wrong with catastrophic results. Five, four, three, two, one. The moment is at hand. The countdown reaches zero. Fire in command. Fire in command.

The Jupiter-C blazes upwards and disappears from sight within a couple of minutes. In Pasadena, California, at Mission Control, 30-year-old Barbara Paulson, who's calculated the rocket's trajectory, is hunched over her light table, tracking Explorer 1's location. Paulson is just one of the many women involved in the early space race. Yet even today, many of their stories remain untold. The tension in the room is palpable. Paulson continues to track the spacecraft's movements. Ninety minutes go by. The signal hasn't come through.

Has America launched a satellite or not? Finally, the signal is received. Von Braun and his team have confirmation. Explorer 1 is in successful orbit. He was able to launch Explorer 1, which was a satellite developed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. And they put it into space and indeed scored something of a coup by detecting the Van Allen radiation belts, which was something that we didn't know about at the time. So it was the first science discovery from space.

Explorer 1 begins to transmit extraordinary data back to Earth. It's the first satellite to have scientific instruments on board. America has well and truly arrived in the contest. Now the race is on to see who can put the first human being into space.

With the success of Explorer 1, tension grows between the US Army, Navy and Air Force as to who will take control of the space program. One of the things that came out of Sputnik, of course, was the US government scrambling to try and figure out what was the best way to respond. And Eisenhower was adamant that it would not be the military that would respond. But meanwhile, the US Air Force was trying to outplay the US Army for control of space. The money was being torn in different

directions. And that was part of the reason why Eisenhower decided, okay, we're stopping this. Eisenhower said, no, we're going to have a civilian space program. Eisenhower decides to centralize efforts under a civilian organization. how it decides to centralise efforts under a civilian organisation. He calls it the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA for short. In July 1958, NASA Director T. Keith Glennon approves plans for a manned spaceflight. This gives birth to Project Mercury, a mission to recruit a select group of astronauts, known as the Mercury 7, begins. America is finally getting serious about space.

But at this point, the advent of NASA is bad news for Wernher von Braun. The creation of this brand new civilian body threatens his position. Von Braun is still in the employ of the army. Under their watchful gaze, he's been developing the Juno 5 rocket, otherwise known as Saturn. To secure the funding to keep this project alive, Von Braun must come up with a military justification for Juno 5. The army pays his salary, therefore he needs his work to be useful in a tangible military sense. David Hitchcock, He was desperately trying to keep the funding flowing into what was becoming known as the Juno V launch vehicle, which ultimately would

be renamed Saturn. But he didn't have a military reason for building it. He needed to have some reason for building it. He needed to have some reason for doing it. And so by very early 1959, von Braun put together with his team a thing called Project Horizon, which was for an army moon base. And they delivered that to Eisenhower, and it was a military moon base with all kinds of weapons systems involved. They even had handheld claymores for armed combat on the Moon with Project Horizon. And they delivered this entire manifest of exactly how they were going to create a Moon base. They were actually working on a particle beam weapon in 1959 that would use a nuclear explosion in space

to generate an X-ray laser to take out targets in space so you could take out the enemy's satellites and so forth as von brown strives to remain relevant over in the soviet union korolev and his team are by no means slowing down the infighting between factions of the u.s military is giving the ussr the room to break more fresh ground. On September 14, 1959, the Soviet probe Luna 2 crash lands on the surface of the Moon. The next probe, Luna 3, manages to take pictures of the far side of the Moon. When the time comes to make its return journey, the probe uses gravity to slingshot itself back to Earth. Each first for Korolev is a blow to von Braun and his backers, as well as to NASA. After all the animal tests and unmanned flights, Korolev feels he's ready to send a human

being into orbit. If he can accomplish this, the moon will be next. Korolev has finished designing a spacecraft that might just be able to carry a man or a woman into space. The booster for Sputnik would ultimately be reconfigured a little bit and turned into a thing called Vostok, which became, of course, the Soviet Union's first manned spacecraft. But first, Korolev needs to prove he can launch living creatures into orbit and safely return them. On August 19, 1960, Sputnik 5 shoots two dogs, Belka and Strelka, into space. They are the first animals to return alive. into space. They are the first animals to return alive. At almost exactly the same time,

America's first spy satellite, Corona, completes a successful test flight. To give some sense of just how close the space race became, in 1960, one of the things that really hadn't been accomplished yet was bringing something back from space in one piece. was really hadn't been accomplished yet was bringing something back from space in one piece. The prototype of Vostok delivered two dogs into space and brought them back from space. It was the first time a payload had actually been retrieved in one piece. The dogs were alive. And that happened a day after the Corona spy satellite delivered its first roll of film back from space. So this is a very important thing. Getting back from space in one piece happened within 24 hours of each other on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

But despite the successful recovery of Belka and Strelka, Korolev suffers an unforeseen setback. He's become embroiled in a fierce rivalry with a man called Valentin Glushko. Korolev actually discovers that Glushko was one of the accusers who landed him in the Gulag back in the late 1930s. Their competition is deeply bitter and threatens to derail the Soviet Union's efforts. Glushko and Korolev, in fact, both been arrested during World War II by Stalin and locked up in the Gulag.

And that single action had set back the Soviet Russian space program, perhaps by several years, because the top two guys were put in the Gulag for a few years. In the Soviet Union, because the government was centrally controlled, you would not think that there would be a competition taking place over who was actually going to be building and indeed bidding on the contracts for building the missiles and spacecraft. There was a competition. There were multiple design bureaus run by what today are now famous names. They were all fighting against each other to decide who was going to be in control of

the missile and space program. Whereas in the United States, President Eisenhower made this sweeping decision in 1958 to hand the entire thing over to a civilian space agency, thus establishing what was essentially central control of the space program. Glusko and Korolev compete to develop the best technology. They vie over finding the most efficient fuels to launch rockets. Glusko is desperate to put Korolev out of business. And so this fight began as early as 1958 over what kind of fuel they would use for the third stage of the R-7 rocket, which was what was going to be used to launch larger payloads

into space. Well, that fight festered and it never ended. It went for the next eight years and it was one of the main reasons why the Russians lost the space race. In October 1960, Glushkov's rival rocket, armed with a weapons system and fuelled by hypergolic propellants, launches with devastating effects. Glushkov had gone off to work with a guy called Yangel to develop a competitive launch system called the R-16. But by October of 1960, the R-16 was being fueled with hypergolic propellants, which was incredibly dangerous.

You come in contact, they ignite spontaneously. And there was this devastating explosion on the launch pad in October 1960 that blew up an R-16 and killed 126 people. in October 1960 that blew up an R-16 and killed 126 people. It's still the worst catastrophe in the history of the space programs of any country. So that kind of slowed down Glushko's and Yangel's attempts to interrupt with what Korolev was doing. Observing the pitfalls of competition and the benefits of centralization, efforts are finally made in the US

to bring Werner von Braun under NASA's remit. Von Braun agrees to go to the civilian organization, but only if his Saturn project may continue. His wish is granted. It's a huge moment, as the German scientist and his team are transferred onto NASA's payroll. And not a moment too soon. With Glushko now less of a distraction, Korolev has managed to send a series of interplanetary probes into the beyond.

By February 1961, he was able to send a probe flying past Venus for the first time ever. And that was a real coup again. flying past Venus for the first time ever. And that was a real coup again. So the Soviets kept delivering these sort of one-up coups, political coups. And it was Korolev that was delivering most of them. The Americans realized that they were, you know, potentially about to lose another political one-up by putting a human into space.

In January 1961, in Florida, Mercury-Redstone 2 is about to attempt a launch into suborbital flight. Strapped into the capsule is Ham, a chimpanzee, otherwise known as Ham the Astrochimp. From the age of two, he's been trained to do simple tasks, like responding to lights and sound. Ham will help von Braun measure reaction times in space, that is if he survives the launch. The previous test resulted in the death of a chimp. The rocket takes off. Ham shakes violently in the capsule.

But then the flight stabilizes. His vitals are monitored from mission control back on Earth. All seems okay. Despite a partial loss of pressure in the cabin, Ham's suit has kept him safe and conscious. The flight lasts 16 minutes and 39 seconds. It comes as a relief when the Chim survives re-entry. But there are still T's to cross and I's to dot. A manned flight will not be signed off until there is at least one perfect test run. There is work to do yet.

Right after the Venera probe had flown past Venus, von Braun put Ham the Chimpanzee into the Mercury-Redstone spacecraft. The Mercury spacecraft was incredibly complex because it had been designed with everything crammed into the smallest space possible so that it could be lifted by this fairly small rocket. That made any time you needed to fix something incredibly difficult, you had to rip the sides out of the whole spacecraft to replace a fuse. And so it was a very difficult thing to get Mercury off the ground. So they put Ham the chimpanzee in it first and fired it out over the Atlantic. And it came back at a much faster rate than they had anticipated. And Ham was put through some pretty nasty antics, high Gs during re-entry. So consequently, von Braun was not satisfied that it was safe to put a man into the Mercury on top of a redstone at that point. And so he erred on the

side of caution. And in March of 61, he decided he would do one more launch of the Mercury redstone configuration to try and eliminate that one error that had nearly killed Ham. And of course, that was that moment where history's hinge swung in a different direction because Korolev had been watching very closely what the Americans had been doing because it was all over the news. And he was ready to decide that he was going to try and put a man on board Object K, which they did and renamed it Vostok. So, of course, April 1961, they launched Yuri Gagarin on the R-7. Yuri Gagarin is a 27-year-old son of a farmer and a graduate of the Soviet Air Force Cadet School at Orenburg.

Eager, with an air of invincibility about him, Gagarin boards the spacecraft. But Korolev doesn't share Gagarin's heroic attitude. Nerves give Korolev chest pains. Of the 24 test launches, 12 ended in failure. The scientist is sickened by the thought that this man has only a 50% chance of survival. The cosmonaut is calm as he waits for the countdown to begin. At 9.07 a.m. Moscow time Vostok 1 launches. Korolev chews on his thumbnail.

Has he just sent Gagarin to his death? At a maximum altitude of 187 miles, Yuri Gagarin is the first human being to orbit the Earth. Korolev is elated, but Gagarin still needs to return alive for this to be a true success. Gagarin spends over an hour speeding around planet Earth. It's an extraordinary, profound experience as he looks down on the blue and green sphere beneath him. Back on Earth, the command is given for Vostok 1 to begin re-entry. When Gagarin configured the Vostok spacecraft for re-entry, they had had a recurring problem with the spacecraft

where the modules had not separated properly because Vostok was actually two modules together. They had had previous experience with the fact that these modules didn't always separate properly. And so Gagarin's separation didn't come off as planned. For Vostok 1 to make it home in one piece, a retro rocket must act as a brake for the craft. If the retro rocket malfunctions, Gagarin will be stuck in space for 10 days. That's okay. He has supplies to last that time.

But something is wrong. A failure with the spacecraft's valves is causing it to rise into a higher orbit than expected. Now, if the retro rocket fails, Yagarin will remain in orbit for a month. He'll starve. The Soviet cosmonaut has just one chance to get home alive. The Soviet cosmonaut has just one chance to get home alive. Over the west coast of Africa, the retro rocket fires. The command is given to separate the two modules of the craft. The command fails.

Tethered together, the two pieces begin a violent re-entry. This may well kill Gagarin. But then, crossing over Egypt, the wire joining the two sections of the craft finally snaps. The other thing that was not generally known is that he did not land back on the ground in his spacecraft. He bailed out. He actually ejected and came down on a parachute and landed in a farmer's field and scared the farmer's wife half to death when she saw this alien from another planet walking across the field with an orange spacesuit and a goldfish bowl on his head.

Gagarin will never return to space. Instead, he will tour the globe and train other cosmonauts. He's done his job. His spaceflight has terrified America, and left NASA deeply frustrated. The shock of Gagarin making it into space, even though it only accomplished one orbit, it was one orbit, and it proved that the R7 had been upgraded to the point where it could clearly deliver large payloads anywhere on Earth. The Americans really desperately needed to do something.

They were very disappointed. NASA had appointed its seven astronauts, the Mercury astronauts, who were already being treated like heroes, even though they hadn't flown in space yet. But the pressure was on to do something to show that the United States was ready to compete in this new arena. On May 5, 1961, American astronaut Alan B. Shepard crawls into Freedom 7, the Mercury capsule. Shepard is one of the Mercury 7 first introduced to the public back in 1959. He has been chosen as the first American to attempt a spaceflight.

A sea of journalists and members of the public watch from a safe distance as Freedom 7 prepares for launch. The engines ignite with a spectacular boom. The blast roars and shakes the earth under the spectators feet as the rocket lifts off. Inside the capsule, Shepard communicates with mission control. Shepard is propelled higher and higher. The rocket performs perfectly as it lifts the funnel-shaped capsule gracefully aloft. Named the Freedom 7, the Mercury vehicle could be released by either the pilot or ground control should something go wrong. But quickly the reports come back. Everything A-OK, A-OK. Just 23 days after Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight, Alan Shepard has become the first American in space. His 17-minute voyage marks a notable step forward. Unlike Gagarin's flight, which was controlled from the ground, Shepard was able to assume total control of the capsule.

This makes him the first person to pilot a craft in space. Von Braun's dreams of human spaceflight have become a reality. He was only in space for about four or five minutes in zero gravity. Re-entry was pretty heavy on him. Again, his high Gs during re-entry probably weighed about eight to ten times his normal weight. But he splashed down successfully into the history books. And America had been in space with a human in space for about 15 minutes total. The whole flight was about 15 minutes.

So it was a good response. Shepard was flown to Washington and given a medal by President Kennedy. And the race was on. What was once the stuff of science fiction has become scientific fact. Humanity has begun to explore the stars. But the ultimate test is yet to come. Korolev and von Braun both know this. The perception in the West by the end of Alan Shepard's flight

was that the Soviets were way ahead in the space race, that they had proven that their system of government West by the end of Alan Shepard's flight was that the Soviets were way ahead in the space race, that they had proven that their system of government could perhaps produce technology more advanced than what we had in the West. On May the 25th, 1961, newly elected U.S. President John F. Kennedy stands before Congress and challenges the American people. stands before Congress and challenges the American people. Now it is time to take longer strides. Time for a great new American enterprise. Time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement,

which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth. If America wants to prove itself, Kennedy declares, it must beat the Soviets to Earth's nearest neighbor. The race to space may have concluded. The race to the moon is only just beginning. Next time on Short History Of... We'll bring you a short history of the moon landing. Neil was now starting to descend the ladder and we got to see this ghostly apparition. Very slow frame rate, not very many lines per scan on the picture.

But I remember it vividly and it was truly a magical moment, like utterly ethereal moment. You just could not believe it was happening. That's next time on Short History Of.