WEBVTT - July 22, 1969 / The Eagle and The Bear 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:02.800 Nine Days in July is a production of I Heart 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:06.920 Radio and trade Craft Studios in association with High five Content. 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:13.520 April twenty third, nineteen sixty seven, cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhailovitch Camrav 0:00:13.800 --> 0:00:16.320 has been in space for more than twenty four hours. 0:00:16.800 --> 0:00:19.560 It has been the longest day of his life. No 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:21.639 sooner had he reached shore of it than one of 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:25.800 his spacecraft's solar arrays failed to properly deploy. His ship 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:29.520 is now dangerously low on power. The partially deployed panel 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:33.960 also obscured some critical navigation equipment, meaning Camrav is finding 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:37.960 it nearly impossible to steer. To make matters worse, his 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:42.400 communications equipment is not functioning properly. His spacecraft is, as 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:45.320 one Russian official will later call it, a piece of shit. 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.320 The thirty seven year old Colonel Camrav had been chosen 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.120 as the cosmonaut to ride aboard so Use, one the 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:55.880 Soviet's newest and most advanced spacecraft designed as part of 0:00:55.920 --> 0:00:59.520 their effort to beat the Americans to the Moon. Urigageron, 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:02.680 the first man in space, and Camarad's best friend, was 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.399 chosen as his backup. As the launch day approached, it 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.560 was clear to Camrav and Gagaron that the spacecraft was 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.560 not yet ready. The untested space vehicle was shodily constructed, 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.959 and the engineering team identified more than two hundred serious 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:21.759 structural problems, including the parachutes, which repeatedly failed to deploy correctly. 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:26.080 The three previous unmanned soy U's test flights had all failed. 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.560 Camarav and Gagaron drafted a letter outlining their concerns and 0:01:30.640 --> 0:01:33.480 asking that the mission be postponed until the issues could 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.360 be properly addressed, but it was quickly buried. The powers 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:40.320 that be wanted a bold triumph to celebrate the fiftieth 0:01:40.360 --> 0:01:44.640 anniversary of the Communist Revolution, the mission would go forward. 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:48.560 Before he departed, Comrade told a colleague that he was 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.080 not going to make it back from this flight. When 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:53.920 asked why he did not simply refuse the mission, Comrof 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:56.760 said that if he did, Gagaron would go and die 0:01:56.840 --> 0:01:59.120 in his place, and he could not do that to 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:03.560 his best friend. The previous morning, as Camrav waited inside 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.360 his Soyuz capsule conducting his pre flight checks, several witnesses 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.720 claimed that Gagaron arrived at the launchpad demanding to take 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.200 his friend's place, but Gagarin was a national hero, and 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:16.320 there was no way that was ever going to happen. 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.079 After more than a day in orbit, wrestling with malfunction 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:24.280 after malfunction, Soviet ground control orders Camrav to cut his 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:29.080 mission short and return to Earth. After eighteen agonizing orbits, 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:33.400 Camarad fires his retrorockets and heads for home. After making 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.959 it safely through the Earth's supper atmosphere and with the 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.600 Russian countryside opening up beneath him, Camarav deploys his pear 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:45.000 shutes to slow his descent, but nothing happens. The shoot deploys, 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.919 but it doesn't inflate. Kamrav has a manually activated reserve 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:52.120 shoot for just this sort of emergency. He yanks at loose, 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.440 but it instantly becomes tangled with the trailing primary shooting, 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:59.280 Traveling at nearly ninety miles per hour, so use one 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.720 smashes into the Russian steps like a three ton meteorite. 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.639 Rescue helicopter finds the wreckage by following a massive tower 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.880 of black smoke. The capsule is burning so hot that 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:18.120 the metal has gone molted. What's left of Camrath looks 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.760 like a massive marshmallow burned to a misshapen cinder over 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:25.799 a campfire. Before his departure, he stipulated that if anything 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.520 should happen to him, his funeral would be open casket, 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.400 so that the Soviet leadership would be unable to hide 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:34.880 what they had done. Vladimir Conrad is the first person 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:40.880 to die in the Race for space. This is Apollo 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:45.120 control of one, seven hours, thirty nine minutes. Flight surgeon 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:52.800 reports that all three crewmen now are awake. Good morning eleven, 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.560 and about twenty four seconds from now, the spacecraft will 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:01.640 pass the imaginary line into the Earth's sphere of influence. 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.600 Mark you're leaving the learned there of influence over. This 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:08.120 is the point that the Earth's gravity becomes stronger than 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:11.240 that of the Moon and begins tugging our astronauts homeward. 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:15.480 At the time the spacecraft across to the Earth's sphere 0:04:15.480 --> 0:04:20.479 of influence Pollow eleven was about one seventy four thousand 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:25.400 nautical miles from Earth. At the present time, the spacecraft 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:28.240 is traveling at a speed of three thousand, nine hundred 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:32.320 ninety four per second with respect to the Earth. If 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.240 you're not busy now, I can read you up the 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:39.960 morning news. A follow eleven and still dominates the news 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:43.760 around the world. Only four and a commun China and 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.839 North Korea, North Vietnam in Albania have not yet informed 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:50.040 their citizens of your flight and landing on the Moon. 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:53.520 Can you imagine not knowing that such an astonishing feet 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:57.239 took place, one of the greatest accomplishments in human history, 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.200 and hundreds of millions of people where didn't I had 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:03.240 the opportunity to celebrate the accomplishment with the rest of 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.520 the planet. Tonight, President Nix and the scheduled to watch 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:10.120 the All Star Baseball game in Kington. After the game, 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.080 he will depart for the Pacific Recovery Area and flying 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.400 to the Hornet in time to witness your flashdown. The 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.279 USS Hornet is the aircraft carrier in charge of recovering 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.800 Apollo eleven when it splashes down in two and a 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.599 half more days. McCandless has one last bit of news. 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.880 Lunar fifteen is believed to have cracked into the state 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:32.520 of crisis yesterday, after all being the Moon fifty two times. 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.599 When Apollo eleven reached the Moon three days ago, the 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.560 Russians were already there, or at least one of their 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:44.200 spacecraft was Luna fifteen was launched just days before Apollo 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:49.640 eleven launch, so you had essentially in July nine two 0:05:49.800 --> 0:05:53.560 missions to the Moon. That's awesome, Siddiki. I'm a professor 0:05:53.760 --> 0:05:56.320 of history at Fordam University in New York. I reade 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.400 quite a bit about the history of space exploration, including 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:02.400 the Russians side of things. The Americans sent Neil Buzz 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.760 and Michael Apollo eleven, and the Russians, in a last 0:06:05.880 --> 0:06:09.400 ditch effort to win the space race, launched Lunar fifteen, 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.240 which was essentially designed to go to the Moon. Going 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:14.680 to its orbit, the lander was supposed to come down, 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:18.320 scoop up some soil, and lift off and fly directly 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.960 back to the Earth, so they would bring back lunar 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.919 soil before Apollo leven, showing the world that you know, 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:26.880 you guys wasted all this money to lend guys on 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:28.800 the Moon, but we got it back, you know, cheaper 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:36.400 and safer. That's not what happened. Bernard Level at General 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.720 Blank Observatory said that Lunar fifteen hit the surface of 0:06:39.800 --> 0:06:43.360 the Moon at a speed of about three as it 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:48.080 was descending to the Moon. It essentially crashed into a mountain. 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:52.880 It's July nineteen sixty nine, day seven of the Apollo 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:56.200 eleven mission. It's time to talk about the space race. 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.880 That's a term we're all familiar with, but for most Americans, 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.160 the only part of the space race they really know 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.000 is who crossed the finish line first. But that means 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.680 that everything that led up to that moment is overlooked. 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:13.400 After all, a race presupposes more than one competitor. Today, 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:15.920 we are going to take a look at what launched 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.720 the space race and some of the major milestones that 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.760 built up to the moon landing. And we'll be paying 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.600 special attention to the Russian side, because the USSR beat 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.600 America to just about every significant first in space milestone 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:32.640 there is. But to really understand where all this starts, 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.160 we have to go back to the end of World 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:38.040 War Two. Even though the Soviets have been our allies 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:40.600 during World War Two, it becomes quickly apparently the Soviets 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:42.840 keeps saying, you know, they're going to crush the West 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.600 and communism will rule in the future, and the U 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:49.560 s s, oh, you want that's NASA historian Bill Berry. 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:52.320 The Cold War happens after the end of World War Two, 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:56.120 largely because nuclear weapons appearing, and people realize that World 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:57.720 War two is bad enough to start with, but then 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:01.600 it ends with with these city killer weapons, and people 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:04.040 are scared it. It's like, we can't afford to have 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:06.840 another war like this again. It's just too destructive. So 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:11.320 lines get drawn, armies are built on both sides with 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:13.840 you know, nuclear weapons pointed at each other, but nobody 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:16.880 wants to actually engage in a fight. The Communist Party 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.800 of the United States is far better organized and where 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:23.560 the next is in occupied countries prior to their capitulation, 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:28.000 their goal is the overthrow of our government. But we're 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:31.240 getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Germany had developed a 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:34.280 terrifying new weapon in the final days of World War Two, 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:38.120 the V two, or Vengeance Weapons. The V two was 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:42.679 the world's first long range, supersonic guided ballistic missile. At 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:46.360 the end of World War Two, the Allies decided, we 0:08:46.400 --> 0:08:47.719 need to go find out what the heck they were 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:50.600 doing and make sure this technology gets gets collected for us, 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.080 because it's clear at the end of the war with 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.440 nuclear weapons that if you get surprised in warfare after 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.160 World War Two, it's likely to be over. You know, 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:01.120 if somebody launches bunch of nuclear weapons and you get 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:04.400 caught by surprise. That's it. One of the men responsible 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:07.240 for the creation of the V two was Werner von Braun. 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.000 He came from an aristocratic German family. He was what 0:09:11.040 --> 0:09:13.760 we would today called maybe a space enthusiast. From a 0:09:13.840 --> 0:09:16.880 young age, he was willianto cosmic things. Um he gets 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:20.840 involved in an amateur rocketry group. He realizes that the 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:22.840 only way he's going to get money to build rockets 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:25.200 is to work with the German military. About the time 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.000 he does that, the Nazi Party takes over. They see 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:31.120 that this is a very bright young guy, and he 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.560 good moves upward through their rocket program until he's heading 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.440 the V two design projects. He wants to go to space, 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.320 but he's now building rockets for this regime. Hitler directed 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.760 thousands of V two attacks against targets in Belgium, France, 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.200 the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. London was among the 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:52.160 city's most heavily bombed, killing more than twenty people and 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.800 injuring three times that amount. In all, it is estimated 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:59.040 that nine thousand civilians and military personnel were killed in 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:03.160 V two attacks too. Another holy indiscriminate weapon. It's a 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.320 truly typical effort of the immortally injured Nazi beast to 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:10.679 attempt to tear down everything as he goes under. And 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.439 actually actually more people died building V two rockets than 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.000 died in the attacks with the V two rockets. Some 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:21.280 twelve thousand concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers perished building 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.120 the V two and von Braun clearly knew about this stuff. 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.040 He knew what he wanted to do, which was to 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.360 get to space, and I think he made compromises along 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:33.600 the way to achieve that goal. I think, ultimately I 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.560 would say he's an opportunist in the sense that he 0:10:36.640 --> 0:10:39.160 was willing to compromise in order to achieve his dream 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.319 of space, and I think to the end of his 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:45.560 days he probably believed that his compromises were worth it. 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:49.400 The military had a list of German scientists and engineers 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:52.400 that they wanted to interrogate, and Verne von Braun was 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:55.240 at the top of that list. When it was clear 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.920 that Germany was about to fall, von Braun, in more 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.679 than one hundred of his V two colleagues sought out 0:11:00.679 --> 0:11:04.559 American forces and surrendered. They wanted to avoid falling into 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:06.720 the hands of the Soviet Army, which was less than 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:10.200 one hundred miles away. They provided the Americans with rocket 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:14.079 blueprints and many of the missiles themselves generalize and hower 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:18.120 and farms. May that the forces of German they have surrendered. 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:23.080 The flags of freedom fly all over Europe. The Nazis 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:26.560 surrendered late in April of nineteen forty, the same month 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.880 that Franklin Delano Roosevelt died and Harry Truman took over 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.360 in the Oval Office. The War Department secretly smuggled von 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.240 Braun and more than three hundred rail cars of his 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.439 hardware out of Germany. They didn't even tell the new 0:11:39.480 --> 0:11:42.440 president what they were doing. Somebody in the US government 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.120 decides that they're The connections of these people to the 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:47.679 Nazi Party in Germany is not something we really want 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:50.040 to talk about anymore, because they're kind of useful to us, 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.560 and we want to have them stay here and help 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:54.959 with our missile programs, and so they go to work 0:11:55.000 --> 0:11:58.040 for the U. S. Army. This was Operation paper Clip, 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.560 a covert American program to use the Nazis knowledge and 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.400 know how to design weapons for the United States. The OSS, 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.760 which is the predecessor to the CIA. They basically whitewashed 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:10.800 a lot of the personal records as a lot of 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.960 these engineers, and some of whom were rather dubious. The 0:12:14.000 --> 0:12:17.320 Germans ended up at Fort Bliss in Texas. For the 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:19.599 first several years, they were not allowed to leave the 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:23.160 base without a military escort. They referred to themselves as 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:27.520 p o p s Prisoners of peace. Used to being coddled, 0:12:27.800 --> 0:12:30.520 von Braun now had to answer to far younger, far 0:12:30.600 --> 0:12:34.800 less experienced Army officers. But what truly rankled him was 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.040 the fact that the Army was only interested in his 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.600 missile technology and continually dismissed every proposal he put forward 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.800 for rockets designed for space. Launching human beings into the 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:51.000 cosmos was still his overwriting ambition. When the Korean War 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.760 broke out in nineteen fifty, von Braun and his team 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:57.040 were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama. He was put in charge 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.720 of the Army's rocket development team, designing a Erica's first 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:05.280 large ballistic missile, the red Stone. Finally, he saw a 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.480 way to begin setting the stage for lift vehicles capable 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:13.400 of handling massive payloads. The stuff of popular science fiction 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:24.040 suddenly felt within Arm's reach. This is a follow Control 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.920 at one eight hours, fifty eight minutes. At the present 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.040 time of follow eleven has one seventy two thousand, six 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:35.200 hundred fifty four nautical miles from the Earth, traveling at 0:13:35.200 --> 0:13:38.880 a speed of four thousand seventeen ft per second. Given 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.320 that there is little to do in the spacecraft, mission 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.040 Control decides it's the perfect time to pick Neil and 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:48.719 Buzz's brains about some nagging Moon questions. Under sixty four 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:52.079 thousand dollars, we're still trying to work out the location 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.320 of your landing site. We think it is located on 0:13:55.600 --> 0:14:00.360 l am To chart at Juliett Desmal five and seven 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.240 point eight. For the twenty one hours that the Eagle 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:05.680 was on the Moon, no one knew where they were. 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.720 Remember that they overshot their landing site by four miles 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.080 and had to set down at the first available opening 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.400 given their fuel state. While he was in orbit, Michael 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.600 had been tasked to look for his colleagues with each 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.200 pass he made over the Sea of Tranquility, but he 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.960 was never able to find them. Bruce McCandless and the 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:25.520 rest of Mission Control is still trying to figure out 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:30.160 where humanity's first lunar footprints are the position which I 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:35.680 just gave you is plightly. What of West Crater? I 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:37.760 think that it's flagly that that might have been West 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:41.640 Crater that we went across the landing. The flight plan 0:14:41.760 --> 0:14:46.520 has relatively few activities scheduled for now through the beginning 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:50.560 of the cruise sleep period. Tonight boredom. That's not something 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:53.080 these guys, be they in Apollo eleven or Mission Control, 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:55.720 are used to feeling. But I'm sure it's a welcome 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:59.840 change from the past week. So let's oh, we were 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:06.240 think you up there there getting writer and writer, and 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.920 we're not done talking about Verner von Braun, But right 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.160 now it's time to take a peek behind the Iron 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.800 curtain and check in on the Soviets. As it turned out, 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.680 the Soviets had their own version of Operations paper Clip, 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.480 dubbed Operation Asiovikim. On a single night in nineteen forty six, 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.800 the Soviets recruited more than twenty two hundred German V 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:31.240 two rocket scientists. And when I say recruited, I mean 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:35.480 kidnapped several hundred Germans and put them on trains and 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.680 took them back to the Soviet Union, and they put 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:41.680 them in teams through reverse engineering this rocket. The man 0:15:41.680 --> 0:15:46.160 in charge of operation Asiovikim was Sergey Pavlovitch Korlev Serga 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:50.600 Karlov in many ways of counterpart to von Braun, very 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.360 charismatic person like von Braun, a very good organizer. He 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.120 was able to inspire people even when he was really young. 0:15:57.360 --> 0:15:59.280 He walked in the room, people knew that this guy 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:02.640 was something special. Kra Lev was born in nineteen o seven. 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.440 He fell in love with flying as a child and 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:09.600 began taking flying lessons at sixteen. He later studied under 0:16:09.600 --> 0:16:13.440 the pioneering Soviet aviation designer Andre Tupolev, who would go 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:17.400 on to design many of Russia's most iconic aircraft. His 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:20.320 interest in space began while working as the lead engineer 0:16:20.440 --> 0:16:24.640 on one of Tupolev's bombers. What if he wondered, liquid 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.640 fueled rocket engines could be used to allow the bomber 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:31.960 to fly higher, further faster forms. This amateur group in 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.080 just a bunch of young guys in their twenties getting 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.000 together building rockets on their own, you know, melting silverware 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:42.600 at home to build rocket carts and things. And then 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.920 they get snatched up by the Stalinist government who recognizes 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.160 that these guys are smart, and they get repurposed into 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:52.840 an actual design institute to build rockets. There's no space 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.040 at this moment. It's about rockets for war. Cora Leev 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:58.800 was not interested in making weapons, but his group saw 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.760 the research as a means to an end, and then 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:05.000 his life took a darker turn. The shadow of the 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:09.879 Great Purge those upon the nation. There's a nationwide great 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:13.240 purge going on in nineteen thirty eight. Hundreds of thousands 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:16.000 of people are arrested on false charges. It's kind of 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.200 the apex of Stalinist paranoia, but a lot of people 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:21.159 lose their lives. Karlav was one of those sort of 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:25.880 caught up stadions. Enemies real and imaginary are executed hundreds 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:29.840 of thousands tall in the Blood Path. Korlv was falsely 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.160 accused and the newly married father of an infant daughter 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.840 was sentenced to be shot, but on the day of 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:39.119 the execution, his actual sentence was commuted and he was 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:41.359 a sentenced to ten years in a gulaub camp. So 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:45.280 he got sent off to Siberia, a brutal, brutal camp 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:49.159 where he works as a gold digger, and he loses 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.880 a lot of his teeth has scurvy, he has injuries 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.399 on his head and neck, and all sorts of horrible 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:58.320 things happened to him. Emaciated and near death, Korlav was 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.159 saved when he was transferred to a special gulag for 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.000 learned intellectuals who might be of use to the state. 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:06.040 I don't think he ever got over that. He was 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:09.359 a very hard hitted, you know, rude person. He didn't 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.880 have time for people who were just screwing around wasting time. 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:15.760 In ninety four, shortly before the end of World War Two, 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:19.960 kor Lev was freed and ordered to begin designing ballistic missiles. 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.439 One of his first duties was traveling to Germany to 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:27.840 help the Soviets collect as much information, manufacturing, and engineering 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.240 on the V two program as possible. The Russians started 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.600 by reverse engineering the V two, creating ever larger, more 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:38.440 powerful vehicles, and he rose through the ranks until he 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.080 was a really important guy by the mid fifties. Tis 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:44.440 passed in the prison was eventually sort of blotted out. 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:48.040 While the Soviet government was keen on intercontinental ballistic missiles, 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:52.040 kor Lev, like von Braun, recognized that the same technology 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:56.080 could with only a few modifications launch probes or even 0:18:56.160 --> 0:19:00.560 people into space, but the Kremlin had no interest in 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:04.520 his outlandish ideas. That was until the US declared its 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.359 intent to launch the first ever artificial satellite into outer space. 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:12.040 It was mostly hot air. The Americans technology did not 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:15.640 yet match their robust rhetoric, but coral V was confident 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:17.880 that with what he and his team had already designed, 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:26.280 Russia could embarrass the Americans and get to space first. Today, 0:19:26.320 --> 0:19:28.400 a new moon is in the sky, a twenty three 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:31.359 inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a Russian rocket. 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:34.560 You are hearing the actual signals transmitted by the Earth 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.840 circling satellite, one of the great scientific feats of the age. 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:43.399 On October fifth, ninety seven, the Soviet Union stunned the 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:47.080 world by launching Sputnik, the first human made object to 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.520 ever orbit the Earth. As it did so, Sputnik sent 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.320 out a distinctive beeping sound that could be heard by 0:19:53.359 --> 0:19:57.520 anyone with a simple Ham radio. For Washington, the sound 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.640 was terrifying. When the news gets to the s all 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.639 held bricks loose and people are kind of freaking out 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:06.040 because if they can put a satellite into space, they 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:07.880 could put a bomb into space and they could land 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:10.800 on you know, Oklahoma, ar Kansas. America wouldn't get its 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:14.600 first satellite, Explore one, into space until four months later, 0:20:14.760 --> 0:20:18.400 aboard a Jupiter sea rocket designed by who else, Erni 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:22.680 von Braun. Do you have ange an American? I've been 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:27.800 so await, pray for work for as the Army successful 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:32.200 launching a Victor one, but by that time Russia had 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:35.840 already one up to them. Sputting one is launched on 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:40.040 October four, and once the Soviets realized that it was 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:44.320 a very powerful pr tool, they wanted to do it again. 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:46.880 And Nikita Krushchov, who was the chairman of the Communist 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.680 Party at the time, he calls in carla Evin says 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.479 can you do this again? And Carlos says yes, and 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:54.439 I can do you one better. I could put a 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:58.640 little animal into this satellite. And so Sputting two was designed, 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:05.000 built and launched, and US than a month nine fifty 0:21:05.080 --> 0:21:08.680 seven year of space and Sputnik dogs, like a first 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:11.800 space traveler, was ready for the takeoff. Nestled the board 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:16.360 was like a stray dog plucked off the streets of Moscow. Unfortunately, 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.040 the Soviets had not yet developed the technology to get 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.480 like a back home again. And she died in orbit. 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.640 And some people say, wow, okay, I think that goes 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:26.920 deep in the night is one thing. But a live 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:28.720 dog go on into space. What does that tell us 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:31.360 about how advanced their program is and what their objectives 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:35.320 are in space? And suddenly the Sputnik situation goes from 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:38.879 being sort of a curiosity a concern to being a 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.760 major crisis. Sputnik one and two were like giant wrecking 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.719 balls to America's pride. Suddenly a new front was opened 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:50.040 in the Cold War. The space race. In the rocket's 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.560 finery wake was America's sober realization that the battle had 0:21:53.640 --> 0:21:56.600 just been joined and that the work of self preservation 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:01.840 was at hand. It's based historian Amy share a title. 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:05.320 So it became this push to figure out, well, you know, 0:22:05.400 --> 0:22:07.960 we have to show our dominance in space, because dominance 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:11.760 in space is dominance in technology, dominance in rockets which 0:22:11.760 --> 0:22:15.520 are missiles, dominance and our ability to solve problems and 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:19.240 show that we're the strongest, best nation. And so the 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.040 United States and the Soviet Union, their competition on which 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.439 system or government is going to win out gets tied 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.040 to space. And of course The Soviets love this idea 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:30.800 at the beginning, because they're ahead, von Braun and corals 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.360 wacky ideas about humans in space didn't sound so wacky 0:22:34.400 --> 0:22:37.440 to their respective governments anymore. One of the things that 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:40.800 happens as a response to spot Nick is the creation 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:44.040 of NASA immediately within less than a year in October. 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:47.520 But now we have come to a new day, and 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.200 I say it is to become part of a new agency, 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:54.359 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Right out of the gate, 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:59.080 NASA launched the Mercury program, developing one man space capsules 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:01.879 designed to prove that humans can live and work in space. 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:05.520 Von Braun and his team were moved under NASA's umbrella. 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:08.840 He became the director of the new Martial Space Flight Center, 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.320 developing ever larger rockets, and though no one was asking 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:15.600 for it yet, he began drafting plans for his magnum Opus, 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:20.040 the Saturn operations paper clips. Former Nazis were no longer 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:25.120