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The Space Age had barely begun when Soviet engineers started planning ways to destroy enemy satellites. Some Western analysts have speculated that a design for an anti-satellite weapon system was started at Korolev’s OKB-1 bureau as early as 1956…
Polyot-1
Credit: © Dietrich Haeseler
Credit: © Dietrich Haeseler
By Dave
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Premiere Khrushchev was not willing to wait until Soyuz for another space first. Khrushchev believed, There could be no final victories in the race for space propaganda. He knew the US was working on project Gemini which would carry two astronauts in 1965. So, as a means to upstage the US, Khrushchev ordered Chief Designer Korolev to fit three cosmonauts into the Voskhod spacecraft that was designed for two…
By Dave
Yegorov
Feoktistov
Komarov
Voskhod 1 and 2
Mission Patch
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“In those days, the Party organizations in industry were not only involved with policy, ideology, and the “struggle against nonconformist thought,” but tried to get involved in technology and production engineering. Wielding real authority over people who were Party members, they had the opportunity to affect the production process. With few exceptions, every chief designer was a Party member. It was far more dangerous to receive a Party reprimand than a reprimand ordered by the head of an enterprise or even a minister.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was a party of power. This was a party that actively meddled in the production process not only from the top—through the Central Committee or Politburo—but also from the bottom. Things did not always turn out as planned, but as a rule, they had the best of intentions. The Party attempted to encompass all aspects of a person’s life with its ideological influence. Any job was supposed to be a “thing of virtue, honor, and heroism,” not for the sake of personal prosperity, but to strengthen the power of the state. “So long as our motherland lives, there are no other cares”—these words succinctly and rather accurately reflected the spirit of a myriad of Party propaganda campaigns. Any deviation from the Party line was punished mercilessly. The Party allowed no liberalism within its ranks.“ Boris Chertok.
Soyuz 7k-Ok Assembly
Docking Simulators
Soyuz Panel
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After Voskhod-2, an ideological vacuum, disorder, and vacillation cropped up in the Soviet maned space program. There was no clear-cut answer to which project should be the priority, a new series of Voskhods, artificial gravity experiments, or the construction of the Soyuzes. However, during August 1965 the wavering ended. First priority was given to the Soyuzes. A real all-hands rush job to develop and manufacture Soyuzes got underway. A new un-realistic schedule was created that required OKB-1 to supply, three Soyuz flight vehicles ready for testing, two in December of 1965 and one in January of 1966.
Shuttle vs. Soyuz Size
Igla Docking System
Proton K
