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Nine Days in July is a production of I

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Heart Radio and trade Craft Studios

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in association with High five Content.

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April twenty third, nineteen sixty

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seven, cosmonaut Vladimir

0:12

Mikhailovitch Camrav has been in space

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for more than twenty four hours. It

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has been the longest day of his life.

0:19

No sooner had he reached shore of it than one

0:21

of his spacecraft's solar arrays failed

0:23

to properly deploy. His ship

0:25

is now dangerously low on power. The

0:28

partially deployed panel also obscured

0:30

some critical navigation equipment, meaning

0:32

Camrav is finding it nearly impossible

0:35

to steer. To make matters

0:37

worse, his communications equipment is

0:39

not functioning properly. His spacecraft

0:41

is, as one Russian official will later call

0:44

it, a piece of shit. The

0:46

thirty seven year old Colonel Camrav had

0:48

been chosen as the cosmonaut to ride aboard

0:50

so Use, one the Soviet's newest

0:53

and most advanced spacecraft designed

0:55

as part of their effort to beat the Americans

0:57

to the Moon. Urigageron, the

1:00

first man in space, and Camarad's best friend,

1:02

was chosen as his backup. As

1:04

the launch day approached, it was clear to

1:06

Camrav and Gagaron that the spacecraft

1:09

was not yet ready. The untested

1:11

space vehicle was shodily constructed,

1:13

and the engineering team identified more than

1:15

two hundred serious structural problems,

1:18

including the parachutes, which repeatedly

1:20

failed to deploy correctly. The

1:22

three previous unmanned soy U's test

1:24

flights had all failed. Camarav

1:27

and Gagaron drafted a letter outlining

1:29

their concerns and asking that the mission

1:31

be postponed until the issues could be properly

1:34

addressed, but it was quickly buried.

1:36

The powers that be wanted a bold triumph

1:39

to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of

1:41

the Communist Revolution, the mission

1:43

would go forward. Before

1:46

he departed, Comrade told a colleague

1:48

that he was not going to make it back from this flight.

1:50

When asked why he did not simply refuse the mission,

1:53

Comrof said that if he did, Gagaron

1:55

would go and die in his place, and

1:57

he could not do that to his best friend.

2:01

The previous morning, as Camrav waited inside

2:03

his Soyuz capsule conducting his pre flight

2:05

checks, several witnesses claimed that Gagaron

2:08

arrived at the launchpad demanding

2:10

to take his friend's place, but Gagarin

2:12

was a national hero, and there was no way

2:15

that was ever going to happen. After

2:17

more than a day in orbit, wrestling with malfunction

2:20

after malfunction, Soviet ground

2:22

control orders Camrav to cut his

2:24

mission short and return to Earth. After

2:27

eighteen agonizing orbits, Camarad

2:29

fires his retrorockets and heads for home.

2:32

After making it safely through the Earth's supper atmosphere

2:35

and with the Russian countryside opening up beneath

2:37

him, Camarav deploys his pear shutes

2:40

to slow his descent, but

2:42

nothing happens. The shoot deploys,

2:45

but it doesn't inflate. Kamrav

2:47

has a manually activated reserve shoot for

2:49

just this sort of emergency. He yanks

2:51

at loose, but it instantly becomes tangled

2:53

with the trailing primary shooting, Traveling

2:56

at nearly ninety miles per hour, so use

2:59

one smashes into the Russian steps

3:01

like a three ton meteorite. Rescue

3:07

helicopter finds the wreckage by following

3:09

a massive tower of black smoke. The

3:12

capsule is burning so hot that the metal

3:14

has gone molted. What's

3:16

left of Camrath looks like a massive marshmallow

3:19

burned to a misshapen cinder over a campfire.

3:23

Before his departure, he stipulated that

3:25

if anything should happen to him, his funeral

3:27

would be open casket, so that the Soviet

3:29

leadership would be unable to hide what they

3:31

had done. Vladimir Conrad

3:34

is the first person to die in the

3:36

Race for space. This

3:40

is Apollo control of one, seven

3:42

hours, thirty nine minutes. Flight

3:44

surgeon reports that all three crewmen now

3:47

are awake. Good

3:52

morning eleven, and about

3:54

twenty four seconds from now, the

3:56

spacecraft will pass the imaginary

3:59

line into the Earth's sphere of influence.

4:02

Mark you're leaving the learned there of influence

4:04

over. This is the point that the Earth's

4:06

gravity becomes stronger than that of the Moon

4:09

and begins tugging our astronauts homeward.

4:11

At the time the spacecraft across

4:14

to the Earth's sphere of influence Pollow

4:17

eleven was about one seventy

4:19

four thousand nautical miles

4:21

from Earth. At the present time, the

4:24

spacecraft is traveling at a speed of three

4:26

thousand, nine hundred ninety four

4:29

per second with respect to the Earth.

4:32

If you're not busy now, I can read you up the

4:34

morning news.

4:37

A follow eleven and still dominates the news

4:40

around the world. Only four

4:42

and a commun China and North Korea,

4:44

North Vietnam in Albania have

4:46

not yet informed their citizens of your flight

4:49

and landing on the Moon. Can you imagine

4:51

not knowing that such an astonishing feet took

4:53

place, one of the greatest accomplishments

4:56

in human history, and hundreds

4:58

of millions of people where didn't I had the opportunity

5:00

to celebrate the accomplishment with the rest

5:03

of the planet. Tonight, President

5:05

Nix and the scheduled to watch the All Star Baseball

5:07

game in Kington. After the

5:09

game, he will depart for the Pacific Recovery

5:12

Area and flying to the Hornet in

5:14

time to witness your flashdown. The

5:16

USS Hornet is the aircraft carrier in charge

5:18

of recovering Apollo eleven when it splashes

5:21

down in two and a half more days. McCandless

5:24

has one last bit of news. Lunar

5:26

fifteen is believed to have cracked into the

5:28

state of crisis yesterday, after all being

5:30

the Moon fifty two times. When Apollo

5:33

eleven reached the Moon three days ago, the

5:35

Russians were already there, or

5:37

at least one of their spacecraft was Luna

5:40

fifteen was launched just

5:42

days before Apollo eleven

5:44

launch, so you had essentially

5:47

in July nine two

5:49

missions to the Moon. That's awesome,

5:51

Siddiki. I'm a professor of history

5:54

at Fordam University in New York. I reade

5:56

quite a bit about the history of space exploration,

5:58

including the Russians side of things. The

6:00

Americans sent Neil Buzz and Michael Apollo

6:03

eleven, and the Russians, in a last

6:05

ditch effort to win the space race, launched

6:08

Lunar fifteen, which was essentially designed

6:10

to go to the Moon. Going to its orbit,

6:13

the lander was supposed to come down, scoop

6:15

up some soil, and lift off and

6:17

fly directly back to the Earth, so they would

6:19

bring back lunar soil before Apollo

6:22

leven, showing the world that you know, you guys

6:24

wasted all this money to lend guys on

6:26

the Moon, but we got it back, you know, cheaper and

6:28

safer. That's not what happened.

6:35

Bernard Level at General Blank Observatory

6:37

said that Lunar fifteen hit the surface of the

6:39

Moon at a speed of about three as

6:43

it was descending to the Moon. It

6:45

essentially crashed into a mountain.

6:48

It's July nineteen sixty

6:51

nine, day seven of the Apollo eleven

6:53

mission. It's time to talk about

6:55

the space race. That's a term we're

6:57

all familiar with, but for most Americans,

7:00

the only part of the space race they really know is

7:02

who crossed the finish line first. But

7:05

that means that everything that led up to that moment

7:07

is overlooked. After all, a

7:10

race presupposes more than one competitor.

7:13

Today, we are going to take a look at

7:15

what launched the space race and some

7:17

of the major milestones that built up

7:19

to the moon landing. And we'll

7:21

be paying special attention to the Russian side,

7:24

because the USSR beat America

7:26

to just about every significant first

7:28

in space milestone there is. But

7:30

to really understand where all this starts, we

7:33

have to go back to the end of World War

7:35

Two. Even though the Soviets have been

7:37

our allies during World War Two, it becomes quickly

7:39

apparently the Soviets keeps saying, you know, they're going to

7:41

crush the West and communism will

7:43

rule in the future, and the U s s, oh,

7:46

you want that's NASA historian Bill

7:49

Berry. The Cold War happens after

7:51

the end of World War Two, largely because nuclear

7:53

weapons appearing, and people realize that

7:55

World War two is bad enough to start with, but then it

7:57

ends with with these city killer weapons,

8:00

and people are scared it. It's

8:03

like, we can't afford to have another war like this again.

8:05

It's just too destructive. So lines

8:07

get drawn, armies are built

8:09

on both sides with you know, nuclear

8:12

weapons pointed at each other, but nobody wants

8:14

to actually engage in a fight. The Communist

8:16

Party of the United States is far better

8:18

organized and where the next is in occupied

8:21

countries prior to their capitulation,

8:24

their goal is the overthrow of

8:26

our government. But we're getting

8:28

a bit ahead of ourselves. Germany

8:30

had developed a terrifying new weapon in

8:32

the final days of World War Two, the

8:35

V two, or Vengeance Weapons. The

8:37

V two was the world's first long range,

8:40

supersonic guided ballistic missile.

8:42

At the end of World War Two, the

8:44

Allies decided, we need to go find

8:46

out what the heck they were doing and make sure this technology

8:48

gets gets collected for us, because

8:51

it's clear at the end of the war with nuclear weapons

8:53

that if you get surprised in warfare

8:56

after World War Two, it's likely to be over.

8:58

You know, if somebody launches bunch of nuclear weapons and you

9:01

get caught by surprise. That's it. One

9:03

of the men responsible for the creation of the V two

9:06

was Werner von Braun. He came from

9:08

an aristocratic German family. He

9:10

was what we would today called maybe a space

9:12

enthusiast. From a young age, he was willianto

9:15

cosmic things. Um he gets involved

9:17

in an amateur rocketry group.

9:19

He realizes that the only way he's going to get money

9:22

to build rockets is to work with the German military.

9:24

About the time he does that, the Nazi Party takes

9:26

over. They see that this

9:29

is a very bright young guy, and he

9:31

good moves upward through their rocket program

9:33

until he's heading the V two

9:35

design projects. He wants to go to space,

9:37

but he's now building rockets for this

9:39

regime. Hitler directed thousands

9:41

of V two attacks against targets in Belgium,

9:44

France, the Netherlands, and the United

9:46

Kingdom. London was among the city's

9:48

most heavily bombed, killing more than twenty

9:51

people and injuring three times that amount.

9:54

In all, it is estimated that nine thousand

9:56

civilians and military personnel were killed

9:58

in V two attacks too. Another

10:01

holy indiscriminate weapon. It's a

10:03

truly typical effort of the immortally injured

10:05

Nazi beast to attempt to tear down

10:07

everything as he goes under. And

10:10

actually actually more people died building

10:13

V two rockets than died in the attacks

10:15

with the V two rockets. Some twelve thousand

10:17

concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers

10:20

perished building the V two and von

10:22

Braun clearly knew about this

10:24

stuff. He knew what he wanted to do, which

10:26

was to get to space, and I think he made

10:29

compromises along the way to achieve

10:31

that goal. I think, ultimately

10:33

I would say he's an opportunist

10:35

in the sense that he was willing to compromise

10:38

in order to achieve his dream of space, and

10:40

I think to the end of his days he probably

10:43

believed that his compromises were worth it. The

10:46

military had a list of German scientists

10:48

and engineers that they wanted to interrogate,

10:51

and Verne von Braun was at the top of that

10:53

list. When it was clear that

10:55

Germany was about to fall, von Braun,

10:57

in more than one hundred of his V two colleagues

11:00

sought out American forces and surrendered.

11:03

They wanted to avoid falling into the hands of

11:05

the Soviet Army, which was less than one hundred

11:07

miles away. They provided the Americans

11:09

with rocket blueprints and many of the missiles

11:12

themselves generalize and hower

11:14

and farms. May that the forces

11:16

of German they have surrendered. The

11:19

flags of freedom fly all

11:21

over Europe. The Nazis surrendered

11:23

late in April of nineteen forty, the

11:26

same month that Franklin Delano Roosevelt

11:28

died and Harry Truman took over in the Oval

11:30

Office. The War Department secretly

11:32

smuggled von Braun and more than three

11:34

hundred rail cars of his hardware out

11:37

of Germany. They didn't even tell the

11:39

new president what they were doing. Somebody

11:41

in the US government decides that they're The connections

11:44

of these people to the Nazi Party in Germany

11:46

is not something we really want to talk about anymore, because

11:48

they're kind of useful to us, and we want to have

11:51

them stay here and help with our missile

11:53

programs, and so they go to work for the U. S. Army.

11:56

This was Operation paper Clip, a

11:58

covert American program to use

12:00

the Nazis knowledge and know how to design

12:02

weapons for the United States. The

12:04

OSS, which is the predecessor to the CIA.

12:07

They basically whitewashed a lot of the personal

12:09

records as a lot of these engineers, and some

12:12

of whom were rather dubious. The Germans

12:14

ended up at Fort Bliss in Texas.

12:17

For the first several years, they were not allowed

12:19

to leave the base without a military escort.

12:21

They referred to themselves as p o p s

12:24

Prisoners of peace. Used

12:26

to being coddled, von Braun now had

12:28

to answer to far younger, far less

12:30

experienced Army officers.

12:32

But what truly rankled him was the

12:34

fact that the Army was only interested in his

12:37

missile technology and continually

12:39

dismissed every proposal he put forward

12:41

for rockets designed for space. Launching

12:44

human beings into the cosmos was

12:47

still his overwriting ambition.

12:50

When the Korean War broke out in nineteen fifty,

12:52

von Braun and his team were transferred to Huntsville,

12:55

Alabama. He was put in charge of

12:57

the Army's rocket development team,

12:59

designing a Erica's first large ballistic

13:01

missile, the red Stone. Finally,

13:04

he saw a way to begin setting the stage

13:07

for lift vehicles capable of handling

13:09

massive payloads.

13:11

The stuff of popular science fiction suddenly

13:14

felt within Arm's reach. This

13:23

is a follow Control at one eight

13:25

hours, fifty eight minutes. At

13:27

the present time of follow eleven has one seventy

13:30

two thousand, six hundred fifty four

13:32

nautical miles from the Earth, traveling

13:35

at a speed of four thousand seventeen ft

13:37

per second. Given that there

13:39

is little to do in the spacecraft, mission

13:41

Control decides it's the perfect time to

13:43

pick Neil and Buzz's brains about some nagging

13:45

Moon questions. Under

13:48

sixty four thousand dollars, we're still

13:50

trying to work out the location of your landing

13:53

site. We think it is located on

13:55

l am To chart at Juliett

13:58

Desmal five and seven

14:00

point eight. For the twenty one hours

14:02

that the Eagle was on the Moon, no one

14:04

knew where they were. Remember that

14:07

they overshot their landing site by four

14:09

miles and had to set down at the first available

14:11

opening given their fuel state. While

14:14

he was in orbit, Michael had been tasked

14:16

to look for his colleagues with each pass he made

14:18

over the Sea of Tranquility, but he was never

14:20

able to find them. Bruce McCandless

14:22

and the rest of Mission Control is still trying

14:25

to figure out where humanity's first lunar

14:27

footprints are the position

14:29

which I just gave you is plightly.

14:32

What of West Crater?

14:35

I think that it's flagly that that might have been West

14:37

Crater that we went across the landing.

14:40

The flight plan has relatively

14:43

few activities scheduled for now through

14:45

the beginning of the cruise sleep period. Tonight

14:48

boredom. That's not something these guys,

14:51

be they in Apollo eleven or Mission Control, are

14:53

used to feeling. But I'm sure it's a welcome

14:55

change from the past week. So let's

14:59

oh, we were think you up there

15:02

there getting writer

15:04

and writer, and we're

15:08

not done talking about Verner von Braun, But

15:10

right now it's time to take a peek behind the

15:12

Iron curtain and check in on the Soviets.

15:16

As it turned out, the Soviets had their own

15:18

version of Operations paper Clip, dubbed

15:20

Operation Asiovikim. On

15:22

a single night in nineteen forty six, the

15:24

Soviets recruited more than twenty two hundred

15:27

German V two rocket scientists. And

15:29

when I say recruited, I mean kidnapped

15:32

several hundred Germans and put

15:34

them on trains and took them back to the Soviet Union,

15:37

and they put them in teams through reverse

15:39

engineering this rocket. The man in charge

15:42

of operation Asiovikim was Sergey

15:44

Pavlovitch Korlev Serga Karlov

15:46

in many ways of counterpart to von

15:49

Braun, very charismatic

15:51

person like von Braun, a very good

15:53

organizer. He was able to inspire

15:55

people even when he was really young. He walked

15:57

in the room, people knew that this guy was something special.

16:00

Kra Lev was born in nineteen o seven.

16:03

He fell in love with flying as a child and

16:05

began taking flying lessons at sixteen.

16:08

He later studied under the pioneering Soviet

16:10

aviation designer Andre Tupolev, who

16:13

would go on to design many of Russia's most

16:15

iconic aircraft. His

16:17

interest in space began while working as the

16:19

lead engineer on one of Tupolev's bombers.

16:22

What if he wondered, liquid

16:24

fueled rocket engines could be used to

16:26

allow the bomber to fly higher, further

16:29

faster forms. This amateur group in

16:33

just a bunch of young guys in their twenties getting

16:36

together building rockets on their own,

16:38

you know, melting silverware at home

16:40

to build rocket carts and things. And then they get

16:42

snatched up by the Stalinist government

16:45

who recognizes that these guys are smart,

16:47

and they get repurposed into an actual design

16:50

institute to build rockets. There's

16:52

no space at this moment. It's about

16:54

rockets for war. Cora Leev was not

16:56

interested in making weapons, but his group

16:58

saw the research as a means to an end, and

17:01

then his life took a darker turn. The

17:04

shadow of the Great Purge those

17:06

upon the nation. There's a nationwide

17:09

great purge going on in nineteen thirty

17:12

eight. Hundreds of thousands of people are arrested on

17:14

false charges. It's kind of the

17:16

apex of Stalinist paranoia, but

17:18

a lot of people lose their lives. Karlav was one

17:20

of those sort of caught up stadions. Enemies

17:22

real and imaginary are executed

17:25

hundreds of thousands tall in the Blood

17:27

Path. Korlv was falsely

17:29

accused and the newly married father

17:32

of an infant daughter was sentenced

17:34

to be shot, but on the day of the execution,

17:36

his actual sentence was commuted

17:38

and he was a sentenced to ten years in a gulaub

17:41

camp. So he got sent off to Siberia,

17:44

a brutal, brutal camp where he

17:46

works as a gold digger, and

17:48

he loses a lot of his teeth has scurvy,

17:51

he has injuries on his head and neck,

17:53

and all sorts of horrible things happened to him.

17:55

Emaciated and near death, Korlav

17:58

was saved when he was transferred to a special

18:00

gulag for learned intellectuals

18:02

who might be of use to the state. I don't

18:04

think he ever got over that. He was a very hard

18:06

hitted, you know, rude person. He

18:09

didn't have time for people who were just screwing around

18:11

wasting time. In ninety four,

18:13

shortly before the end of World War Two, kor

18:16

Lev was freed and ordered to begin designing

18:19

ballistic missiles. One of his

18:21

first duties was traveling to Germany

18:23

to help the Soviets collect as much information,

18:25

manufacturing, and engineering on

18:28

the V two program as possible. The

18:30

Russians started by reverse engineering the V

18:32

two, creating ever larger, more

18:34

powerful vehicles, and he rose

18:36

through the ranks until he was a

18:38

really important guy by the mid fifties. Tis

18:41

passed in the prison was eventually

18:43

sort of blotted out. While the Soviet government

18:45

was keen on intercontinental ballistic missiles,

18:48

kor Lev, like von Braun, recognized

18:51

that the same technology could with only

18:53

a few modifications launch probes

18:55

or even people into space, but

18:58

the Kremlin had no interest in his outlandish

19:01

ideas. That was until

19:03

the US declared its intent to launch the first

19:05

ever artificial satellite into outer

19:08

space. It was mostly hot air.

19:10

The Americans technology did not yet match

19:12

their robust rhetoric, but coral

19:14

V was confident that with what he and his team had

19:17

already designed, Russia could embarrass

19:19

the Americans and get to space first.

19:25

Today, a new moon is in the sky, a twenty

19:28

three inch metal sphere placed in orbit

19:30

by a Russian rocket. You are hearing

19:32

the actual signals transmitted by the Earth

19:34

circling satellite, one of the great

19:36

scientific feats of the age. On

19:39

October fifth, ninety seven,

19:41

the Soviet Union stunned the world

19:43

by launching Sputnik, the first

19:46

human made object to ever orbit the Earth.

19:48

As it did so, Sputnik sent out a

19:50

distinctive beeping sound that could be

19:52

heard by anyone with a simple Ham radio.

19:55

For Washington, the sound was terrifying.

19:58

When the news gets to the s all held

20:00

bricks loose and people are kind of

20:02

freaking out because if they can put a

20:05

satellite into space, they could put a bomb into space

20:07

and they could land on you know, Oklahoma, ar Kansas.

20:09

America wouldn't get its first satellite, Explore

20:12

one, into space until four months

20:14

later, aboard a Jupiter sea rocket designed

20:16

by who else, Erni von Braun.

20:19

Do you have ange an American? I've

20:22

been so await, pray for work

20:25

for as the Army successful

20:27

launching a Victor one, but

20:30

by that time Russia had already

20:32

one up to them. Sputting one is

20:35

launched on October four, and

20:37

once the Soviets realized

20:39

that it was a very powerful

20:41

pr tool, they wanted

20:43

to do it again. And Nikita Krushchov, who

20:45

was the chairman of the Communist Party at the time, he calls

20:48

in carla Evin says can you do this

20:50

again? And Carlos says yes, and

20:52

I can do you one better. I could put a little

20:54

animal into this satellite.

20:56

And so Sputting two was designed, built

20:59

and launched, and US than a month nine

21:04

fifty seven year of space and Sputnik

21:07

dogs, like a first space traveler,

21:09

was ready for the takeoff. Nestled the board

21:11

was like a stray dog plucked off

21:14

the streets of Moscow. Unfortunately,

21:16

the Soviets had not yet developed the technology

21:18

to get like a back home again. And she died

21:21

in orbit. And some people say, wow,

21:23

okay, I think that goes deep in the night is

21:25

one thing. But a live dog go on into

21:27

space. What does that tell us about how advanced their program

21:30

is and what their objectives are in space? And

21:32

suddenly the Sputnik situation goes

21:34

from being sort of a curiosity a

21:37

concern to being a major crisis.

21:40

Sputnik one and two were like giant

21:42

wrecking balls to America's pride. Suddenly

21:45

a new front was opened in the Cold War.

21:48

The space race. In the rocket's finery

21:50

wake was America's sober realization

21:52

that the battle had just been joined and

21:55

that the work of self preservation was at hand.

21:59

It's based historian Amy share a title.

22:02

So it became this push to

22:04

figure out, well, you know, we have to show our dominance

22:06

in space, because dominance in space is dominance

22:09

in technology, dominance in rockets

22:11

which are missiles, dominance and our

22:14

ability to solve problems and show that we're

22:16

the strongest, best nation. And

22:18

so the United States and the Soviet Union, their

22:20

competition on which system or government

22:22

is going to win out gets

22:25

tied to space. And of course The Soviets

22:27

love this idea at the beginning, because they're ahead,

22:29

von Braun and corals wacky ideas

22:31

about humans in space didn't sound

22:33

so wacky to their respective governments anymore.

22:36

One of the things that happens as

22:38

a response to spot Nick is the creation

22:40

of NASA immediately within less

22:42

than a year in October. But

22:45

now we have come to a new day, and

22:47

I say it is to become part of a new

22:49

agency, the National Aeronautics

22:51

and Space Administration. Right

22:53

out of the gate, NASA launched the Mercury

22:56

program, developing one man space

22:58

capsules designed to prove that humans can

23:00

live and work in space. Von

23:02

Braun and his team were moved under NASA's

23:05

umbrella. He became the director of the

23:07

new Martial Space Flight Center, developing

23:09

ever larger rockets, and though no one

23:11

was asking for it yet, he began drafting

23:14

plans for his magnum Opus, the

23:16

Saturn operations paper clips.

23:18

Former Nazis were no longer advising

23:20

Americans, they were leading them

23:23

back in Russia. Korlav was also

23:25

promoted. He essentially leads

23:27

the Soviet space program for the next ten

23:30

years or so, not that anyone in the

23:32

West knew who he was. His name

23:34

was never mentioned in Russian newspapers

23:37

anywhere. He was just called the

23:39

chief designer. Official reason

23:41

given why they didn't disclose his

23:43

name was that, you know, they were afraid

23:45

that the CIA would come and kidnap him

23:47

or something terrible would happen. In

23:50

fact, even many of the Russian engineers who

23:52

worked beside Karlav didn't know who

23:54

he was. This only added

23:56

to his mystique. And the Soviets they

23:58

didn't have anywhere near the side program at the United

24:00

States had. They were brilliant, and they

24:02

were very nimble, and they're watching very carefully

24:05

what the United States just doing to say, what can we do to outdo

24:07

the United States? Up until nineteen so

24:10

we didn't really have a human spacefight

24:12

program. They had a what can we do to embarrassing the

24:14

United States program. Nineteen fifty

24:16

nine was a very good year for coral Lev and

24:18

the Russians. The Luna program was

24:20

their robotics program to explore the

24:22

Moon. The first goal they wanted to

24:24

do us to just impact the surface of the

24:26

Moon, which was a very difficult navigational

24:29

problem because the Moon is moving around the Earth.

24:31

And they did that with Luna to the Luna

24:33

three was a really ingenious spaceship

24:35

essensed to spun around the back of the Moon, photographed

24:38

it, and transmitted the picture back to the Earth. This

24:40

was the first time anyone had seen the Moon up

24:42

close. In addition to the Luna

24:44

probes, Coral lev also began working

24:46

on the N one, a profoundly

24:49

powerful rocket capable of escaping

24:51

Earth's gravity. Well, the end one was the

24:53

response to the Saturn five. It's a giant

24:56

rocket capable of ultimately launching

24:58

about metric ton since Earth

25:00

or bid. Truly

25:08

a great leader, a great

25:11

name. Yah MC president to

25:13

John F. Canada

25:15

as

25:17

a new decade dawn. John F. Kennedy

25:19

ran for President of the United States on

25:21

a platform pledging to close the space

25:24

race gap and move America into

25:26

first place. The Americans

25:28

ushered in nineteen sixty one, not with

25:30

a dog in space, but with a chimp

25:33

named ham M

25:35

has done it. He has moved man closer

25:37

than ever before to his age old

25:39

dream of traveling the heavens Now

25:42

it was time to send a human being. That

25:45

human was Alan Shepherd, one of the original

25:47

Mercury seven astronauts. When Shepherd

25:49

informed his wife that she was hugging the very

25:51

first man to go into space. She replied,

25:54

who let a Russian in here? More

25:57

prophetic words could not have been spoken.

25:59

First success in space when

26:01

the Russians pushed a man across the po

26:04

he was Yuri Gagara. In April

26:06

twelfth, nineteen sixty one, twenty

26:08

seven year old Yuri Gagarin became the first

26:10

human who travel to space and orbit the

26:12

planet in Vostok One. He

26:14

remains to this day, I think one of

26:16

the most recognized names in

26:19

all of Russian history. Most Russians,

26:21

if you asked who won the space race,

26:23

they would say, well, we want it. We got the first

26:25

guy in space. As with Sputnik just

26:27

two and a half years earlier, America had

26:29

its collective breath knock out of it. When

26:32

Alan Shepherd heard the news, he slammed

26:34

his fist on the table so hard that others in

26:36

the room were certain he'd broken it. The

26:39

mood of the White House was no less volatile.

26:42

Kennedy ordered Vice President Lyndon Johnson

26:44

to figure out something dramatic that the United

26:46

States could do to best the Soviets.

26:49

Johnson met with a number of NASA officials

26:51

for ideas but it was Verde von Braun

26:54

who most impressed him. Von Braun

26:56

pitched something outlandish, a

26:58

moon landing. The ex Nazi

27:01

was confident that he could get Americans to the

27:03

moon. By nineteen sixty eight, Johnson

27:05

passed von Braun's recommendations to the President,

27:08

who signed off on it. The United

27:10

States was going to the Moon. Three

27:13

weeks after Euryga Geron's history making

27:15

flight, Alan Shepard became the first

27:17

American in space aboard Freedom seven.

27:20

His flight lasted only fifteen minutes.

27:29

He was launched into space on a Redstone

27:31

rocket, the direct descendant of von

27:33

Bronze V two. Now it was

27:35

time to sell America on von Bron's big

27:37

idea. On nine

27:40

sixty one, just twenty days

27:42

after Shepherd's fifteen minute flight, President

27:45

Kennedy stood before Congress and said,

27:47

I believe that this nation should commit itself

27:50

to achieving the goal before

27:52

this decade is out of landing

27:55

a man on the Moon and returning him safely

27:57

to the Europe. We think of Kennedy

27:59

as the space races loudest and most

28:02

ardent cheerleader, and he was at

28:05

least in public. But on a day in nineteen

28:07

sixty two, Shortly after John Glenn

28:09

became the first American to orbit the Earth, Kennedy

28:12

sat down with NASA Administrator James

28:14

Webb, arguing that all of NASA's

28:16

scientific and technological efforts should

28:18

be subservient to Apollo. Let's

28:20

listen in on a recording only made public

28:23

in two thousand and one. I think it is the

28:25

top priority that we had that very clear. This

28:27

is uh important for in

28:30

an act of political reasons and whether

28:32

we like it or not, in intensive race. So I think

28:34

we have to take the US the top priority. NASA

28:36

Administrator Webb and Jerome Wisner,

28:39

the President's scientific advisor. We're

28:41

arguing that before the United States could land

28:43

on the Moon, NASA would first need to

28:45

come to grips with a lot of unknowns

28:47

about outer space. But Kennedy

28:49

didn't want to hear any of it that

28:51

we do or to really be hie

28:54

and getting onto the mole ahead of the

28:56

writing why can't space

28:59

we join a lot? Because by guys? Would women

29:01

tell? Everybody reamed the space boys.

29:03

Nobody believe that the policy ought to be a position

29:06

of the top priority program of

29:09

the agency and one of the two to

29:11

the fan the top priority United States government

29:14

sending it's kind of funny because I'm not that interested

29:17

in space. Let me repeat Kennedy's

29:19

words, I'm not that interested

29:22

in space. The view that I

29:24

grew up with in the nineteen sixties was that Kennedy

29:26

was this guy who was really interested in space and

29:29

was a leader in the space program, and and saw

29:32

human destiny in space and all these things that

29:34

people imagined um and that that sort

29:36

of myth grew for a long time. Now, when those

29:38

tapes came out, it became really crystal clear Kennedy's

29:41

goal wasn't to send people to the Moon, or to explore

29:43

space or any of the other stuff. What he really

29:45

had was a political problem with the Soviets beating

29:48

us up over space spectaculars on

29:50

a regular basis, and he just wanted it to stop. Despite

29:53

his stirring rhetoric. That's all the space

29:56

race was to Kennedy, and he had

29:58

good reason to think the Soviets were win that race.

30:01

In the summer of nineteen sixty three, they launched

30:03

Vostok three and four. The two

30:05

craft met in space with just four

30:07

miles separating them, and engaged in the

30:10

first ship to ship communications. One

30:12

of the two cosmonauts would later marry a

30:14

woman named Valentina Tereshkova.

30:17

Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in space

30:19

aboard Vostok six in November

30:21

of that year. The twenty six year old

30:24

textile worker was the first woman in space,

30:26

A feat of dubious scientific value

30:29

perhaps, but what is its rather in propaganda

30:32

another first for the Soviet 'gen She

30:34

made nearly fifty orbits over three days

30:37

and is still the only woman to ever undertake

30:39

a solo mission. America wouldn't

30:42

put its first woman into space, Sally Ride,

30:44

until nineteen eighty three, a full twenty

30:46

years later. Kennedy soon

30:48

began to regret endorsing von Braun's

30:51

crazy moonshot idea. He and others

30:53

were beginning to realize just how unrealistic

30:56

the plan was. Kennedy has a realization

30:58

that Apollo is super expensive, might

31:00

even bankrupt the budget, and he floats

31:02

this idea of a giant project with the

31:05

Soviets. While speaking before the United

31:07

Nations, Kennedy said, finally, in a theod

31:09

why the United States and the Soviet Union

31:12

of a special capacity in the field

31:14

of space, there is room for new co operations.

31:17

I include among these possibilities,

31:20

a joint expedition to the Moon. Premier

31:23

Nikita Krushcheff ignored him if

31:25

America was going to save face, he was

31:27

going to have to make good on Kennedy's promise.

31:30

On November six, seven months after

31:32

the launch of Gemini one, Kennedy

31:35

visited Cape Canaveral and toured the facility

31:37

with von Braun, inspecting the extraordinary

31:40

hardware already in use and the Saturn

31:42

one rocket, the predecessor to the Saturn

31:45

five. The President came

31:47

away from his visit with the renewed enthusiasm

31:49

for the Apollo program, designed to follow

31:51

after Gemini. He was back on

31:53

board. Five days later.

31:56

President John F. Kennedy was shot

31:58

and killed. Back

32:08

aboard Apollo eleven, the crew sets up

32:10

for another television transmission. Charlie

32:13

Duke is now in the capcom set all you're

32:15

packing our part names. That's the

32:18

focus A little bit out the way

32:20

through the Earth in the center of the brain lemming

32:23

it came from

32:25

it is huh, Well, I'm really

32:27

looking at a bad brain here, then, might want

32:30

The image is blurry enough that Duke has

32:32

confused the Moon for the Earth. Bad

32:35

enough not fun in the right landing. But when I got to that

32:37

the right planet, Buzz decides

32:39

to poke Duke a bit and remind him that

32:41

he doesn't even know where in the moon he and Neil

32:43

were. I'll have a little that one down. We're

32:47

making it get tomorrow and tomorrow and itbody

32:49

here that it really is the one we're leaving. Oh

32:52

not the guy. Neil starts

32:54

the broadcast, showing off boxes of moon

32:57

rocks and soil samples that they're bringing back

32:59

to Earth for Judy. We know a lot

33:01

of scientists standard by to be

33:03

the later example, and incidic

33:06

we get onto the ship. I'm sure these

33:08

boxes will need with the transferred

33:11

and deliberate started to the later receiving

33:13

laboratory. Now it's Buzzes turn,

33:16

but he's not thinking about moon relics. He's

33:19

thinking with his stomach. And

33:21

I'd like to take through a little bit for

33:24

you. Development taken place and

33:26

a department. He

33:28

unwraps a food cube. Designs,

33:31

uh, we're designed to remove

33:34

the problem of ad income. Many problems voting

33:36

around in the cabin, so I designed a

33:38

particular side that would be able

33:40

to go into the mouth all at once. Michael

33:43

decides to take a quick detour and become

33:46

a science teacher. Is in effect, is

33:48

a little down a rating

33:50

for the kids at home, all kids everywhere for

33:52

that matter. I was gonna

33:54

tell you how you drank water out of a book,

33:57

but I'm afraid I built a bone to foe

33:59

and uh, if I'm not careful, I'm

34:01

gonna go right over the dot. Can you can

34:04

you do the water lapping around at the top of the

34:06

kid. That's the permanend of eleven. I'll

34:09

tell you what I just I just turned

34:11

that point over and I get out of the water over

34:14

again. Okay, okay. Michael

34:17

flips the spoon over and the water resting

34:19

in it now hovers in the air as tiny

34:21

spherical globules and say, up

34:23

there, and we don't know where over at the one

34:26

up it is good in another And

34:28

that really is what Michael

34:30

swallows several of the tiny water spheres

34:33

in midair. A couple of decades

34:35

into the twenty one century, we're used to

34:37

images like this from the astronauts aboard the International

34:39

Space Station, But in nineteen sixty

34:41

nine, images like this we're downright

34:44

magical. Thank you for malla

34:46

kids in the world who gave l from

34:50

all right, get damn, I want to I'll get you that very quint

34:52

then I never think youre No, that's

34:55

perimend I repeated to bite on that point. No, you

34:57

tell uh uh by

35:00

getting larger. There the

35:02

play for a coming out there no matter where,

35:05

rabb all it all it bight to good home Lincoln,

35:08

cer liv being happy to

35:10

have you back. Can you tell the

35:12

guys in the ship are really starting to loosen up after

35:15

years of intense training. They are finally

35:18

heading home as conquering heroes

35:25

from Dallas, Texas and the Flash. Apparently

35:27

official President Kennedy died

35:30

at one Central Standard

35:33

time some thirty eight minutes

35:35

ago. When we left off, John

35:38

F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Two

35:40

hours and eight minutes later, Lyndon Johnson

35:43

was sworn into office. One of his

35:45

very first acts was renaming Cape

35:47

Canaveral. It would now be called Cape

35:49

Kennedy. He also doubled Apollo's

35:52

budget. Johnson comes in and he

35:54

says, Okay, the moon landing program. This is

35:56

our tribute to our Slane President, and we are going

35:58

to the moon. And no, and the Kremlin has

36:00

any doubt in your mind that Lyndon Johnson

36:03

is out that kicked their butts. The Servis realize,

36:05

Holy Mackarel, Americans are really serious about

36:07

going to the moon. Von Braun Saturn prototype,

36:10

the Saturn one, successfully blasted

36:12

off into space with a dummy Apollo spacecraft

36:14

to top it. Though the Saturn one was only

36:17

half the size of the future Saturn five, it

36:19

was a validation of everything von Braun

36:21

had been pushing for five four

36:24

three two one

36:27

ignition. It

36:32

was now definitely only a matter of time

36:34

until man with first set foot on

36:36

the Moon. And yet, despite

36:38

all of America's successes, Sergey

36:41

Kurliev and the Russians were still embarrassing

36:43

the United States at every turn.

36:46

In nineteen sixty five, Alexei Leonov

36:48

became the first person to conduct a spacewalk.

36:52

Leonof brought a suicide pill with him just

36:54

in case something went wrong, and he very

36:56

nearly had to use it. But when he tried to get back

36:59

in, he couldn't get back in the air log because

37:01

his space suit had ballooned. Leonov's

37:03

space suit became bloated in the vacuum of space.

37:06

He was literally floating inside of it.

37:08

His hands slipped out of his gloves and

37:11

his feet came out of his boots. The

37:13

only way he was able to get back inside his spacecraft

37:16

was by releasing his precious oxygen until

37:18

the suit became compact enough for him to

37:20

squeeze through the hatch. The

37:22

first artificial Earth satellite, the first

37:25

Moon probes, the first animals in space,

37:27

the first man in space, the first woman

37:30

in space, the first crew in space, the

37:32

first spacewalk. So far, the space

37:34

race belonged to the Russians between

37:38

seven and about nineteen sixty

37:40

six. There's very few firsts

37:42

that actually belonged to the US. If

37:45

you were watching this happened, you would have

37:48

very little confidence that America would get to

37:50

the Moon first. But America was about

37:52

to close the gap. On March nineteen

37:55

sixty, Gus Grissom and John

37:57

Young flew on the first two man mission J

38:00

and I. Three. Later that summer,

38:02

ed White conducted a twenty minute spacewalk

38:04

while aboard Gemini four. Finally

38:07

the United States had caught up. Over

38:09

the rest of nineteen sixty five, Gemini

38:11

would continue to break records, including the

38:13

first orbital rendezvous and the longest

38:16

time spent in space up to that point fourteen

38:18

days on Gemini seven, and

38:20

then tragedy struck the Soviet space program.

38:23

Chief designer Sergey cora Lev went into

38:25

the hospital for a routine surgical procedure.

38:28

He never came out. He goes in for

38:31

surgery to remove like what's

38:33

what was thought at the time, benign

38:35

growth. But during the surgery, the doctor

38:38

finds that there's a quite large tumor

38:40

and its cancerous. In removing that,

38:43

they had to anesthetize him obviously, but

38:45

he had a very weak heart because

38:47

of his time in the Gulag. Cora Lev was

38:49

just fifty nine. Coral

38:51

Lev died, and then the whole Soviet

38:54

program was kind of thrown into upheaval. They've

38:56

lost their their key engineering leader, and

38:58

they replaced them, but nobody was

39:01

really a replacement for surgery Corralov. The

39:03

tide had finally turned. Astronauts

39:05

Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon performed the

39:07

first ever direct descent rendezvous

39:09

with an uncreweded Gina target vehicle. This

39:12

wasn't just for fun, This was a test run

39:14

for what would later be Apollo's command and lunar

39:16

modules and the Russians. They

39:19

landed Lunar nine on the Moon, the first

39:21

soft landing of a spacecraft. It

39:24

was their twelfth attempt. Rocket

39:26

science is hard. The Russians

39:28

also put the first satellite around the moon, Luna

39:31

ten. These are hardly minor

39:33

accomplishments, but probes are

39:35

not people of

39:37

the moon. It wasn't that they didn't spend enough money. Wasn't

39:40

that they weren't trying. They spent a boatload

39:42

of money, and they had huge programs,

39:45

but they were disorganized and

39:47

they started late. Their system was

39:49

really chaotic. It works for short

39:52

term bursts of things, but it wasn't

39:54

suited for long term, sustained

39:57

periods of innovation. The other reason

39:59

is that there were a lot of competing

40:01

factions within the communist system

40:04

who had these huge engineering empires,

40:06

and they didn't get along. They were

40:08

constantly fighting for the same resources. While

40:11

he was alive, korl Lev was only occasionally

40:13

successful at unifying the various factions.

40:16

Once he died, none of his predecessors

40:18

seemed capable of navigating those

40:20

fraud political waters. Nineteen

40:23

sixty seven nearly derailed both countries

40:25

space programs. This was the year of the

40:27

Apollo one fire. It was also the year

40:29

in which Sawyer was one crashed that's the

40:32

story that opened this podcast. The Americans

40:34

took a long, hard look at their program and

40:36

eventually rallied von Bron's

40:38

magnificent Saturn program boasted

40:41

success after success. In

40:43

fact, the Saturn five would be launched a

40:45

total of ten times and never once

40:47

suffer a significant failure. The

40:49

former ss man was now an American

40:52

hero. The United States finally

40:54

had the Moon in their sights, and

40:56

while the Russian people were convinced that their country

40:58

would still be the first to the Moon, the engineers

41:01

and cosmonauts were not fooled. They

41:03

could see the writing on the wall. After

41:05

the death of Camrad, Morale plummeted,

41:08

and although the propaganda machine was still going

41:10

at full power, fooling their American

41:12

counterparts into believing that their communist

41:14

nemesis was still neck and neck with them,

41:17

they recognized there was no way they were going to

41:19

beat the United States to the Moon. The

41:21

only thing left to do was beat them in a

41:23

circumnavigation of the Moon. But fearing

41:26

just that possibility, NASA pushed

41:28

the launch of Apollo eight up several months

41:30

and four days before Christmas. Jim

41:33

Levell, Frank Borman, and Bill Anders

41:35

orbited the Moon method

41:39

who we would like then you God

41:43

created Earth. Apollo

41:45

seventeen astronaut Harrison Schmidt. Yeah,

41:48

I think beginning of Apollo eight, Americans

41:50

really started to gain some confidence that

41:52

the Cold War was not going to go on forever. The

41:55

Russians last victory in space came

41:57

just a few months ahead of Apollo eleven, in

42:00

which soy Use four and soy Use five

42:02

both crude met in space and

42:04

docked. They opened hatches to allow

42:06

the cosmonauts access to both craft,

42:09

but that was the end of it. In February

42:11

of nineteen sixty nine, five months before

42:14

Apollo eleven, Russia tested coral

42:16

Lev's powerful AND one rocket for the first

42:18

time. Before he died. Coralav

42:21

realized that if Russia was going to best the Americans

42:23

into space, they'd have to take some shortcuts.

42:27

Rather than a cluster of large, expensive engines

42:29

as on the Saturn, cora Lev opted

42:31

to fit the N one with thirty small

42:33

engines, and instead of testing each

42:36

stage of the N one separately as the Americans

42:38

did, Corala Have proposed they build the entire

42:40

end one and test it fully assembled.

42:45

They bring it to the padded nineteen sixty

42:48

nine, they tried to launch it four times, and

42:50

all four times it explodes. The

42:52

rocket, known as kor Lev's last dream,

42:55

was dead. His vision of men visiting

42:57

the Moon would come to pass, but the flag

43:00

planted there would be the stars and stripes, not

43:02

the hammer and sickle. Von Bronze

43:04

moon vision was fully realized in July

43:07

of nineteen sixty nine. With Apollo eleven.

43:10

The space race was over. Moon landings

43:12

wouldn't have happened without this intense political

43:15

issue between the United States and the Soviet Union.

43:17

I mean, the space races is, let's

43:21

not kid ourselves a product of the Cold War.

43:23

I mean, this had nothing to do with science, or exploration

43:26

or any like goodness of mankind. This was

43:28

entirely about showing the Soviets that were

43:30

better back

43:35

on Apollo eleven. The guys are still

43:38

bored. Michael calls Charlie Duke

43:40

and Mission control just to idly chatty

43:44

on the night. Were really

43:46

booming along here with all activity. Can

43:49

barely believe it are you doing?

43:51

Then you're made up on the kind build drinking. A

44:00

later, mission Control begins hearing some creepy

44:02

sounds emanating from Apollo eleven. Once

44:05

again, the guys are trying to get a rise

44:07

out of everyone in Houston. The song

44:09

is music out of the Moon by Less Baxter,

44:12

and Neil loves it all right in

44:15

a mind about an album pointy

44:18

hair, hand out the man,

44:21

but it's been a little frank or

44:24

you're bank with a little blow that

44:31

it sounds odd because

44:33

the primary instrument is a theorem, in which,

44:35

fittingly enough for today's conversation, is

44:37

a Russian musical instrument that to this day

44:40

is forever and inseparably associated

44:42

with space. Neil may like his

44:44

therem and music, but mission control and

44:47

not so much thank you. As

44:52

the guys prepare for sleep, Duke relays

44:55

one last piece of news to the crew. President

44:57

Nixon is the preparative cloud.

45:00

Greek Europe returned convicted that within

45:02

thirty one years the man will have vincit at least

45:04

one of the planets bearing some form of line.

45:07

In the year two thousands, we on this

45:09

Earth will have been the viewer where there will be

45:12

a form of line. As of two thousand

45:14

and nineteen, when I am recording this podcast,

45:16

that prediction has yet to come true. We

45:19

will be taking a look at the current state of the U. S.

45:21

Crude space program. In our final episode,

45:25

Day seven is over. On day eight July

45:28

are penultimate episode, We're going to look

45:30

at what happened after the astronauts got home.

45:33

They left as reality stars and returned

45:36

as the biggest celebrities on the planet. But

45:38

behind the ticker tape parades, the world

45:40

tours, and the White House Dinners lay

45:42

a dark reality, a future

45:45

riddled with depression, alcoholism,

45:47

and fractured families. This

45:51

podcast is a production of I Heart Radio

45:53

and trade Craft Studios. Executive

45:56

producers Ashe Seroia and

45:58

Scott Bernstein, in association with

46:00

High Five Content and executive producer

46:02

Andrew Jacobs. Amazing

46:05

research and production assistants by associate

46:07

producers Brian Showsau and Natalie

46:09

Robomed. Licensing rights and clearances

46:12

by Deborah Correa. Our incredible

46:15

editor is Bill Lance. Original

46:17

music by Henry ben Wah. The

46:20

experts who contributed to this episode were

46:22

NASA Chief Historian Bill Berry, Professor

46:24

Asaf Sadigi, Space historian

46:26

Amy Sherry Title, and Apollo seventeen

46:29

astronaut Harrison Schmidt. Special

46:31

thanks to everyone at NASA who made this podcast

46:34

possible, especially the incredible

46:36

technological wizardry of consulting producer

46:39

Ben Feist, who's responsible for organizing

46:41

and cleaning the eleven thousand hours

46:43

of mission audio you're hearing selections from

46:46

in this podcast special. Thanks also

46:48

to consultant Gina Delvack Kennedy

46:51

Election Archive audio compliments of the

46:53

South Carolina Political Collections, University

46:56

of South Carolina Libraries. Licensing

46:59

rights and clearances by Deborah Correa.

47:01

This is a brand new podcast and we're so excited

47:04

to be sharing it with you. Help us spread it far

47:06

and wide, tell your friends, leave

47:08

ratings and reviews, and chat about it on social

47:10

media. Our hashtag is nine D I

47:13

J. We would love to hear what you think. New

47:15

episodes come out each week, so be sure to

47:17

subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

47:20

I'm Brandon Phipps. Thanks so much for listening,

47:22

and I'll see you next episode.