FIRST STEPS TOWARD SPACE - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

NUMBER 10 205
years to attract general attention to practical,
down-to-earth use of rockets, insisting that "this
very thing must command the attention of all those
interested in the field, rather than as yet unsubstantiated
fancies about lunar flights and record speeds
of non-existing airplanes." G
This quotation seems to conflict with the aura of
a great enthusiast and champion of cosmonautics
that history has given him. When properly interpreted,
however, the statement only reflects the
complexity of conditions under which the pioneers
in cosmonautics started their work. Alert to the
fact that fancy talk of space flights at that stage
would only compromise rocketry in the eyes of
those lacking foresight, Korolyev chose not to discuss
problems of cosmonautics but to put all his
efforts to developing it in practice. His attitude
towards the problem is explicitly stated in his
letter of 18 April 1936 to Perel'man:
I would only like that you, an expert in rocket engineering
and an author of excellent books, pay more attention not to
interplanetary problems but to the rocket engine itself, to
the stratospheric rocket, etc., since all this is closer, clearer,
and more urgent for us now. . . .
I would very much like to see your excellent books among
those which champion the cause of rocket-building and
which teach and struggle for its flowering. Should it be so,
the time will come for the first terrestrial ship to leave the
Earth. We probably will not live to see it, and are destined
to spend out life pottering about here below, yet successes
are also attainable on this earth J
Nevertheless, Korolyev did all he could to bring
that time closer. He was a real champion of the
cause. Workers at GIRD testify that he was as
enthusiastic as Tsander about the concept of interplanetary
flights. A lunar flight was his cherished
dream. The work program of GIRD provides a
most convincing evidence of his devotion to this
idea. It had three goals: first and most immediate—
practical proof of the feasibility of jet flight and
its expediency; second and basic—extensive research
for optimal solutions and for a substantial practical
output in terms of new flying machine; third and
long range—primary attention to those research
problems which would clearly contribute to making
space flight practical. These research problems included
use of liquid oxygen as the most promising
rocket fuel; the technological, medical, and biological
factors associated with manned flight; and,
finally, the use of metal fuel and development of
an air-breathing jet engine for acceleration in the
atmosphere.
The purposeful efforts of GIRD's Director S.P.
Korolyev, its brigade leaders F.A. Tsander, M.K.
Tikhonravov, YA. Pobedonostsev, and the whole
staff put the "GIRD plant" to work. Prototypes of
engines, rockets, experimental installation were
turned out in metal, field and flight tested, and
improved. Although work on the RP-1 rocket aircraft
was slowed down and then stalemated because
of difficulties connected mostly with the OR-2 engine
(designed as a liquid-fuel jet engine with
sophisticated controls) this did not affect the other
activities of GIRD, for the RP-1 was by that time
only one point of the challenging program, which
was otherwise successfully fulfilled. The first Soviet
liquid-fuel rocket, GIRD-09, was successfully
launched on 17 August 1933, followed by the liquidfuel
rocket GIRD-10 on 23 November of the same
year.
The Jet Propulsion Research Institute (RNII),
established in 1934 as the world's first state-owned
research facility for rocketry, was a product of the
government's support of promising branches of science
and technology, of the country's industrial
progress, and of the combined efforts of GIRD and
the former Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL), of
Leningrad, both of which became the nucleus of
the Institute. In the Institute, fairly large for that
time, S.P. Korolyev concentrated exclusively on
tasks of fundamental and applied nature, heading
research on rocket planes.
Following the experience of GIRD, Korolyev, in
his initial period in the Institute, saw a reliable
engine as the immediate goal. In his book he wrote:
Each researcher, each worker in this field must concentrate
on the motor. Other problems, complicated as they might
be, will undoubtedly find solution in the course of work on
models of flying objects and the objects themselves (which
certainly will fly, provided there is a reliable engine) .8
Korolyev himself did not become a designer of
rocket engines, however, and still continued research
on rocket-propelled vehicles, concentrating
on complex problems. Such an attitude is explained
by the fact that by 1936-37 the RNII had developed
rocket engines meeting existing requirements,
among them the ORM-65 nitric-acid liquid-fuel jet
engine with a thrust of 150 kg, and the 12/K oxygen
liquid-fuel jet engine with thrust of 300 kg and
adequate operational time. The engine problem
was therefore less acute. Korolyev told his colleagues
that problems of flight dynamics and stability were