The political nature of the U.S.-Soviet Space Race of the 1960s is probably no better illustrated than by the short-lived Voskhod program. Two flights in what amounted to re-tooled Vostok capsules, both designed more for space spectaculars and “firsts” that would beat the Americans than for anything else.
The six flights of the Vostok series had notched several significant achievements. Yuri Gagarin’s first flight was orbital, while Americans Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom’s 15-minute flights were both just ballistic—up and down like artillery shells. Just two weeks after Grissom’s flight, Gherman Titov rode Vostok 2 into orbit for more than a day. In August 1962, after John Glenn’s and Scott Carpenter’s identical 3-orbit missions, the Soviets launched Andriyan Nikolayev and Pavel Popovich on successive days. Two crewed spacecraft in orbit at the same time! Gordon Cooper’s final Mercury flight was the longest of the series at about a day and a half in May 1963. A month later Valery Bykovsky stayed in orbit for almost five days in Vostok 5. And during the almost two year lag in American space missions while they geared up for the Gemini program, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in space.
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All six Vostok cosmonauts. L to R: Popovich, Gagarin, Tereshkova, Nikolayev, Bykovsky, Titov.
The Soviets were clearly ahead.
But in contrast to a civilian agency with a single goal—NASA and a moon landing—the Soviet program had competing organizations, was at least nominally a branch of the military, and at this point its missions were sometimes dictated by the whims of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. The individual cosmonauts were every bit as brave as their American counterparts. Insufficient attention to details in the rush to beat their competitors would cost both Soviet and American space pioneers their lives. But those deaths would come later. It’s more luck than anything that they did not come in the Voskhod program.
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These images are to scale, showing the first three crewed spacecraft. Do the Vostok and Voskhod spacecraft look similar to you? Here are the differences.
- In order to provide space for two or even three crew members, the ejection seat was removed and the seats inserted at a 90° angle to their position in Vostok.
- The instrument panels remained in the same location, so the cosmonauts had to turn their heads in order to read them.
- Without any ejection seats, the cosmonauts would land with the spacecraft. A second main parachute was added, as were braking rockets that would fire just before touchdown.,
- To save mass and volume, the cosmonauts would not wear any space suits. They were entirely dependent on the life support systems inside the spacecraft. (Exception for Voskhod 2; see below.)
- Scientific and medical experiments, as well as portions of the life support system that would have allowed for longer flights were removed for the same reasons. This meant missions could last no longer than two days.
- An escape system that would have pulled the cosmonauts to safety in the event of a booster failure wasn’t developed in time. Vostok had such a system.
- The two most visible additions are atop the spherical re-entry module and to its side. A backup solid propellant rocket engine now could be used to de-orbit the heavier craft, and for Voskhod 2 only, an inflatable airlock was added to the side.
Do you get the impression that these flights had more to do with propaganda than anything? Well, it’s a widely shared opinion, even among the Soviet cosmonauts who flew those missions.
Voskhod 1 (October 1964) crammed three cosmonauts in for the first multi-crewed mission. And Voskhod 2 (March 1965) featured the first spacewalk. Both of these missions were designed to beat the Americans in their two-person Gemini spacecraft, and Ed White in his publicly scheduled venture outside the cabin.
The Voskhod capsule had been designed for two persons; Nikita Khrushchev (soon to be deposed Soviet leader) insisted that there be three when he learned the Gemini spacecraft would seat two and the upcoming Apollo would carry three. To manage this, spacesuits were left behind. Even a small air leak would prove fatal. There was fierce jockeying between the military and civilian factions involved in space flight over crew selection. In short, despite the undoubted publicity coup, it was considered a circus—and a dangerous one—by those in the know. It is still considered one of the riskiest space flights ever.
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In this interior shot of the Voskhod 1 capsule, you may not even be able to see the third couch at the back. But note how, rather than in front of the cosmonaut, the instrument panel is at a 90° angle.
The Gemini 4 mission launched in June 1965, and it had been announced long before then that Ed White would carry out America’s first “space walk” floating free of the spacecraft while still tethered to it. The inflatable airlock on the Voskhod 2 capsule allowed Alexei Leonov to suit up, enter the airlock, depressurize it, and exit the spacecraft for 12 minutes in March, three months before White.
This mission was plagued with difficulties. This is an excellent account from Leonov himself (who is probably everyone’s favorite cosmonaut of that era and would have been the first man on the moon had the Soviet program succeeded in that goal) about his first mission.
The troubles of the Soviet program due to political interference were not over. But that’s a story for another day.
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