One Small Step by David Whitehouse

Author:David Whitehouse [Whitehouse, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2013-08-16T04:00:00+00:00

The Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers issued a new decree on January 8, 1969, “On the Work Plans for Research of the Moon, Venus, and Mars by Automatic Stations.” Soon they would state in public that the USSR never wanted to go to the Moon at all. But behind the scenes it was different.

“We’re actually going to fly something like this?”

DANGEROUS AND UNPLEASANT MISSIONS

SOYUZ 4, SOYUZ 5 AND APOLLO 9

1969

Despite the bravery of the Soviet cosmonauts, in 1969 the Soyuz program, which included space docking and the transfer of crew from one craft to another, was overshadowed by the efforts of the American Apollo flights—but not before some near disasters had narrowly been averted and concerns had been voiced about the quality of the equipment being used. The year also saw the tragic death of a space legend.

On January 13, 1969, Vladimir Shatalov boarded the next Soyuz to be launched, Soyuz 4. Nine minutes prior to liftoff, the countdown was abruptly halted due to a failure in a hydraulic system and the launch was postponed 24 hours. It was another freezing day when launch operations began again. This time, there were no problems. Lt Colonel Vladimir Shatalov, 41 years old at the time, lifted off at 10:32 a.m. Moscow Time. In space, he manually fired the main engine of Soyuz 4 on the fifth orbit to change his orbital parameters to 129 by 147 miles (207 by 237 km), to await the vehicle with which he would rendezvous.

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