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Rockets and People
From the author’s archives.
Engineers from the special equipment department of Factory No. 293. Standing: third from right B.
Chertok—department chief. Moscow. Khimki, 1943.
preferred to live at work using a folding cot.With great difficulty we managed—
semi-legally—to settle temporarily in separate rooms on Novoslobodskaya Street.
Our four-year-old son, Valentin, was once again transferred to the care of his
grandmother in Udelnaya.
Katya became involved in the feverish activity of the “external expeditions”
department, which is what we called the team that traveled out to frontline aviation
units. Father went to work at our factory as a transport department shipping
clerk. He quickly lost his strength, however. He became ill and died on 19 March,
eight days before the anniversary of my mother’s death.
After the death of Bakhchivandzhi, our patron Bolkhovitinov returned to
Khimki from Bilimbay. Having familiarized himself with my activity in the field
of combat aviation, he said that the work was useful, but it wasn’t what we needed.
He repeated the parting request he had made when he sent me off to Moscow.
“First, set up work on guiding the interceptor toward the enemy. Second, we must
have the most state-of-the-art measurement equipment for the new test-firing
stands for the liquid-propellant rocket engine that we will build here soon. As far
as the aircraft is concerned, we will redo it.We will increase the engine’s thrust. It’s
time to do away with the high-pressure tanks and return to the turbopump feed
engine. Isayev should be getting back in touch with Glushko and use his Kazan
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