In 2019, I made a stream with the reconstruction of Gagarin's flight in the Orbiter simulator, adding the film "First Orbit", archival audio recordings of Gagarin's talks and my explanations of how the equipment worked and what dangerous situations Yuri Alekseevich got into during his historic flight. If you want to know how the Vostok-1 flight went, this is a very good, visual option.
And this time I turned to alternative history. What could the accident of Gagarin's ship look like? Could the USA overtake the USSR and launch the first cosmonaut?
Under the cut is an abbreviated text retelling of the stream.
According to calculations, the reliability of the Vostok spacecraft made it possible to successfully complete the flight with a probability of 0.875, and the probability of a safe return of the cosmonaut was 0.94. But the experience of previous flights gave completely different numbers. In only three of the seven test flights, the program was fully and successfully completed, so it turned out that the probability of success for Gagarin was 42%. But it is worth noting that if an astronaut were on board in four unsuccessful tests, he would most likely be able to safely return to Earth.
The Vostok spacecraft was equipped with an emergency rescue system, which ensured the safe return of the cosmonaut over almost the entire range from launch to the end of the third stage of the launch vehicle. From the start to 40 seconds of flight, in the event of an accident, the ship's hatch would be thrown, and the astronaut would be ejected in his seat. In fact, the system that is used during a regular return from orbit would be triggered. But in the first seconds of the flight, the height for opening the parachute might not have been enough, so a net was pulled from the side of the hatch at the launch complex. It slightly increased the chances of salvation, but the risk of a bailout in the first seconds would be great.
A. Leonov, A. Sokolov, Let's Go! Foreground grid
From 40 to 150 seconds of flight, in the event of an accident on the rocket, an emergency engine shutdown command would pass, and the cosmonaut would catapult upon reaching an altitude of 7 km, as in a normal landing. From 150 to 700 seconds, the descent vehicle would separate from the rocket and make a normal landing. And from 700 to 730 seconds, when the trajectory was practically approaching the orbital, and many minutes could pass before entering the dense layers of the atmosphere, the ship (the descent vehicle and the aggregate compartment) would be separated entirely.
It is widely known that three messages were prepared for announcement by radio: in case of the death of an astronaut, in case of an emergency landing, with a request to the states of the world to provide assistance in the search and a message about a successful flight. But, given the secrecy that surrounded the Soviet cosmonautics, there is a nonzero probability that the message about the death of the astronaut would have sounded only if the catastrophe had already happened in space, and it could not have been hidden in any way. If Gagarin had died in the first seconds of the flight, the general public could have learned about this only in the 80s, as we learned about the death of Valentin Bondarenko in the pressure chamber on March 23, 1961.
When would the next flight take place? It is impossible to say for certain, it would depend on the nature of the accident, how long it would take to eliminate it. In our reality, "Vostok-2" with Titov flew only in August, but in our history there was nowhere to rush. But in an alternative history, a new attempt could take place at the end of April / May.
Gagarin, Titov and Nelyubov on Red Square
Who would fly next? Back in January 1961, the state commission determined the order of the flight of cosmonauts: Gagarin, Titov, Nelyubov, Nikolaev, Bykovsky, Popovich. On April 12, they managed to sew spacesuits only for the first three, so the next one, as in our reality, would most likely be German Titov, with an understudy Grigory Nelyubov.
Could the USA overtake the USSR and launch the first man into orbit? The only suitable launch vehicle was the SM-65 Atlas ICBM. But the Americans had a huge number of technical problems with it - both during military trials like an ICBM, or during space launches, the Atlas constantly suffered accidents. Let's consider the events in general chronology:
- USA - September 9, 1959 - Big Joe 1 - Bad luck (mostly). The first suborbital launch to test the thermal protection of the Mercury spacecraft. The heat protection and splashdown of the ship were successfully worked out, but the rocket failed - the tail compartment did not separate, so the trajectory turned out to be lower, and the rocket also caught up with the ship after separation, and it was necessary to separate it with additional commands from the ground. As you can see, the United States was the first to start testing.
- — 15 1960 — «-4» — . . , , , . , .
- — 28 1960 — . - 23 -. .
- — 29 1960 — Mercury-Atlas 1 — . - 58 .
- — 19 1960 — «-5», . .
- — 1 1960 — . - . - , .
- — 22 1960 — «-6», . - , .
- — 21 1961 — Mercury-Atlas 2 — . .
- — 9 1961 — «-9», . .
- — 25 1961 — «-10», . -.
- — 12 1961 — «-1», . .
- — 25 1961 — Mercury-Atlas 3 — . 20 , .
- — 6 1961 — «-2», . .
- — 13 1961 — Mercury-Atlas 4, . « ». 5 14 «» NASA .
- — 29 1961 — Mercury-Atlas 5, . .
- — 20 1962 — Mercury-Atlas 6, . .
In order for the United States to have time to send a man into orbit before the USSR, serious intervention in history is required. But with suborbital flights, the situation is somewhat more interesting. They used a Redstone ballistic missile, much more streamlined and reliable (after all, it was its modification that launched the first American satellite into orbit).
- USSR - May 15, 1960 - Sputnik-4 - failure. An unmanned spacecraft without thermal protection was successfully launched into orbit. But for the construction of the landing orientation, contrary to the available information, we chose the main orientation system, the infrared vertical and the gyro-orbitant. But the motor in the infrared vertical broke, the ship issued a pulse in a random direction and went into a higher orbit.
- — 28 1960 — . - 23 -. .
- — 19 1960 — «-5», . .
- — 21 1960 — Mercury-Redstone 1, . - .
- — 1 1960 — . - . - , .
- — 19 1960 — Mercury-Redstone 1, .
- — 22 1960 — «-6», . - , .
- — 31 1961 — Mercury-Redstone 2, (). , . - , , . - . , 17 «».
- — 9 1961 — «-9», . .
- — 24 1961 — Mercury-Redstone BD, . - .
- — 25 1961 — «-10», . -.
- — 12 1961 — «-1», . .
- — 5 1961 — Mercury-Redstone 3, . , 100 ( ).
If it were not for the problems with the Mercury-Redstone 2 rocket, the first astronaut could have gone on a flight in March, overtaking Gagarin. The result would be a funny situation of the battle of propagandists - the USA would have the first person above 100 km, and the USSR would have the first person in orbit. Even in our reality, by American standards, an astronaut is a person who has climbed over 50 miles. And in the Russian classification, one becomes an astronaut only after entering orbit. How would such a situation change subsequent events? It is difficult to say, but, for example, the chance of the start of the American lunar program is somewhat reduced. Kennedy began it in a situation when the United States was losing the space race on all fronts - the first satellite, the first spacecraft to hit the Moon, the first photo of the far side of the Moon, the first man in orbit - all of this was Soviet.
Well, in our reality, it turned out to be a wonderful spring holiday of science, knowledge and study of the unknown. Happy Cosmonautics Day!