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Rockets and People
grandiose complexes of the engineering and launch sites of the cosmodromes, were
all primarily the contribution of the Ministry of Defense builders.
Today, our capital and other large cities are filled with advertisements about
the construction and sale of luxury homes for the modern elite of Russia. For
“only” $1 million you can acquire a very nice apartment. It would be useful for
the modern slanderers of our history to remember that, during the period from
1966 through 1990, the rocket-space industry alone built more than 14 million
square meters of residential housing. In terms of modern housing prices that is
$1.5 trillion! In addition, MOM alone built schools for the general public to
accommodate 59,300 pupils, kindergartens to accommodate 74,000 children,
hospitals with 8,550 beds, polyclinics accommodating 19,100 visits per shift,
professional institutes accommodating 14,360 students, clubs and cultural centers
accommodating 7,400 individuals, sport complexes, swimming pools, dispensaries,
pioneer camps, recreational areas, and holiday retreats. Practically all of this
was accessible to hundreds of thousands of individuals, creating the necessary
psychological frame of mind for the field of cosmonautics and the peoples’ belief
in tomorrow.
In light of these facts, one must say that Afanasyev was a unique minister. He,
his deputies, and the directors of the allied ministries bore personal responsibility
for a broad range of scientific, technological, political, and social issues that were
critical to the prestige, security, and might of the State.Afanasyev and his deputies
worked in close contact with many of the scientific institutions of the Academy of
Sciences.Virtually every fundamental decision concerning cosmonautics was made
with the participation of the President of the Academy of Sciences.
the experience of working in rocket-space technology shows that success
occurs where and when each individual anywhere in the enormous and complex
system always performs his or her duty. In this sense, it is difficult for history to
select leaders in politics, economics, and science.
It would be a mistake to think that statesmen, who possessed an elevated sense
of responsibility and who were personally interested in the successes of cosmonautics,
always made the optimal decisions. An example of this is the history of our
N1-L3 program—the manned expedition to the Moon. The lunar program
required the expenditure of great resources and the concentration of design and
production capacities under a single painstakingly selected project. Khrushchev
personally tried to reconcile the technical disagreements between Chief Designers
Korolev and Glushko. He did not succeed. Moreover, he supported Chelomey’s
alternative proposals. Khrushchev, and after him Brezhnev, as the Secretaries of the
Central Committee; Ustinov, who was responsible for rocket-space technology;
Minister Afanasyev; the Ministers of Defense; and all the others comprising the
“Big Nine” of the military-industrial complex were required to obtain the
resources for achieving both military-space “strategic parity” and the peaceful
lunar program from a single state budgetary pocket.
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