Sergei Khrushchev: Why The Soviets Lost The Space Race
By: Tim Ventura
Tags: Politics, Russia, Space, Futurism, Technology

Sergei, the space race during the 1960’s was tied to cold-war tensions & the demonstration of technological superiority, but for most people, including scientists like yourself, the dream of conquering space was about more than just who could build the biggest ICBM, right?

Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, Brown University (IntPolicyDigest)

Yes, of course. First of all, space was not about building the biggest ICBM because even beginning with R7, it was not about the biggest ICBM, but the most effective. You have use a size of ICBM that will optimize it to economic conditions, in terms of cost & efficiency — those are very different goals from putting a man on the moon.

Now during the space race, the US & USSR were both intensely competing to achieve firsts in spaceflight — but within the USSR, you also had intense competition between design bureaus for limited budgets. You worked for Vladimir Chelomey, and you were competing primarily against Sergei Korolev, the designer of the USSR’s first ICBM & the launch vehicle for Yuri Gagarin’s Vostok spacecraft. Can you describe this rivalry a bit for us?

The funding process we used was similar in many ways to the USA. We would compete by presenting our designs at the level of government ministries, and they would be reviewed by the council of ministers, who would then make recommendations for government funding.

During the space race, it felt to us much like a western-style competition — with Korolev & Chelomey as the main competitors. There were also designs & proposals from other design bureaus, but Korolev & Chelomey were the top contenders.

I worked for Chelomey, and I met Korolev many times during this era. To be honest, Korolev was a very nice man, and a brilliant manager. In fact, I would say that he was more of a managerial genius than a scientist. He had a great ability to integrate people & ideas to achieve the state’s goals, and he was able to leverage those people along with the state for his own interests.

Rival design bureau chiefs Sergei Korolev (on left) and Vladimir Chelomey (on right)

Korolev believe in space, but he was under pressures to weaponize it. From what I understand, he pressured your father to launch the OS-1 back in 1962, which was a 75 ton orbital platform armed with nuclear weapons.

Yes, there were pressures but my father never really supported this idea. My father believed that bringing nuclear weapons to space created a dangerous and unpredictable situation. You can deliver the weapons to orbit, but then it becomes a question of who will control them. He felt that it was too easy for something to go wrong.

I understand that Korolev initially had the go ahead to use an upgraded N1 rocket for these heavy-lift space & military applications, but it was later switched to the Chelomey Proton, which you helped design.

Yes, again this was back in 1962, and it was the same competition for who could the biggest launch vehicle. At the time, Chelomey proposed the Proton, and Korolev proposed using his proven N1 design, which ultimately won him the contract.

You have to remember that this was still in the the preliminary design stage, which meant that both design bureaus were under pressure to serve as many military & space applications possible in order to attract customers.

There was talk about space, and also talk about about having a booster capable of delivering a 12-megaton warhead — but in terms of the military applications, my father ultimately told him that it was simply too expensive. We simply didn’t need the capability — and so after that, the application was focused only on space launch capabilities. The Proton was designed to send men to the moon, not sending a 12 megaton warhead to America.

The Proton rocket is still used for orbital launches over 50 years later (Space.com)

Now in terms of your own career, were you focused on building spacecraft from the beginning, or did your focus change as the USSR became more competitively focused on the moon race?

I started at Chelomey working on missile design, but in 1963 we began sending out several proposals on how utilize the Proton rocket to for manned moon launches along with the LK1 spacecraft we designed, but we faced strong competition with Korolev, and since he had more political support, the LK1 project was cancelled in 1965.

I think I’m beginning to see what you meant about design bureau rivalry & internal politics disrupting the larger space program. Why didn’t the Proton booster it was designed for get canceled as well?

LK1 was only the first stage of the larger vehicle, and at that time Korolev did not have a booster he could use for his alternative to it. So by leveraging his political connections he was able to Chelomey’s work on the LK1, which was then switched to Korolev’s capsule — and he planned to use the Proton as his booster.

This became a problem for him, however, because Chelomey lost interest in the project and it began to run behind schedule. So this rivalry between two soviet design firms was very helpful to NASA & Von Braun in America.

Now the Apollo program started back in 1961, so it already had a head start on the Soviet program. What were your father’s thoughts on entering the space race at that time, especially given the ambitious goal of being first to the moon?

A Soviet propaganda poster from the moon race (Flashbak.com)

Frankly, my father was opposed to sending the man to the moon. He said, “Kennedy is spending his money, but it’s simply too expensive, and I don’t want to spend my budget on a race to the moon because I have other priorities like agriculture and housing.”

Korolev sincerely believed that he could make it to the moon cheaper & faster than the Americans, though. He said he could do it maybe maybe 10 times cheaper, and in 1962 that was enough to get him permission to make a limited design. Later, in August 1964 he was permitted to start designing the lunar program after Brezhnev rose into power. At that point my father was not limiting budgets, and then the USSR entered the competition in full swing.

The first lunar flight was planned for 1967 right?

What can I say? It was an ambitious dream at the time, because they wanted to launch the flight before the Americans and before the date proposed by Chelomey. So if you read my book, Khrushchev on Khrushchev, you will find the a detailed answer there to this question.

Well, given the tight schedule & ambitious goal, it seems possible that Chelomey’s program wouldn’t have had better success than Korolev’s.

Well, Chelomey had a better design, a better background, and he had Vladimir Glushko on his team — and Korolev had no engine designer because he broke his relations with Glushko. But yes, the USSR started three years after the Americans, so it is questionable whether Chelomey could have been on the moon before Apollo.

Do you think Korolev getting the Chelomey contract canceled as part of this ongoing design bureau rivalry ultimately cost the Soviet Union the space race?

Who knows? We can only guess at this who would be the first & second to the moon if things had gone differently — but it is certain that Chelomey was better prepared to win the space race than Korolev was.

I want to change topic a bit now: the space race is history, but over 50 years later the Proton rocket that you helped design is still in use, deploying satellites, probes & even ISS modules. Do you feel vindicated that the venerable proton rocket is still in use today?

But of course. I also think it’s a good example that in space endeavors we have to work together internationally. After all, space exploration is very expensive and like any type of exploration, it involves many unknown factors, so having international collaboration is the best. I think it also proves what a truly brilliant engineer Chelomey was that his designs are still in use today.