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Engine Specialists
This incident was characteristic both for Glushko, who sometimes exhibited
incomprehensible obstinacy and did not tolerate suggestions if he had set a certain
goal for himself, and for List, who had worked at the Kazan sharashka under
Glushko’s authority. List now dreamed of breaking free from him, but Glushko was
still his boss and would not let him go. Later, under the pretext of checking and
revising the technical documentation on a propulsion unit, List nevertheless did
break free from Glushko’s daily surveillance. I set up a workstation for him at the
Institute RABE, and here he serenely worked until the end of our activity in
Germany. But upon his return to Moscow, List nevertheless returned to Glushko
and worked in his Energomash design bureau, OKB-456, until he retired. 5
Glushko and List did not stay long in Bleicherode. Glushko complained that
Isayev had left for Moscow without waiting for him.
“The thing is, I was given great authority, and I wanted to enlist all of the
engine specialists for prospective developments in this field.” With the hint of a
smile he added,“I was appointed chief of the engine section of a special governmental
commission.”
When we sent Glushko and List off to their hotel to rest until their trip to
Lehesten, Pilyugin muttered, “So over in Moscow they are setting up special
governmental commissions that will be boasting about our work, and we are going
to start working for some other chief of the control section. And if it weren’t for
us, this special commission wouldn’t even have anything to do.”
We lit up our favorite Kazbek cigarettes and moved on to pressing business.
When Glushko and his people arrived in Lehesten, the work there got a new
boost. The large amount of experimental material for the optimization of the
engines and their series testing, plus the statistical data on thrust, temperature, and
flow rate parameters, was extremely valuable for our engine specialists. In addition
to the combustion chambers that had been stored in Lehesten itself, they found
fifty-eight railroad cars in the surrounding area containing A-4 combustion chambers,
five railroad cars carrying A-4 launchers and transporters, and nine liquid
oxygen transport tanks. This wealth of equipment gave the engine specialists
tremendous advantages over specialists in other fields, including control specialists
such as ourselves.
5. Glushko’s design bureau, OKB-456, was renamed KB Energomash in 1966.
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