vol4.pdf [Ivanovskiy Boris Andreyevich]
Download 4.92 Mb. Pdf ko'rish
|
|
Sun City
After the first unsuccessful “appointment” with the Soyuz-10 spacecraft launched on 19 April 1971, the DOS continued to fly in unpiloted mode. The program of science experiments that were supposed to be conducted suffered due to the fact that the cover of the infrared telescope had not been jettisoned. This greatly reduced the value of the science program. TASS reports said nothing about the failure of the cover to open or the incom- plete docking process. At press conferences the crew made no mention of the docking node’s breakdown. Everything supposedly had gone according to the program—period. We needed to rehabilitate the piloted orbital station flight program as soon as possible. For that reason, work was under way 24 hours a day to prepare Soyuz-11. Shabarov performed the duties of technical chief at the firing range. According to his reports, preparations were going according to schedule and liftoff could take place on 6 June. Mishin had also put Shabarov in charge of technical management of the preparation of Block D at Site No. 31. This time the fourth stage of Chelomey’s UR-500K launch vehicle—our Block D—was being tasked with sending interplanetary stations Mars-2 and Mars-3 to Mars. The launches of these stations were tied hard and fast to the astronomical deadlines of 19 and 28 May. These new spacecraft differed substantially from our Mars-1, which we launched during the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Each of them had an orbital compartment and a descent module. Babakin’s team had done an enormous amount of work to ensure the reliability of these interplanetary stations. We were also in a rush because the launch of N-1 No. 6L was scheduled for June. On 24 May on Miusskaya Square, the State Commission convened in the hall of the ministerial collegium, where I thought my report about the results of all the work conducted on docking dynamics would finally be the last one. A group comprising Okhotsimskiy, Legostayev, Voropayev, and Lebedev had done an excellent job preparing the materials. Right off the bat, Dmitriy 339
Rockets and People: The Moon Race Okhotsimskiy had discovered our weak spot. 1 Voropayev’s department was responsible for the rocket flight dynamics, Legostayev’s department for space- craft control dynamics, and Vilnitskiy’s department for loads on the docking assembly after docking. But the dynamics of the process from the moment of contact until retraction were ownerless. Vilnitskiy’s report about the measures taken to protect the docking assembly structure against the dynamic environment, which he illustrated with good posters, convinced the collegium that the theoreticians were the culprits rather than the designers. The members of the collegium weren’t about to penetrate into the depths of dynamics, and discussion ended at this ministerial level. On 25 May, a month after Ustinov and Serbin visited shop No. 439, we reported at the Kremlin to the VPK about the launch readiness of the Soyuz-11 spacecraft for docking with the DOS. Mishin made the traditional general report about the work performed and readiness for launch. Using posters, I gave a very brief report (as the VPK staffers had requested of me beforehand, having arranged it with [VPK Chairman] Smirnov) about what had caused the docking node on Soyuz-10 to fail and the actions we had taken. To my astonishment, not one of the VPK members asked a single question. After my speech, Keldysh deemed it necessary to say that, at the request of Minister Afanasyev, specialists of his institute had participated in a study of the dynamics of the docking process and in the development of measures guaranteeing its reliability. 2 Next, the primary and backup crews were introduced. The primary crew was made up of Aleksey Leonov, Valeriy Kubasov, and Petr Kolodin. Georgiy Dobrovolskiy, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev formed the backup crew. [State Commission chairman] Kerimov reported that the launch was scheduled for 6 June 1971 and, considering its particularly critical nature, asked the chief designers to be there “in person.” This call to action, which had become standard by now, did not elicit any emotions. “Tomorrow morning the State Commission will fly out,” concluded Kerimov. May in Moscow was unusually rainy and cold. At the airfield, as we were walking to our airplane, an icy north wind cut through us. Our group— Kerimov, Severin, Darevskiy, Yurevich, and Pravetskiy—gladly warmed up with the hot tea that Khvastunov arranged for them soon after takeoff. Over
1. Dmitriy Yevgenyevich Okhotsimskiy (1921–2005) was one of the leading Soviet applied mathematicians involved in the Soviet space program. He was employed as a scientist at the Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences.
2. The institute in question was the Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences. 340
Sun City tea, Khvastunov—a Hero of the Soviet Union, combat pilot, and the current chief of our flight squadron—astonished doctor of medical sciences Pravetskiy. I was conversing with avid downhill skier Gay Severin about his latest accomplishments. He complained about acute pains in his legs and about space technology, which were both interfering with his ski jumps and falls. “I can give you some advice regarding your legs,” Khvastunov broke into our conversation. “After the war I flew a lot as an instructor, and suddenly my legs ‘gave out.’ I couldn’t walk at all. They dragged me to hospital after hospital—nothing helped. It was terrible: they were going to write me off into retirement. But my dear old mother cured me. She put me to bed at her house in the village and covered my legs with raw potatoes. Three days later I stood up. And, as you can see, I’m flying.” “And you had no relapses?” asked Pravetskiy. “None. As if nothing had ever been wrong.” After a little more than three hours’ flight from cold Moscow, we found ourselves in hot Tyuratam at Dalniy airfield, formerly Lastochka. Later, for some reason, they renamed it Krayniy. 3 Shabarov, who met us, dumbfounded me: “It’s 36 degrees [96°F] here now, but for you it’s going to be even hotter. There’s a serious glitch in the docking system in the latest tests.” After arriving at Site No. 2, I dashed into the hotel to toss off my warm jacket. And without grabbing some lunch, I set off on foot under the scorch- ing Sun to the MIK. I was itching to find out what the docking and internal transfer system had in store for us now. Oh, this path from the hotel to the MIK! I have been walking it since the spring of 1957. It used to be a dusty dirt trail from the special train, then from the barracks to the MIK standing all by itself on the steppe. Now, shady poplar trees along the asphalt protect the pedestrian from the scorching sun. After the checkpoint, where a soldier scrutinized my pass, I was in the “garden.” A group of control specialists and engine experts, who were heatedly arguing with one another, greeted me from a cozy gazebo. In the testing hall our specialists and military testers were crowded around the manual control console for the docking mechanism, arguing. They explained to me that the previous day, during the performance of a test operation to extend the probe three times, they decided to make sure that in the retrac- tion process, no erroneous cosmonaut actions would lead to the firing of the DPO nozzles, which caused the breakdown of the node on Soyuz-10. For this,
3. The Russian word dalniy means “far,” while krayniy means “farthest.” 341 Rockets and People: The Moon Race Bashkin demanded that new commands be written into the test instructions. During the tests, in their haste, something got messed up, and the passage of the “undock” command lit up on the console at the wrong time. Boris Vakulin, Boris Chizhikov, and Yevgeniy Panin—the developers of the docking electrical and mechanical systems—discovered this defect the day before at 4 a.m. It had been two days now that they’d gone without sleep looking for what caused the mysterious signal behavior. First off, I asked them to head over to the hotel and get some sleep. And in the morning after they had rested, they should be back here to search for the cause of the glitch in the individual programs. I explained the situation to Kerimov over the telephone and asked him to postpone the State Commission meeting from that evening to 27 May, no earlier than 1700 hours. He grumbled but agreed. The next morning they ran five individual programs. And immediately everything became clear to everyone. In the circuit of the test console they discovered an “extra” relay, supposedly protecting the overload coupling against possible operator error. The circuit in which this relay was located did not participate in operations at the KIS or at the engineering facility. It was only needed during the testing process of the docking assembly when it was being assembled and handed over at the factory in shop No. 444. This relay failed, and the circuit, which wasn’t necessary for tests at the engineering facility, turned out to be hooked up and displayed false commands. The overnight “cerebral eclipse” resulted in the discovery of the failure, which had nothing at all to do with an on-board system. Repeated checks confirmed that the on-board portion of the SSVP was in perfect order. When everything had been ascertained, signed over, signed off on, and reported to the chairman of the State Commission, I walked out of the stuffy MIK with a light heart, sat down in the cozy gazebo, and lit up a cigarette with great pleasure. Pravetskiy and Severin dropped by the gazebo for a “puff.” They had their own problems with the cosmonauts’ spacesuits and life-support equipment. “From your blissful expression I gather that you’ve caught the bobik that disrupted the State Commission for us,” said the always upbeat Severin, squinting cheerfully. 4 I told them what the situation was. 4. Beginning with the first and only ground-firing test in 1947 from Kapustin Yar, testers often used the words bob or bobik to describe a technical glitch requiring hours to identify and eliminate. 342
Sun City “In medicine this is called a ‘paired incident’, ” said Pravetskiy. “If a patient is brought in with an inexplicable diagnosis, don’t hurry. Wait. A second patient will certainly appear, and he will help form the diagnosis of the first.” As a result of such a seemingly stupid mistake in the testing procedure, we lost a day. But losses of time and rattling of nerves did not end there. An installer from our factory brigade, who was referred to as an “old hand,” was standing next to the open hatch of the instrumentation compartment during a leak test on the [Soyuz] spacecraft’s thermal control system. “Suddenly,” he said, “I heard a ‘pshh’ and saw a ‘cloudlet’ that smelled like a hot iron.” He called over a testing officer, and he supposedly also saw the “cloudlet.” If “pshh” and a “cloudlet” were signs of a loss of pressure integrity in the thermal control system (STR), then this meant a no-go for the launch. 5 They
started retesting. They raised and then released the pressure in the system several times. Then they called for a delay of 12 hours. There were no signs of leaks and no more “pshh.” On the night of 28 May, the haggard STR testers guaranteed pressure integrity and approval for handing over the vehicle for the irreversible fueling operations. But right then and there the issue arose: how were they to write out “pshh” and “cloudlet” in the logbook? What was this? And what if the STR didn’t come into play here at all? Perhaps it was some other instrument that went “pshh,” and the cloudlet was smoke from it? What if the nature of the “pshh” was electrical rather than pneumatic? Lead designer Yuriy Semyonov called for lead tester Boris Zelenshchikov to write a full explanation in the logbook of what had actually happened and what they spent time on. Zelenshchikov asked for a timeout to consult with lead military tester Vladimir Yaropolov. After a 30-minute private discussion, both testers announced: “If you demand guarantees from us disavowing the ‘pshh’ and ‘cloudlet’, we ask permission to repeat integrated test No. 1 in its entirety, which will take 12 hours.” If the integrated tests were repeated to this extent, then rollout to the launch site would be postponed from 3 June to 4 or 5 June and it would be impossible to launch on 6 June. Postponing the launch date would be a disaster! What’s more, we had just reported at the Kremlin that we were ready for launch on 6 June! Yet Semyonov, Feoktistov, and I convened a small review team at which we all voted in favor of repeating the integrated tests.
5. STR—Sistema termoregulirovaniya. 343 Rockets and People: The Moon Race Now we needed to quickly seek out Shabarov, who had driven out to Chelomey’s Site No. 81, where that day, 28 May, the launch of Babakin’s interplanetary automatic station Mars-3 was supposed to take place. Then we needed to find Kerimov. He was supposed to make the decision in the State Commission to postpone the launch. We decided to drive with Semyonov and Patrushev to Site No. 81. The Mars launch was scheduled for 2028 hours. We still had time; they had only just announced T minus 2 hours there. We needed to race 50 kilometers. In order to go through the checkpoint, we were supposed to get a gas mask. That was the fundamental difference between Chelomey’s and Korolev’s launch sites. 6 In the office of the “Martian” State Commission, old acquaintances— Glushko’s deputy, Viktor Radutnyy; Pilyugin’s deputy for flight tests, Georgiy Kirilyuk; Yuriy Trufanov from the ministry; firing range Chief Aleksandr Kurushin; and State Commission Chairman Aleksandr Maksimov (behind his back everyone called him “San Sanych”)—were busy with amicable prelaunch conversations. 7 Sergey Kryukov, our former chief planner, was now Babakin’s first deputy. (He didn’t work well with Mishin, but Babakin and Kryukov were very happy with one another). 8 We called Shabarov into another office and began to try to persuade him. He agreed to rerun the integrated tests, but we still needed to track down Kerimov. Kurushin wouldn’t let us go, and before the launch he invited our entire crew for a “soldier’s pilaf” on the occasion of his birthday. 9 I don’t know whether it was really soldier’s pilaf, but that particular evening we considered it magnificent. We admired the launch of the UR-500K from the observation post. The red disk of the Sun was just touching the horizon and dramatically illuminated the rocket as it lifted off with a roar. Separation of the stages took place like a color animation display against the background of the darkened sky. Without waiting for the report about the flight’s progress toward Mars, we dashed off to the airfield in pursuit of Kerimov. Both cosmonaut crews were arriving
6. The gas masks were needed because the Proton used toxic storable propellants, while Korolev’s rockets used nontoxic cryogenic propellants.
7. “San Sanych” is an informal shortening of the first name and patronymic “Aleksandr Aleksandrovich.”
8. Sergey Sergeyevich Kryukov (1918–2005), one of Korolev’s most senior deputies, was demoted in 1966 by Korolev’s successor, Vasiliy Mishin. In March 1970, disgruntled with the nature of work at TsKBEM, Kryukov left and joined the design bureau at the Lavochkin Factory as a deputy to Georgiy Babakin. After Babakin died in August 1971, Kryukov succeeded him as chief designer.
9. Kurushin had turned 49 on 14 March 1971. 344 Sun City there, and we guessed that Kerimov would have to meet them. As we raced through the dark town, our headlights blinding people strolling after the heat of the day, we arrived at the airfield checkpoint (KPP) and found out that the cosmonauts had already driven out to their quarters at Site No. 17. 10 We turned around and, slamming on the brakes at the intersections, rushed to find Kerimov at the cosmonauts’ base. The cosmonauts had just arrived and were happily talking amongst themselves while unloading their baggage with the trainers and physicians. After we had greeted one another they invited us to dinner, but we had to turn them down. Having telephoned around to all the attendants on duty, we determined that Kerimov had left to find us at Site No. 2. In the service building next to the MIK there was a communications room where flight progress reports poured in. We tore over to Site No. 2 in complete darkness, completing a trip of 170 kilometers. On the way, at the KPP of the “third ascent,” we ducked into the line of vehicles and, taking advantage of the delay, got out of the car. 11 Of all things, what a coincidence! A spark flared up in the dark sky, and moving rapidly against the background of stars toward the east, it extinguished before it reached the horizon. After looking at the time, I guessed: “We just saw the second firing of Block D. By the time we get back, in Yevpatoriya they’ll determine how much of an error Block D gave Mars-3.” The communications room was crammed full of “Martians” who had come here for communications. The first reports about that beginning of the seven-month flight to Mars had already arrived here from the Yevpatoriya and Moscow ballistics centers. According to the preliminary data, the deviation error was 1,250,000 kilometers, instead of the calculated figure of no more than 250,000 kilometers. “It’s a long trip, you’ll be able to correct it,” I reassured Kryukov. “To correct an error like that we’ll have to use up precious fuel,” fretted Kryukov.
12 We finally caught up with a disconcerted Kerimov in Patrushev’s office and began to explain the situation with the “pshh” and our proposal to rerun the integrated tests and postpone the Soyuz-11 launch for 24 hours. 10. KPP—Komandnyy punkt polka. 11. The “third ascent” was one of several observation points at the firing range. 12. Mars-3, launched at 1926 hours 30 seconds Moscow Time on 28 May 1971, became the first spacecraft to perform a soft landing on the surface of Mars when it landed on 2 December 1971. Unfortunately, transmissions from the lander ceased only seconds after it began transmit- ting its first image. 345
Rockets and People: The Moon Race “I can’t decide a matter like this at my own discretion. In the morning we will convene the State Commission. This evening, I mean, yesterday,” said Kerimov, after glancing at the clock, “I reported to Smirnov that we are con- firming the launch for 6 June. And you want me to go find him this morning, on a Saturday, at his home or at his dacha, apologize, and say that I was misled: launch on 6 June is impossible. After this, what kind of confidence can we have in the competence and reliability of our tests?” There was a long pause. Our spirits hit rock bottom, lost in the contempla- tion of our own inadequacy. And suddenly! Such miracles really do happen! During this tragic pause Boris Zelenshchikov burst into the office. Usually very calm, he explained with a slight stammer: “The ‘pshh’ happened again. We can reproduce it.” We rushed downstairs into the testing room. Despite the fact that it was 4 a.m., a large crowd of “well-wishers” huddled around the spacecraft vertical test stand. Sure enough! The “pshh” threatened to ruin the military testers’ Sunday, a day that their wives and children looked forward to perhaps even more than they themselves. Oleg Surguchev, one of the chief developers of the STR, stuttering slightly, explained: “ ‘Pshh’ is the sound of the compensator actuating, if excess pressure gets into it. This shouldn’t happen. But our operator made a mistake. We can repeat this mistake and reproduce the ‘pshh.’ We guarantee that everything is just fine and there is no need for any retesting.” Yaropolov commanded: “Integrated tests for the ‘pshh’ incident are can- celed. Send the spacecraft for fueling. Those who want to can go get some sleep. We’ll review the testers’ actions at the briefing.” [Chief of the firing range] Kurushin, who had approached us, invited Semyonov, Shabarov, and me to a symposium, which was being held for the first time at the firing range. “At eleven o’clock in Building Zero. I really hope you’ll be there. You still have time to get a little sleep.” It wasn’t until 5 a.m. that we finally managed to get to bed. But by 10 a.m., after grabbing a quick breakfast, Shabarov, Feoktistov, Semyonov, and I drove out to the symposium “On the Prospects for the Development of Space Technology and Missions of the Firing Range.” TsUKOS Deputy Chief Aleksandr Maksimov delivered a good introductory report. 13 13. TsUKOS had been renamed GUKOS in 1970. 346 Sun City I talked about the prospects for the modular construction of orbital sta- tions with respect to the three dimensions of launch vehicles: 7K-S transport vehicles inserted on R-7s, DOSes on the UR-500K, and the MKBS on the N-1. Sergey Kryukov, who had broken away from talks with Yevpatoriya regarding
Mars using automatic stations. Yevgeniy Vorobyev, chief of the Third Main Directorate of the Ministry of Health and the State Commission member concerned with piloted launches, talked about the biological problems of the human body during long-duration flights. Aleksandr Kurushin interrupted the discussion that was under way and invited everyone to lunch in honor of his promotion to the rank of lieutenant general. And that is where, between toasts, a real discussion about the fate of the firing range started. “They call us military installation No. such-and-such,” said Kurushin, “and actually, we are the nation’s central cosmodrome, where we don’t just conduct launches, we also perform large-scale scientific work. State-of-the-art information processing methods and test procedures are being developed; very valuable experience is being focused on ensuring the reliability and safety of rocket-space technology.” Aleksandr Maksimov, somewhat fired up by the preceding toasts, spoke out for the first time regarding the historical mistakes that were made during the design and construction of the firing range. “In order to be referred to as a cosmodrome rather than a firing range, it needs to have a large centralized base. Now there are many scattered engineering facilities. The firing range was constructed based on old ideas about the inevi- tability of a nuclear attack, and therefore, the sites are spread out 50 kilometers or more from one another. The entire main engineering and technical staff live with their families in a modern town, but every day they need to drive as much as 100 kilometers to work. This is a waste of precious time, and nothing justifies wastefulness now. Only the launch pads need to be spread out in the interests of safety. There should be a single base for the preparation of all the spacecraft and piloted vehicles. Zenit, Soyuz, DOS, Almaz, Venera, Mars, and Molniya, and perhaps the future MKBS, need to be tested and readied for launch at a single factory base. Such a factory should be located close to town. This will create conditions for recruiting and retaining a workforce. The town still needs to be improved so that people will want to live here. They created a genuine garden city in the middle of the desert in Uzbekistan called Navoi. 14 Are they better than us?” 14. Navoi is a town in southwestern Uzbekistan founded in 1958. 347
Rockets and People: The Moon Race No one contradicted Maksimov, and we raised our glasses to the construc- tion in Kazakhstan of a “Space Navoi,” which they called Leninsk. Someone began to wax lyrical and in conclusion proposed a toast to “Sun City” [Gorod solntsa], about which the utopians of the past century had dreamed. I proposed to my comrades from Site No. 2: “Kerimov has flown off to Kuybyshev to hand out awards to the Progress Factory and Kozlov. There’s no pressing business. No one will be looking for us, let’s spend the evening in town as if we were visiting it for the first time.” “Actually, we’ve only ever seen it from automobiles. We’ve never had a chance to take a nice stroll,” said Pravetskiy. Everyone accepted the proposal. Semyonov, Feoktistov, Pravetskiy, and I went out to the city of Leninsk—formerly Site No. 10. We didn’t have any particular plans, and we decided to start with a movie. The new Saturn Theater was a credit to any in Moscow. It had 1,100 comfortable seats with an excellent view, a large screen, and good acoustics. We were virtually the only grown men in the movie theater. Most of the movie-viewers were young women with children and teenagers. The French film La Grand Vadrouille [The Great Stroll], with famous stars of the French cinema Bourvil and Louis de Funès, was by no means a children’s film. 15 All around us was noise, laughter, and even howling children. A woman sitting near us explained that there was no one to leave children with at home. On their day off all the husbands go fishing, hunting, or to distant garden plots. These are young families, and there are no grandmoth- ers and grandfathers in the town. We realized this one more time when we went out for a “great stroll” around the town. Among the public decked out in their Sunday best we encountered officers that we knew, who had changed into civilian clothes. Many were with their wives and pushing baby carriages. “The only other place you might find such a concentration of beautiful, young, tanned women is at a southern resort,” noted Pravetskiy. “Yesterday at the symposium Vorobyev said that Leninsk had moved into first place in the nation in terms of birth rate per thousand inhabitants. The local doctors complain that the superb hospital needs to be rebuilt as a birth- ing center.” The Palace of the Pioneers was located next to the movie theater in the midst of a young and vivid green space, while closer to the Syrdarya River was a large sports stadium. In this same green area they had built an enclosed 15. La Grande Vadrouille (1966) was released in the English-speaking world under the title Don’t Look Now…We’re Being Shot At! 348
Sun City swimming pool with 50-meter lanes. Enjoying the rare opportunity to stroll unhurried, we went down to the bank of the Syrdarya. I tried to show my comrades the spot where we had gone swimming during the hot summer of 1957. Back then the Syrdarya was still deep and treacherous in places. “Over there, where that kid is standing up to his waist, there was a deep hole with a whirlpool. I pulled a targeting system specialist from the Arsenal Factory in Kiev out of there.” “What? He didn’t know how to swim?” “The thing is, it wasn’t a he, but a she. The person I saved was then a senior representative of Arsenal. During preparation for the first launch she dared to show up at the launch pad in trousers and calmly puttered around with the ground targeting instruments. When Korolev saw such irregularities, he ordered Voskresenskiy: ‘Get that broad off the launch site!’ Voskresenskiy retorted unflappably: ‘This young woman is the official representative of Arsenal. Without her we might mess something up with the targeting. Not long ago, Chertok risked his life pulling her out of the deep whirlpool, and you are order- ing me to run this specialist off of the launch pad. It’s an awkward situation.’ ” “ ‘Oh, God, you guys still find time to go swimming with girls! Well, good for you!’ ” “Voskresenskiy took advantage of the mood shift, and catching sight of me, shouted: ‘Chertok! You saved her in the Syrdarya, now save her here, introduce her to the Chief.’ Korolev had absolutely nothing against making the acquaintance of an attractive woman, and the incident was patched up.” My story amused my companions. Now on the site of the historic event there was a dock, and next to it a landscaped beach spread out. Despite the fact that the Syrdarya River had grown considerably shallower since the days of heroic 1957, 150 private boats were assigned to the dock. “And this is the Gagarin gazebo,” I showed my companions. “We had lunch here with the first corps of cosmonauts two days before Gagarin’s launch.” Behind the Gagarin gazebo in the shady park we could see the hotels and cottages for the visiting marshals, generals, and “various and sundry State Commission chairmen.” In May 1957, we couldn’t have guessed that a socialist Sun City would sprout up in place of the dusty, truck-battered roads, mud huts, and barracks on the bare steppe. The population of one hundred thousand in the closed city, in which there were no power outages, and no heating outages in the winter chill, and no problems with the supply of any necessities, labored solely for the sake of the Soviet Union’s rocket-space technology. In the years that followed, the city continued to improve, develop, and grow prettier. A terrible blow to my rosy remembrances of this town was something I saw 24 years later [in 1995] and then heard repeatedly from comrades who have visited it regularly in the past few years. The modern-day destroyers of 349
Rockets and People: The Moon Race the closed flourishing towns didn’t kill anyone or set anything on fire, like the Vandals who destroyed ancient Rome. The once flourishing town of Leninsk and the immense economy of the firing range at the end of the 20th century perished without the use of any weapons. 16 In order to destroy a modern town all it takes is to deprive it of electricity, fuel, and municipal authorities. Radical reforms condemned the community in which powerful production forces and cutting-edge science and culture were created simply because it was called “socialist.” Twenty-four years later, on just such a sunny, bright day, I once again was strolling around “Sun City.” But now, rather than being involved in prepara- tion for the latest launch and burdened by the work-related worries, I was a distinguished guest. The Il-18 loaded with Moscow guests arrived at the Krayniy Airport on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of NIIP-5—the rocket firing range known to the entire world as the Baykonur Cosmodrome. From the airfield we were taken to the hotel at our former home, Site No. 2. There was a rather brief official celebration time at the soldiers’ club right there at Site No. 2. There were many warm meetings between veterans who had flown in from various towns and with those still living here, in the “near From the author’s archives. Download 4.92 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: 
|