Russia kicks off big year for space history

Korolyov's secret plan for space
The culmination of Korolyov’s rocketry was "Model 7" (in Russian, the "Semyorka"), the R-7 that became the first Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile. It was first launched on May 15, 1957, and three months later, Moscow issued a public announcement of its military power.

Korolyov had government approval to use a prototype missile left over from the weapons test  program to launch a probe into orbit around Earth — which needed only about 20 percent more speed than that achieved on the military missions. By lightening the planned payload, Korolyov believed an orbital launch could be achieved prior to the long-announced American plan for its Vanguard scientific satellite.

The final weeks of preparation at the secret rocket base in Kazakhstan saw two main characters: Korolyov, referred to by the initials of his names Sergei Pavlovich ("SP"), and the Preliminary Satellite, referred to by the acronym "PS." Years later, veterans recalled with laughter how people often mixed up the two code names.

The rest is history — space history. Sputnik stunned the world and sparked the space race. Soviet prime minister Khrushchev wanted more spectaculars, and provided Korolyov with the resources to carry them out: first animal in orbit, first probe to the moon, first man in orbit (and two years later, the first woman) and many others. It took years of scrambling and spending for the United States to catch up.

Korolyov's children
The descendants of Korolyov's Semyorka still fly, in upgraded but still-recognizable form. Almost 1,800 Russian rockets of that type have been launched in the past 50 years, and another will be carrying the payload with his portrait painted on it next week. Funded and built as a weapon of mass destruction (but secretly designed from the start as an efficient space booster), the Semyorka is the most inspiring example of a "swords into plowshares" transformation ever made by humans, and for that alone its designer merits wider recognition.

Historians have speculated about whether Korolyov was one of those "indispensable men" of history, somebody with unique attributes who was able to achieve results that otherwise would never (or only much later) have been achieved. Not being a trained historian schooled in social and economic forces and flows, I think that he was, indeed, such a keystone character.

There were certainly rivals for his position — skilled and imaginative men with influential support from other Soviet officials who had their own ideas about rockets and missiles. But in hindsight, I believe that Korolyov alone among these candidates had the knack of team building, of inspiring his people to their best efforts without distractions or deviations.

And the achievement had to occur in a very narrow window of opportunity in world history, when the shock to the Western psyche could have the maximum motivation to respond overwhelmingly — and in a nonmilitary mode. (President Eisenhower deserves credit for that, after first, along with everybody else in America, totally underestimating the planetwide psychological impact of a potential Soviet space success). Sputnik had to occur neither too soon (before the United States had promised the world that it would be first) nor too late (when it would only be falsely regarded as another copy of stolen Western technology).

Korolyov at the crossroads
That’s where Korolyov stood, at the crossroads in history where a major surge into space might have been sparked due to ideological and nationalistic competition, or where a minor sideshow in small satellites might limp along for years on shoestring budgets. He shoved the world onto the higher, bolder path, and that shove resounds to this day.

Max Faget, the unsung hero of U.S. human spaceflight and perhaps the closest thing to "an American Korolyov," paid tribute to the sea change in U.S. attitude brought about by Korolyov’s successes. Faget first worked for the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), and later became head of engineering for its successor, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA). The difference, he joked, was in placing a vertical slash down some letters in the two acronyms.

NACA became NASA, he said with a grin, and NA¢A became NA$A — pennies changed to dollars. All that was thanks to Korolyov, he said. So in this year of anniversaries, anyone in favor of spaceflight owes a special debt to "SP." Happy birthday, Sergei Pavlovich.

NBC News space analyst James Oberg spent 22 years at NASA's Johnson Space Center as a Mission Control operator and an orbital designer. He is the author of several books on the Soviet space effort, including "Uncovering Soviet Disasters" and "Star-Crossed Orbits: Inside the U.S.-Russia Space Alliance."

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