January 23, 2020 • 47 mins
As Apollo 11 races back home, we give you a front row seat to an epic showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union, as they use the Space Race to wage the Cold War. One thing will become abundantly clear—America wouldn’t have beaten the Russians without a lot of help from the Nazis.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nine Days in July is a production of I Heart
Radio and trade Craft Studios in association with High five Content.
April twenty third, nineteen sixty seven, cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhailovitch Camrav
has been in space for more than twenty four hours.
It has been the longest day of his life. No
sooner had he reached shore of it than one of
(00:21):
his spacecraft's solar arrays failed to properly deploy. His ship
is now dangerously low on power. The partially deployed panel
also obscured some critical navigation equipment, meaning Camrav is finding
it nearly impossible to steer. To make matters worse, his
communications equipment is not functioning properly. His spacecraft is, as
(00:42):
one Russian official will later call it, a piece of shit.
The thirty seven year old Colonel Camrav had been chosen
as the cosmonaut to ride aboard so Use, one the
Soviet's newest and most advanced spacecraft designed as part of
their effort to beat the Americans to the Moon. Urigageron,
the first man in space, and Camarad's best friend, was
(01:02):
chosen as his backup. As the launch day approached, it
was clear to Camrav and Gagaron that the spacecraft was
not yet ready. The untested space vehicle was shodily constructed,
and the engineering team identified more than two hundred serious
structural problems, including the parachutes, which repeatedly failed to deploy correctly.
The three previous unmanned soy U's test flights had all failed.
(01:26):
Camarav and Gagaron drafted a letter outlining their concerns and
asking that the mission be postponed until the issues could
be properly addressed, but it was quickly buried. The powers
that be wanted a bold triumph to celebrate the fiftieth
anniversary of the Communist Revolution, the mission would go forward.
Before he departed, Comrade told a colleague that he was
(01:48):
not going to make it back from this flight. When
asked why he did not simply refuse the mission, Comrof
said that if he did, Gagaron would go and die
in his place, and he could not do that to
his best friend. The previous morning, as Camrav waited inside
his Soyuz capsule conducting his pre flight checks, several witnesses
claimed that Gagaron arrived at the launchpad demanding to take
(02:10):
his friend's place, but Gagarin was a national hero, and
there was no way that was ever going to happen.
After more than a day in orbit, wrestling with malfunction
after malfunction, Soviet ground control orders Camrav to cut his
mission short and return to Earth. After eighteen agonizing orbits,
Camarad fires his retrorockets and heads for home. After making
(02:33):
it safely through the Earth's supper atmosphere and with the
Russian countryside opening up beneath him, Camarav deploys his pear
shutes to slow his descent, but nothing happens. The shoot deploys,
but it doesn't inflate. Kamrav has a manually activated reserve
shoot for just this sort of emergency. He yanks at loose,
but it instantly becomes tangled with the trailing primary shooting,
(02:56):
Traveling at nearly ninety miles per hour, so use one
smashes into the Russian steps like a three ton meteorite.
Rescue helicopter finds the wreckage by following a massive tower
of black smoke. The capsule is burning so hot that
the metal has gone molted. What's left of Camrath looks
(03:18):
like a massive marshmallow burned to a misshapen cinder over
a campfire. Before his departure, he stipulated that if anything
should happen to him, his funeral would be open casket,
so that the Soviet leadership would be unable to hide
what they had done. Vladimir Conrad is the first person
to die in the Race for space. This is Apollo
(03:40):
control of one, seven hours, thirty nine minutes. Flight surgeon
reports that all three crewmen now are awake. Good morning eleven,
and about twenty four seconds from now, the spacecraft will
pass the imaginary line into the Earth's sphere of influence.
(04:02):
Mark you're leaving the learned there of influence over. This
is the point that the Earth's gravity becomes stronger than
that of the Moon and begins tugging our astronauts homeward.
At the time the spacecraft across to the Earth's sphere
of influence Pollow eleven was about one seventy four thousand
nautical miles from Earth. At the present time, the spacecraft
(04:25):
is traveling at a speed of three thousand, nine hundred
ninety four per second with respect to the Earth. If
you're not busy now, I can read you up the
morning news. A follow eleven and still dominates the news
around the world. Only four and a commun China and
North Korea, North Vietnam in Albania have not yet informed
(04:47):
their citizens of your flight and landing on the Moon.
Can you imagine not knowing that such an astonishing feet
took place, one of the greatest accomplishments in human history,
and hundreds of millions of people where didn't I had
the opportunity to celebrate the accomplishment with the rest of
the planet. Tonight, President Nix and the scheduled to watch
the All Star Baseball game in Kington. After the game,
(05:10):
he will depart for the Pacific Recovery Area and flying
to the Hornet in time to witness your flashdown. The
USS Hornet is the aircraft carrier in charge of recovering
Apollo eleven when it splashes down in two and a
half more days. McCandless has one last bit of news.
Lunar fifteen is believed to have cracked into the state
of crisis yesterday, after all being the Moon fifty two times.
(05:32):
When Apollo eleven reached the Moon three days ago, the
Russians were already there, or at least one of their
spacecraft was Luna fifteen was launched just days before Apollo
eleven launch, so you had essentially in July nine two
missions to the Moon. That's awesome, Siddiki. I'm a professor
(05:53):
of history at Fordam University in New York. I reade
quite a bit about the history of space exploration, including
the Russians side of things. The Americans sent Neil Buzz
and Michael Apollo eleven, and the Russians, in a last
ditch effort to win the space race, launched Lunar fifteen,
which was essentially designed to go to the Moon. Going
to its orbit, the lander was supposed to come down,
(06:15):
scoop up some soil, and lift off and fly directly
back to the Earth, so they would bring back lunar
soil before Apollo leven, showing the world that you know,
you guys wasted all this money to lend guys on
the Moon, but we got it back, you know, cheaper
and safer. That's not what happened. Bernard Level at General
(06:36):
Blank Observatory said that Lunar fifteen hit the surface of
the Moon at a speed of about three as it
was descending to the Moon. It essentially crashed into a mountain.
It's July nineteen sixty nine, day seven of the Apollo
eleven mission. It's time to talk about the space race.
(06:56):
That's a term we're all familiar with, but for most Americans,
the only part of the space race they really know
is who crossed the finish line first. But that means
that everything that led up to that moment is overlooked.
After all, a race presupposes more than one competitor. Today,
we are going to take a look at what launched
the space race and some of the major milestones that
(07:18):
built up to the moon landing. And we'll be paying
special attention to the Russian side, because the USSR beat
America to just about every significant first in space milestone
there is. But to really understand where all this starts,
we have to go back to the end of World
War Two. Even though the Soviets have been our allies
during World War Two, it becomes quickly apparently the Soviets
(07:40):
keeps saying, you know, they're going to crush the West
and communism will rule in the future, and the U
s s, oh, you want that's NASA historian Bill Berry.
The Cold War happens after the end of World War Two,
largely because nuclear weapons appearing, and people realize that World
War two is bad enough to start with, but then
it ends with with these city killer weapons, and people
(08:02):
are scared it. It's like, we can't afford to have
another war like this again. It's just too destructive. So
lines get drawn, armies are built on both sides with
you know, nuclear weapons pointed at each other, but nobody
wants to actually engage in a fight. The Communist Party
of the United States is far better organized and where
the next is in occupied countries prior to their capitulation,
(08:24):
their goal is the overthrow of our government. But we're
getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Germany had developed a
terrifying new weapon in the final days of World War Two,
the V two, or Vengeance Weapons. The V two was
the world's first long range, supersonic guided ballistic missile. At
the end of World War Two, the Allies decided, we
(08:46):
need to go find out what the heck they were
doing and make sure this technology gets gets collected for us,
because it's clear at the end of the war with
nuclear weapons that if you get surprised in warfare after
World War Two, it's likely to be over. You know,
if somebody launches bunch of nuclear weapons and you get
caught by surprise. That's it. One of the men responsible
for the creation of the V two was Werner von Braun.
(09:07):
He came from an aristocratic German family. He was what
we would today called maybe a space enthusiast. From a
young age, he was willianto cosmic things. Um he gets
involved in an amateur rocketry group. He realizes that the
only way he's going to get money to build rockets
is to work with the German military. About the time
he does that, the Nazi Party takes over. They see
(09:28):
that this is a very bright young guy, and he
good moves upward through their rocket program until he's heading
the V two design projects. He wants to go to space,
but he's now building rockets for this regime. Hitler directed
thousands of V two attacks against targets in Belgium, France,
the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. London was among the
(09:48):
city's most heavily bombed, killing more than twenty people and
injuring three times that amount. In all, it is estimated
that nine thousand civilians and military personnel were killed in
V two attacks too. Another holy indiscriminate weapon. It's a
truly typical effort of the immortally injured Nazi beast to
attempt to tear down everything as he goes under. And
(10:10):
actually actually more people died building V two rockets than
died in the attacks with the V two rockets. Some
twelve thousand concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers perished building
the V two and von Braun clearly knew about this stuff.
He knew what he wanted to do, which was to
get to space, and I think he made compromises along
the way to achieve that goal. I think, ultimately I
(10:33):
would say he's an opportunist in the sense that he
was willing to compromise in order to achieve his dream
of space, and I think to the end of his
days he probably believed that his compromises were worth it.
The military had a list of German scientists and engineers
that they wanted to interrogate, and Verne von Braun was
at the top of that list. When it was clear
(10:55):
that Germany was about to fall, von Braun, in more
than one hundred of his V two colleagues sought out
American forces and surrendered. They wanted to avoid falling into
the hands of the Soviet Army, which was less than
one hundred miles away. They provided the Americans with rocket
blueprints and many of the missiles themselves generalize and hower
and farms. May that the forces of German they have surrendered.
(11:18):
The flags of freedom fly all over Europe. The Nazis
surrendered late in April of nineteen forty, the same month
that Franklin Delano Roosevelt died and Harry Truman took over
in the Oval Office. The War Department secretly smuggled von
Braun and more than three hundred rail cars of his
hardware out of Germany. They didn't even tell the new
(11:39):
president what they were doing. Somebody in the US government
decides that they're The connections of these people to the
Nazi Party in Germany is not something we really want
to talk about anymore, because they're kind of useful to us,
and we want to have them stay here and help
with our missile programs, and so they go to work
for the U. S. Army. This was Operation paper Clip,
a covert American program to use the Nazis knowledge and
(12:01):
know how to design weapons for the United States. The OSS,
which is the predecessor to the CIA. They basically whitewashed
a lot of the personal records as a lot of
these engineers, and some of whom were rather dubious. The
Germans ended up at Fort Bliss in Texas. For the
first several years, they were not allowed to leave the
base without a military escort. They referred to themselves as
(12:23):
p o p s Prisoners of peace. Used to being coddled,
von Braun now had to answer to far younger, far
less experienced Army officers. But what truly rankled him was
the fact that the Army was only interested in his
missile technology and continually dismissed every proposal he put forward
for rockets designed for space. Launching human beings into the
(12:45):
cosmos was still his overwriting ambition. When the Korean War
broke out in nineteen fifty, von Braun and his team
were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama. He was put in charge
of the Army's rocket development team, designing a Erica's first
large ballistic missile, the red Stone. Finally, he saw a
way to begin setting the stage for lift vehicles capable
(13:08):
of handling massive payloads. The stuff of popular science fiction
suddenly felt within Arm's reach. This is a follow Control
at one eight hours, fifty eight minutes. At the present
time of follow eleven has one seventy two thousand, six
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hundred fifty four nautical miles from the Earth, traveling at
a speed of four thousand seventeen ft per second. Given
that there is little to do in the spacecraft, mission
Control decides it's the perfect time to pick Neil and
Buzz's brains about some nagging Moon questions. Under sixty four
thousand dollars, we're still trying to work out the location
(13:52):
of your landing site. We think it is located on
l am To chart at Juliett Desmal five and seven
point eight. For the twenty one hours that the Eagle
was on the Moon, no one knew where they were.
Remember that they overshot their landing site by four miles
and had to set down at the first available opening
(14:12):
given their fuel state. While he was in orbit, Michael
had been tasked to look for his colleagues with each
pass he made over the Sea of Tranquility, but he
was never able to find them. Bruce McCandless and the
rest of Mission Control is still trying to figure out
where humanity's first lunar footprints are the position which I
just gave you is plightly. What of West Crater? I
(14:35):
think that it's flagly that that might have been West
Crater that we went across the landing. The flight plan
has relatively few activities scheduled for now through the beginning
of the cruise sleep period. Tonight boredom. That's not something
these guys, be they in Apollo eleven or Mission Control,
are used to feeling. But I'm sure it's a welcome
(14:55):
change from the past week. So let's oh, we were
think you up there there getting writer and writer, and
we're not done talking about Verner von Braun, But right
now it's time to take a peek behind the Iron
curtain and check in on the Soviets. As it turned out,
(15:17):
the Soviets had their own version of Operations paper Clip,
dubbed Operation Asiovikim. On a single night in nineteen forty six,
the Soviets recruited more than twenty two hundred German V
two rocket scientists. And when I say recruited, I mean
kidnapped several hundred Germans and put them on trains and
took them back to the Soviet Union, and they put
(15:38):
them in teams through reverse engineering this rocket. The man
in charge of operation Asiovikim was Sergey Pavlovitch Korlev Serga
Karlov in many ways of counterpart to von Braun, very
charismatic person like von Braun, a very good organizer. He
was able to inspire people even when he was really young.
He walked in the room, people knew that this guy
(15:59):
was something special. Kra Lev was born in nineteen o seven.
He fell in love with flying as a child and
began taking flying lessons at sixteen. He later studied under
the pioneering Soviet aviation designer Andre Tupolev, who would go
on to design many of Russia's most iconic aircraft. His
interest in space began while working as the lead engineer
(16:20):
on one of Tupolev's bombers. What if he wondered, liquid
fueled rocket engines could be used to allow the bomber
to fly higher, further faster forms. This amateur group in
just a bunch of young guys in their twenties getting
together building rockets on their own, you know, melting silverware
at home to build rocket carts and things. And then
(16:42):
they get snatched up by the Stalinist government who recognizes
that these guys are smart, and they get repurposed into
an actual design institute to build rockets. There's no space
at this moment. It's about rockets for war. Cora Leev
was not interested in making weapons, but his group saw
the research as a means to an end, and then
his life took a darker turn. The shadow of the
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Great Purge those upon the nation. There's a nationwide great
purge going on in nineteen thirty eight. Hundreds of thousands
of people are arrested on false charges. It's kind of
the apex of Stalinist paranoia, but a lot of people
lose their lives. Karlav was one of those sort of
caught up stadions. Enemies real and imaginary are executed hundreds
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of thousands tall in the Blood Path. Korlv was falsely
accused and the newly married father of an infant daughter
was sentenced to be shot, but on the day of
the execution, his actual sentence was commuted and he was
a sentenced to ten years in a gulaub camp. So
he got sent off to Siberia, a brutal, brutal camp
where he works as a gold digger, and he loses
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a lot of his teeth has scurvy, he has injuries
on his head and neck, and all sorts of horrible
things happened to him. Emaciated and near death, Korlav was
saved when he was transferred to a special gulag for
learned intellectuals who might be of use to the state.
I don't think he ever got over that. He was
a very hard hitted, you know, rude person. He didn't
(18:09):
have time for people who were just screwing around wasting time.
In ninety four, shortly before the end of World War Two,
kor Lev was freed and ordered to begin designing ballistic missiles.
One of his first duties was traveling to Germany to
help the Soviets collect as much information, manufacturing, and engineering
on the V two program as possible. The Russians started
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by reverse engineering the V two, creating ever larger, more
powerful vehicles, and he rose through the ranks until he
was a really important guy by the mid fifties. Tis
passed in the prison was eventually sort of blotted out.
While the Soviet government was keen on intercontinental ballistic missiles,
kor Lev, like von Braun, recognized that the same technology
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could with only a few modifications launch probes or even
people into space, but the Kremlin had no interest in
his outlandish ideas. That was until the US declared its
intent to launch the first ever artificial satellite into outer space.
It was mostly hot air. The Americans technology did not
(19:12):
yet match their robust rhetoric, but coral V was confident
that with what he and his team had already designed,
Russia could embarrass the Americans and get to space first. Today,
a new moon is in the sky, a twenty three
inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a Russian rocket.
You are hearing the actual signals transmitted by the Earth
(19:34):
circling satellite, one of the great scientific feats of the age.
On October fifth, ninety seven, the Soviet Union stunned the
world by launching Sputnik, the first human made object to
ever orbit the Earth. As it did so, Sputnik sent
out a distinctive beeping sound that could be heard by
anyone with a simple Ham radio. For Washington, the sound
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was terrifying. When the news gets to the s all
held bricks loose and people are kind of freaking out
because if they can put a satellite into space, they
could put a bomb into space and they could land
on you know, Oklahoma, ar Kansas. America wouldn't get its
first satellite, Explore one, into space until four months later,
aboard a Jupiter sea rocket designed by who else, Erni
(20:18):
von Braun. Do you have ange an American? I've been
so await, pray for work for as the Army successful
launching a Victor one, but by that time Russia had
already one up to them. Sputting one is launched on
October four, and once the Soviets realized that it was
(20:40):
a very powerful pr tool, they wanted to do it again.
And Nikita Krushchov, who was the chairman of the Communist
Party at the time, he calls in carla Evin says
can you do this again? And Carlos says yes, and
I can do you one better. I could put a
little animal into this satellite. And so Sputting two was designed,
built and launched, and US than a month nine fifty
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seven year of space and Sputnik dogs, like a first
space traveler, was ready for the takeoff. Nestled the board
was like a stray dog plucked off the streets of Moscow. Unfortunately,
the Soviets had not yet developed the technology to get
like a back home again. And she died in orbit.
And some people say, wow, okay, I think that goes
deep in the night is one thing. But a live
(21:26):
dog go on into space. What does that tell us
about how advanced their program is and what their objectives
are in space? And suddenly the Sputnik situation goes from
being sort of a curiosity a concern to being a
major crisis. Sputnik one and two were like giant wrecking
balls to America's pride. Suddenly a new front was opened
in the Cold War. The space race. In the rocket's
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finery wake was America's sober realization that the battle had
just been joined and that the work of self preservation
was at hand. It's based historian Amy share a title.
So it became this push to figure out, well, you know,
we have to show our dominance in space, because dominance
in space is dominance in technology, dominance in rockets which
(22:11):
are missiles, dominance and our ability to solve problems and
show that we're the strongest, best nation. And so the
United States and the Soviet Union, their competition on which
system or government is going to win out gets tied
to space. And of course The Soviets love this idea
at the beginning, because they're ahead, von Braun and corals
wacky ideas about humans in space didn't sound so wacky
(22:34):
to their respective governments anymore. One of the things that
happens as a response to spot Nick is the creation
of NASA immediately within less than a year in October.
But now we have come to a new day, and
I say it is to become part of a new agency,
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Right out of the gate,
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NASA launched the Mercury program, developing one man space capsules
designed to prove that humans can live and work in space.
Von Braun and his team were moved under NASA's umbrella.
He became the director of the new Martial Space Flight Center,
developing ever larger rockets, and though no one was asking
for it yet, he began drafting plans for his magnum Opus,
(23:16):
the Saturn operations paper clips. Former Nazis were no longer
advising Americans, they were leading them back in Russia. Korlav
was also promoted. He essentially leads the Soviet space program
for the next ten years or so, not that anyone
in the West knew who he was. His name was
never mentioned in Russian newspapers anywhere. He was just called
(23:39):
the chief designer. Official reason given why they didn't disclose
his name was that, you know, they were afraid that
the CIA would come and kidnap him or something terrible
would happen. In fact, even many of the Russian engineers
who worked beside Karlav didn't know who he was. This
only added to his mystique. And the Soviets they didn't
have anywhere near the side program at the United States had.
(24:01):
They were brilliant, and they were very nimble, and they're
watching very carefully what the United States just doing to say,
what can we do to outdo the United States? Up
until nineteen so we didn't really have a human spacefight program.
They had a what can we do to embarrassing the
United States program. Nineteen fifty nine was a very good
year for coral Lev and the Russians. The Luna program
was their robotics program to explore the Moon. The first
(24:23):
goal they wanted to do us to just impact the
surface of the Moon, which was a very difficult navigational
problem because the Moon is moving around the Earth. And
they did that with Luna to the Luna three was
a really ingenious spaceship essensed to spun around the back
of the Moon, photographed it, and transmitted the picture back
to the Earth. This was the first time anyone had
seen the Moon up close. In addition to the Luna probes,
(24:45):
Coral lev also began working on the N one, a
profoundly powerful rocket capable of escaping Earth's gravity. Well, the
end one was the response to the Saturn five. It's
a giant rocket capable of ultimately launching about metric ton
since Earth or bid. Truly a great leader, a great name.
(25:11):
Yah MC president to John F. Canada as a new
decade dawn. John F. Kennedy ran for President of the
United States on a platform pledging to close the space
race gap and move America into first place. The Americans
ushered in nineteen sixty one, not with a dog in space,
(25:32):
but with a chimp named ham M has done it.
He has moved man closer than ever before to his
age old dream of traveling the heavens Now it was
time to send a human being. That human was Alan Shepherd,
one of the original Mercury seven astronauts. When Shepherd informed
his wife that she was hugging the very first man
(25:52):
to go into space. She replied, who let a Russian
in here? More prophetic words could not have been spoken.
First success in space when the Russians pushed a man
across the po he was Yuri Gagara. In April twelfth,
nineteen sixty one, twenty seven year old Yuri Gagarin became
the first human who travel to space and orbit the
(26:12):
planet in Vostok One. He remains to this day, I
think one of the most recognized names in all of
Russian history. Most Russians, if you asked who won the
space race, they would say, well, we want it. We
got the first guy in space. As with Sputnik just
two and a half years earlier, America had its collective
breath knock out of it. When Alan Shepherd heard the news,
(26:34):
he slammed his fist on the table so hard that
others in the room were certain he'd broken it. The
mood of the White House was no less volatile. Kennedy
ordered Vice President Lyndon Johnson to figure out something dramatic
that the United States could do to best the Soviets.
Johnson met with a number of NASA officials for ideas
but it was Verde von Braun who most impressed him.
(26:55):
Von Braun pitched something outlandish, a moon landing. The ex
Nazi was confident that he could get Americans to the moon.
By nineteen sixty eight, Johnson passed von Braun's recommendations to
the President, who signed off on it. The United States
was going to the Moon. Three weeks after Euryga Geron's
history making flight, Alan Shepard became the first American in
(27:18):
space aboard Freedom seven. His flight lasted only fifteen minutes.
He was launched into space on a Redstone rocket, the
direct descendant of von Bronze V two. Now it was
time to sell America on von Bron's big idea. On
(27:40):
nine sixty one, just twenty days after Shepherd's fifteen minute flight,
President Kennedy stood before Congress and said, I believe that
this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before
this decade is out of landing a man on the
Moon and returning him safely to the Europe. We think
of Kennedy as the space races loudest and most ardent cheerleader,
(28:03):
and he was at least in public. But on a
day in nineteen sixty two, Shortly after John Glenn became
the first American to orbit the Earth, Kennedy sat down
with NASA Administrator James Webb, arguing that all of NASA's
scientific and technological efforts should be subservient to Apollo. Let's
listen in on a recording only made public in two
(28:23):
thousand and one. I think it is the top priority
that we had that very clear. This is uh important
for in an act of political reasons and whether we
like it or not, in intensive race. So I think
we have to take the US the top priority. NASA
Administrator Webb and Jerome Wisner, the President's scientific advisor. We're
arguing that before the United States could land on the Moon,
(28:44):
NASA would first need to come to grips with a
lot of unknowns about outer space. But Kennedy didn't want
to hear any of it that we do or to
really be hie and getting onto the mole ahead of
the writing why can't space we join a lot? Because
by guys? Would women tell? Everybody reamed the space boys.
Nobody believe that the policy ought to be a position
(29:06):
of the top priority program of the agency and one
of the two to the fan the top priority United
States government sending it's kind of funny because I'm not
that interested in space. Let me repeat Kennedy's words, I'm
not that interested in space. The view that I grew
up with in the nineteen sixties was that Kennedy was
(29:26):
this guy who was really interested in space and was
a leader in the space program, and and saw human
destiny in space and all these things that people imagined
um and that that sort of myth grew for a
long time. Now, when those tapes came out, it became
really crystal clear Kennedy's goal wasn't to send people to
the Moon, or to explore space or any of the
other stuff. What he really had was a political problem
(29:47):
with the Soviets beating us up over space spectaculars on
a regular basis, and he just wanted it to stop.
Despite his stirring rhetoric. That's all the space race was
to Kennedy, and he had good reason to think the
Soviets were win that race. In the summer of nineteen
sixty three, they launched Vostok three and four. The two
craft met in space with just four miles separating them,
(30:09):
and engaged in the first ship to ship communications. One
of the two cosmonauts would later marry a woman named
Valentina Tereshkova. Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in
space aboard Vostok six in November of that year. The
twenty six year old textile worker was the first woman
in space, A feat of dubious scientific value perhaps, but
(30:30):
what is its rather in propaganda another first for the
Soviet 'gen She made nearly fifty orbits over three days
and is still the only woman to ever undertake a
solo mission. America wouldn't put its first woman into space,
Sally Ride, until nineteen eighty three, a full twenty years later.
Kennedy soon began to regret endorsing von Braun's crazy moonshot idea.
(30:52):
He and others were beginning to realize just how unrealistic
the plan was. Kennedy has a realization that Apollo is
super expensive, might even bankrupt the budget, and he floats
this idea of a giant project with the Soviets. While
speaking before the United Nations, Kennedy said, finally, in a
theod why the United States and the Soviet Union of
a special capacity in the field of space, there is
(31:15):
room for new co operations. I include among these possibilities,
a joint expedition to the Moon. Premier Nikita Krushcheff ignored
him if America was going to save face, he was
going to have to make good on Kennedy's promise. On
November six, seven months after the launch of Gemini one,
Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral and toured the facility with von Braun,
(31:38):
inspecting the extraordinary hardware already in use and the Saturn
one rocket, the predecessor to the Saturn five. The President
came away from his visit with the renewed enthusiasm for
the Apollo program, designed to follow after Gemini. He was
back on board. Five days later. President John F. Kennedy
was shot and killed. Back aboard Apollo eleven, the crew
(32:10):
sets up for another television transmission. Charlie Duke is now
in the capcom set all you're packing our part names.
That's the focus A little bit out the way through
the Earth in the center of the brain lemming it
came from it is huh, Well, I'm really looking at
a bad brain here, then, might want The image is
(32:31):
blurry enough that Duke has confused the Moon for the Earth.
Bad enough not fun in the right landing. But when
I got to that the right planet, Buzz decides to
poke Duke a bit and remind him that he doesn't
even know where in the moon he and Neil were.
I'll have a little that one down. We're making it
get tomorrow and tomorrow and itbody here that it really
is the one we're leaving. Oh not the guy. Neil
(32:54):
starts the broadcast, showing off boxes of moon rocks and
soil samples that they're bringing back to Earth for Judy.
We know a lot of scientists standard by to be
the later example, and incidic we get onto the ship.
I'm sure these boxes will need with the transferred and
deliberate started to the later receiving laboratory. Now it's Buzzes turn,
(33:16):
but he's not thinking about moon relics. He's thinking with
his stomach. And I'd like to take through a little
bit for you. Development taken place and a department. He
unwraps a food cube. Designs, uh, we're designed to remove
the problem of ad income. Many problems voting around in
(33:36):
the cabin, so I designed a particular side that would
be able to go into the mouth all at once.
Michael decides to take a quick detour and become a
science teacher. Is in effect, is a little down a
rating for the kids at home, all kids everywhere for
that matter. I was gonna tell you how you drank
water out of a book, but I'm afraid I built
(33:58):
a bone to foe and uh, if I'm not careful,
I'm gonna go right over the dot. Can you can
you do the water lapping around at the top of
the kid. That's the permanend of eleven. I'll tell you
what I just I just turned that point over and
I get out of the water over again. Okay, okay.
Michael flips the spoon over and the water resting in
(34:19):
it now hovers in the air as tiny spherical globules
and say, up there, and we don't know where over
at the one up it is good in another And
that really is what Michael swallows several of the tiny
water spheres in midair. A couple of decades into the
twenty one century, we're used to images like this from
the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, But in nineteen
(34:41):
sixty nine, images like this we're downright magical. Thank you
for malla kids in the world who gave l from
all right, get damn, I want to I'll get you
that very quint then I never think youre No, that's
perimend I repeated to bite on that point. No, you
tell uh uh by getting larger. There the play for
(35:03):
a coming out there no matter where, rabb all it
all it bight to good home Lincoln, cer liv being
happy to have you back. Can you tell the guys
in the ship are really starting to loosen up after
years of intense training. They are finally heading home as
conquering heroes from Dallas, Texas and the Flash. Apparently official
(35:28):
President Kennedy died at one Central Standard time some thirty
eight minutes ago. When we left off, John F. Kennedy
had been assassinated. Two hours and eight minutes later, Lyndon
Johnson was sworn into office. One of his very first
acts was renaming Cape Canaveral. It would now be called
(35:49):
Cape Kennedy. He also doubled Apollo's budget. Johnson comes in
and he says, Okay, the moon landing program. This is
our tribute to our Slane President, and we are going
to the moon. And no, and the Kremlin has any
doubt in your mind that Lyndon Johnson is out that
kicked their butts. The Servis realize, Holy Mackarel, Americans are
really serious about going to the moon. Von Braun Saturn prototype,
(36:10):
the Saturn one, successfully blasted off into space with a
dummy Apollo spacecraft to top it. Though the Saturn one
was only half the size of the future Saturn five,
it was a validation of everything von Braun had been
pushing for five four three two one ignition. It was
(36:32):
now definitely only a matter of time until man with
first set foot on the Moon. And yet, despite all
of America's successes, Sergey Kurliev and the Russians were still
embarrassing the United States at every turn. In nineteen sixty five,
Alexei Leonov became the first person to conduct a spacewalk.
Leonof brought a suicide pill with him just in case
(36:55):
something went wrong, and he very nearly had to use it.
But when he tried to get back in, he couldn't
get back in the air log because his space suit
had ballooned. Leonov's space suit became bloated in the vacuum
of space. He was literally floating inside of it. His
hands slipped out of his gloves and his feet came
out of his boots. The only way he was able
to get back inside his spacecraft was by releasing his
(37:17):
precious oxygen until the suit became compact enough for him
to squeeze through the hatch. The first artificial Earth satellite,
the first Moon probes, the first animals in space, the
first man in space, the first woman in space, the
first crew in space, the first spacewalk. So far, the
space race belonged to the Russians between seven and about
(37:39):
nineteen sixty six. There's very few firsts that actually belonged
to the US. If you were watching this happened, you
would have very little confidence that America would get to
the Moon first. But America was about to close the gap.
On March nineteen sixty, Gus Grissom and John Young flew
on the first two man mission J and I. Three.
(38:01):
Later that summer, ed White conducted a twenty minute spacewalk
while aboard Gemini four. Finally the United States had caught up.
Over the rest of nineteen sixty five, Gemini would continue
to break records, including the first orbital rendezvous and the
longest time spent in space up to that point fourteen
days on Gemini seven, and then tragedy struck the Soviet
(38:22):
space program. Chief designer Sergey cora Lev went into the
hospital for a routine surgical procedure. He never came out.
He goes in for surgery to remove like what's what
was thought at the time, benign growth. But during the surgery,
the doctor finds that there's a quite large tumor and
its cancerous. In removing that, they had to anesthetize him obviously,
(38:45):
but he had a very weak heart because of his
time in the Gulag. Cora Lev was just fifty nine.
Coral Lev died, and then the whole Soviet program was
kind of thrown into upheaval. They've lost their their key
engineering leader, and they replaced them, but nobody was really
a replacement for surgery Corralov. The tide had finally turned.
Astronauts Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon performed the first ever
(39:08):
direct descent rendezvous with an uncreweded Gina target vehicle. This
wasn't just for fun, This was a test run for
what would later be Apollo's command and lunar modules and
the Russians. They landed Lunar nine on the Moon, the
first soft landing of a spacecraft. It was their twelfth attempt.
Rocket science is hard. The Russians also put the first
(39:29):
satellite around the moon, Luna ten. These are hardly minor accomplishments,
but probes are not people of the moon. It wasn't
that they didn't spend enough money. Wasn't that they weren't trying.
They spent a boatload of money, and they had huge programs,
but they were disorganized and they started late. Their system
(39:49):
was really chaotic. It works for short term bursts of things,
but it wasn't suited for long term, sustained periods of innovation.
The other reason is that there were a lot of
competing factions within the communist system who had these huge
engineering empires, and they didn't get along. They were constantly
fighting for the same resources. While he was alive, korl
(40:12):
Lev was only occasionally successful at unifying the various factions.
Once he died, none of his predecessors seemed capable of
navigating those fraud political waters. Nineteen sixty seven nearly derailed
both countries space programs. This was the year of the
Apollo one fire. It was also the year in which
Sawyer was one crashed that's the story that opened this podcast.
(40:33):
The Americans took a long, hard look at their program
and eventually rallied von Bron's magnificent Saturn program boasted success
after success. In fact, the Saturn five would be launched
a total of ten times and never once suffer a
significant failure. The former ss man was now an American hero.
The United States finally had the Moon in their sights,
(40:56):
and while the Russian people were convinced that their country
would still be the first to the Moon, the engineers
and cosmonauts were not fooled. They could see the writing
on the wall. After the death of Camrad, Morale plummeted,
and although the propaganda machine was still going at full power,
fooling their American counterparts into believing that their communist nemesis
was still neck and neck with them, they recognized there
(41:18):
was no way they were going to beat the United
States to the Moon. The only thing left to do
was beat them in a circumnavigation of the Moon. But
fearing just that possibility, NASA pushed the launch of Apollo
eight up several months and four days before Christmas. Jim Levell,
Frank Borman, and Bill Anders orbited the Moon method who
(41:39):
we would like then you God created Earth. Apollo seventeen
astronaut Harrison Schmidt. Yeah, I think beginning of Apollo eight,
Americans really started to gain some confidence that the Cold
War was not going to go on forever. The Russians
last victory in space came just a few months ahead
of Apollo eleven, in which soy Use four and soy
(42:01):
Use five both crude met in space and docked. They
opened hatches to allow the cosmonauts access to both craft,
but that was the end of it. In February of
nineteen sixty nine, five months before Apollo eleven, Russia tested
coral Lev's powerful AND one rocket for the first time.
Before he died. Coralav realized that if Russia was going
(42:22):
to best the Americans into space, they'd have to take
some shortcuts. Rather than a cluster of large, expensive engines
as on the Saturn, cora Lev opted to fit the
N one with thirty small engines, and instead of testing
each stage of the N one separately as the Americans did,
Corala Have proposed they build the entire end one and
test it fully assembled. They bring it to the padded
(42:47):
nineteen sixty nine, they tried to launch it four times,
and all four times it explodes. The rocket, known as
kor Lev's last dream, was dead. His vision of men
visiting the Moon would come to pass, but the flag
planted there would be the stars and stripes, not the
hammer and sickle. Von Bronze moon vision was fully realized
in July of nineteen sixty nine. With Apollo eleven. The
(43:10):
space race was over. Moon landings wouldn't have happened without
this intense political issue between the United States and the
Soviet Union. I mean, the space races is, let's not
kid ourselves a product of the Cold War. I mean,
this had nothing to do with science, or exploration or
any like goodness of mankind. This was entirely about showing
the Soviets that were better back on Apollo eleven. The
(43:37):
guys are still bored. Michael calls Charlie Duke and Mission
control just to idly chatty on the night. Were really
booming along here with all activity. Can barely believe it
are you doing? Then you're made up on the kind
build drinking. A later, mission Control begins hearing some creepy
(44:02):
sounds emanating from Apollo eleven. Once again, the guys are
trying to get a rise out of everyone in Houston.
The song is music out of the Moon by Less Baxter,
and Neil loves it all right in a mind about
an album pointy hair, hand out the man, but it's
been a little frank or you're bank with a little
(44:26):
blow that it sounds odd because the primary instrument is
a theorem, in which, fittingly enough for today's conversation, is
a Russian musical instrument that to this day is forever
and inseparably associated with space. Neil may like his therem
and music, but mission control and not so much thank you.
(44:52):
As the guys prepare for sleep, Duke relays one last
piece of news to the crew. President Nixon is the
preparative cloud. Greek Europe returned convicted that within thirty one
years the man will have vincit at least one of
the planets bearing some form of line. In the year
two thousands, we on this Earth will have been the
viewer where there will be a form of line. As
(45:13):
of two thousand and nineteen, when I am recording this podcast,
that prediction has yet to come true. We will be
taking a look at the current state of the U. S.
Crude space program. In our final episode, Day seven is over.
On day eight July are penultimate episode, We're going to
look at what happened after the astronauts got home. They
(45:33):
left as reality stars and returned as the biggest celebrities
on the planet. But behind the ticker tape parades, the
world tours, and the White House Dinners lay a dark reality,
a future riddled with depression, alcoholism, and fractured families. This
podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and trade
(45:54):
Craft Studios. Executive producers Ashe Seroia and Scott Bernstein, in
association with High Five Content and executive producer Andrew Jacobs.
Amazing research and production assistants by associate producers Brian Showsau
and Natalie Robomed. Licensing rights and clearances by Deborah Correa.
(46:14):
Our incredible editor is Bill Lance. Original music by Henry
ben Wah. The experts who contributed to this episode were
NASA Chief Historian Bill Berry, Professor Asaf Sadigi, Space historian
Amy Sherry Title, and Apollo seventeen astronaut Harrison Schmidt. Special
thanks to everyone at NASA who made this podcast possible,
(46:35):
especially the incredible technological wizardry of consulting producer Ben Feist,
who's responsible for organizing and cleaning the eleven thousand hours
of mission audio you're hearing selections from in this podcast special.
Thanks also to consultant Gina Delvack Kennedy Election Archive audio
compliments of the South Carolina Political Collections, University of South
(46:56):
Carolina Libraries. Licensing rights and clearances by Deborah Correa. This
is a brand new podcast and we're so excited to
be sharing it with you. Help us spread it far
and wide, tell your friends, leave ratings and reviews, and
chat about it on social media. Our hashtag is nine
D I J. We would love to hear what you think.
New episodes come out each week, so be sure to
(47:17):
subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Brandon Phipps. Thanks
so much for listening, and I'll see you next episode.
Nine Days in July is a production of I Heart
Radio and trade Craft Studios in association with High five Content.
April twenty third, nineteen sixty seven, cosmonaut Vladimir Mikhailovitch Camrav
has been in space for more than twenty four hours.
It has been the longest day of his life. No
sooner had he reached shore of it than one of
(00:21):
his spacecraft's solar arrays failed to properly deploy. His ship
is now dangerously low on power. The partially deployed panel
also obscured some critical navigation equipment, meaning Camrav is finding
it nearly impossible to steer. To make matters worse, his
communications equipment is not functioning properly. His spacecraft is, as
(00:42):
one Russian official will later call it, a piece of shit.
The thirty seven year old Colonel Camrav had been chosen
as the cosmonaut to ride aboard so Use, one the
Soviet's newest and most advanced spacecraft designed as part of
their effort to beat the Americans to the Moon. Urigageron,
the first man in space, and Camarad's best friend, was
(01:02):
chosen as his backup. As the launch day approached, it
was clear to Camrav and Gagaron that the spacecraft was
not yet ready. The untested space vehicle was shodily constructed,
and the engineering team identified more than two hundred serious
structural problems, including the parachutes, which repeatedly failed to deploy correctly.
The three previous unmanned soy U's test flights had all failed.
(01:26):
Camarav and Gagaron drafted a letter outlining their concerns and
asking that the mission be postponed until the issues could
be properly addressed, but it was quickly buried. The powers
that be wanted a bold triumph to celebrate the fiftieth
anniversary of the Communist Revolution, the mission would go forward.
Before he departed, Comrade told a colleague that he was
(01:48):
not going to make it back from this flight. When
asked why he did not simply refuse the mission, Comrof
said that if he did, Gagaron would go and die
in his place, and he could not do that to
his best friend. The previous morning, as Camrav waited inside
his Soyuz capsule conducting his pre flight checks, several witnesses
claimed that Gagaron arrived at the launchpad demanding to take
(02:10):
his friend's place, but Gagarin was a national hero, and
there was no way that was ever going to happen.
After more than a day in orbit, wrestling with malfunction
after malfunction, Soviet ground control orders Camrav to cut his
mission short and return to Earth. After eighteen agonizing orbits,
Camarad fires his retrorockets and heads for home. After making
(02:33):
it safely through the Earth's supper atmosphere and with the
Russian countryside opening up beneath him, Camarav deploys his pear
shutes to slow his descent, but nothing happens. The shoot deploys,
but it doesn't inflate. Kamrav has a manually activated reserve
shoot for just this sort of emergency. He yanks at loose,
but it instantly becomes tangled with the trailing primary shooting,
(02:56):
Traveling at nearly ninety miles per hour, so use one
smashes into the Russian steps like a three ton meteorite.
Rescue helicopter finds the wreckage by following a massive tower
of black smoke. The capsule is burning so hot that
the metal has gone molted. What's left of Camrath looks
(03:18):
like a massive marshmallow burned to a misshapen cinder over
a campfire. Before his departure, he stipulated that if anything
should happen to him, his funeral would be open casket,
so that the Soviet leadership would be unable to hide
what they had done. Vladimir Conrad is the first person
to die in the Race for space. This is Apollo
(03:40):
control of one, seven hours, thirty nine minutes. Flight surgeon
reports that all three crewmen now are awake. Good morning eleven,
and about twenty four seconds from now, the spacecraft will
pass the imaginary line into the Earth's sphere of influence.
(04:02):
Mark you're leaving the learned there of influence over. This
is the point that the Earth's gravity becomes stronger than
that of the Moon and begins tugging our astronauts homeward.
At the time the spacecraft across to the Earth's sphere
of influence Pollow eleven was about one seventy four thousand
nautical miles from Earth. At the present time, the spacecraft
(04:25):
is traveling at a speed of three thousand, nine hundred
ninety four per second with respect to the Earth. If
you're not busy now, I can read you up the
morning news. A follow eleven and still dominates the news
around the world. Only four and a commun China and
North Korea, North Vietnam in Albania have not yet informed
(04:47):
their citizens of your flight and landing on the Moon.
Can you imagine not knowing that such an astonishing feet
took place, one of the greatest accomplishments in human history,
and hundreds of millions of people where didn't I had
the opportunity to celebrate the accomplishment with the rest of
the planet. Tonight, President Nix and the scheduled to watch
the All Star Baseball game in Kington. After the game,
(05:10):
he will depart for the Pacific Recovery Area and flying
to the Hornet in time to witness your flashdown. The
USS Hornet is the aircraft carrier in charge of recovering
Apollo eleven when it splashes down in two and a
half more days. McCandless has one last bit of news.
Lunar fifteen is believed to have cracked into the state
of crisis yesterday, after all being the Moon fifty two times.
(05:32):
When Apollo eleven reached the Moon three days ago, the
Russians were already there, or at least one of their
spacecraft was Luna fifteen was launched just days before Apollo
eleven launch, so you had essentially in July nine two
missions to the Moon. That's awesome, Siddiki. I'm a professor
(05:53):
of history at Fordam University in New York. I reade
quite a bit about the history of space exploration, including
the Russians side of things. The Americans sent Neil Buzz
and Michael Apollo eleven, and the Russians, in a last
ditch effort to win the space race, launched Lunar fifteen,
which was essentially designed to go to the Moon. Going
to its orbit, the lander was supposed to come down,
(06:15):
scoop up some soil, and lift off and fly directly
back to the Earth, so they would bring back lunar
soil before Apollo leven, showing the world that you know,
you guys wasted all this money to lend guys on
the Moon, but we got it back, you know, cheaper
and safer. That's not what happened. Bernard Level at General
(06:36):
Blank Observatory said that Lunar fifteen hit the surface of
the Moon at a speed of about three as it
was descending to the Moon. It essentially crashed into a mountain.
It's July nineteen sixty nine, day seven of the Apollo
eleven mission. It's time to talk about the space race.
(06:56):
That's a term we're all familiar with, but for most Americans,
the only part of the space race they really know
is who crossed the finish line first. But that means
that everything that led up to that moment is overlooked.
After all, a race presupposes more than one competitor. Today,
we are going to take a look at what launched
the space race and some of the major milestones that
(07:18):
built up to the moon landing. And we'll be paying
special attention to the Russian side, because the USSR beat
America to just about every significant first in space milestone
there is. But to really understand where all this starts,
we have to go back to the end of World
War Two. Even though the Soviets have been our allies
during World War Two, it becomes quickly apparently the Soviets
(07:40):
keeps saying, you know, they're going to crush the West
and communism will rule in the future, and the U
s s, oh, you want that's NASA historian Bill Berry.
The Cold War happens after the end of World War Two,
largely because nuclear weapons appearing, and people realize that World
War two is bad enough to start with, but then
it ends with with these city killer weapons, and people
(08:02):
are scared it. It's like, we can't afford to have
another war like this again. It's just too destructive. So
lines get drawn, armies are built on both sides with
you know, nuclear weapons pointed at each other, but nobody
wants to actually engage in a fight. The Communist Party
of the United States is far better organized and where
the next is in occupied countries prior to their capitulation,
(08:24):
their goal is the overthrow of our government. But we're
getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Germany had developed a
terrifying new weapon in the final days of World War Two,
the V two, or Vengeance Weapons. The V two was
the world's first long range, supersonic guided ballistic missile. At
the end of World War Two, the Allies decided, we
(08:46):
need to go find out what the heck they were
doing and make sure this technology gets gets collected for us,
because it's clear at the end of the war with
nuclear weapons that if you get surprised in warfare after
World War Two, it's likely to be over. You know,
if somebody launches bunch of nuclear weapons and you get
caught by surprise. That's it. One of the men responsible
for the creation of the V two was Werner von Braun.
(09:07):
He came from an aristocratic German family. He was what
we would today called maybe a space enthusiast. From a
young age, he was willianto cosmic things. Um he gets
involved in an amateur rocketry group. He realizes that the
only way he's going to get money to build rockets
is to work with the German military. About the time
he does that, the Nazi Party takes over. They see
(09:28):
that this is a very bright young guy, and he
good moves upward through their rocket program until he's heading
the V two design projects. He wants to go to space,
but he's now building rockets for this regime. Hitler directed
thousands of V two attacks against targets in Belgium, France,
the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. London was among the
(09:48):
city's most heavily bombed, killing more than twenty people and
injuring three times that amount. In all, it is estimated
that nine thousand civilians and military personnel were killed in
V two attacks too. Another holy indiscriminate weapon. It's a
truly typical effort of the immortally injured Nazi beast to
attempt to tear down everything as he goes under. And
(10:10):
actually actually more people died building V two rockets than
died in the attacks with the V two rockets. Some
twelve thousand concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers perished building
the V two and von Braun clearly knew about this stuff.
He knew what he wanted to do, which was to
get to space, and I think he made compromises along
the way to achieve that goal. I think, ultimately I
(10:33):
would say he's an opportunist in the sense that he
was willing to compromise in order to achieve his dream
of space, and I think to the end of his
days he probably believed that his compromises were worth it.
The military had a list of German scientists and engineers
that they wanted to interrogate, and Verne von Braun was
at the top of that list. When it was clear
(10:55):
that Germany was about to fall, von Braun, in more
than one hundred of his V two colleagues sought out
American forces and surrendered. They wanted to avoid falling into
the hands of the Soviet Army, which was less than
one hundred miles away. They provided the Americans with rocket
blueprints and many of the missiles themselves generalize and hower
and farms. May that the forces of German they have surrendered.
(11:18):
The flags of freedom fly all over Europe. The Nazis
surrendered late in April of nineteen forty, the same month
that Franklin Delano Roosevelt died and Harry Truman took over
in the Oval Office. The War Department secretly smuggled von
Braun and more than three hundred rail cars of his
hardware out of Germany. They didn't even tell the new
(11:39):
president what they were doing. Somebody in the US government
decides that they're The connections of these people to the
Nazi Party in Germany is not something we really want
to talk about anymore, because they're kind of useful to us,
and we want to have them stay here and help
with our missile programs, and so they go to work
for the U. S. Army. This was Operation paper Clip,
a covert American program to use the Nazis knowledge and
(12:01):
know how to design weapons for the United States. The OSS,
which is the predecessor to the CIA. They basically whitewashed
a lot of the personal records as a lot of
these engineers, and some of whom were rather dubious. The
Germans ended up at Fort Bliss in Texas. For the
first several years, they were not allowed to leave the
base without a military escort. They referred to themselves as
(12:23):
p o p s Prisoners of peace. Used to being coddled,
von Braun now had to answer to far younger, far
less experienced Army officers. But what truly rankled him was
the fact that the Army was only interested in his
missile technology and continually dismissed every proposal he put forward
for rockets designed for space. Launching human beings into the
(12:45):
cosmos was still his overwriting ambition. When the Korean War
broke out in nineteen fifty, von Braun and his team
were transferred to Huntsville, Alabama. He was put in charge
of the Army's rocket development team, designing a Erica's first
large ballistic missile, the red Stone. Finally, he saw a
way to begin setting the stage for lift vehicles capable
(13:08):
of handling massive payloads. The stuff of popular science fiction
suddenly felt within Arm's reach. This is a follow Control
at one eight hours, fifty eight minutes. At the present
time of follow eleven has one seventy two thousand, six
(13:31):
hundred fifty four nautical miles from the Earth, traveling at
a speed of four thousand seventeen ft per second. Given
that there is little to do in the spacecraft, mission
Control decides it's the perfect time to pick Neil and
Buzz's brains about some nagging Moon questions. Under sixty four
thousand dollars, we're still trying to work out the location
(13:52):
of your landing site. We think it is located on
l am To chart at Juliett Desmal five and seven
point eight. For the twenty one hours that the Eagle
was on the Moon, no one knew where they were.
Remember that they overshot their landing site by four miles
and had to set down at the first available opening
(14:12):
given their fuel state. While he was in orbit, Michael
had been tasked to look for his colleagues with each
pass he made over the Sea of Tranquility, but he
was never able to find them. Bruce McCandless and the
rest of Mission Control is still trying to figure out
where humanity's first lunar footprints are the position which I
just gave you is plightly. What of West Crater? I
(14:35):
think that it's flagly that that might have been West
Crater that we went across the landing. The flight plan
has relatively few activities scheduled for now through the beginning
of the cruise sleep period. Tonight boredom. That's not something
these guys, be they in Apollo eleven or Mission Control,
are used to feeling. But I'm sure it's a welcome
(14:55):
change from the past week. So let's oh, we were
think you up there there getting writer and writer, and
we're not done talking about Verner von Braun, But right
now it's time to take a peek behind the Iron
curtain and check in on the Soviets. As it turned out,
(15:17):
the Soviets had their own version of Operations paper Clip,
dubbed Operation Asiovikim. On a single night in nineteen forty six,
the Soviets recruited more than twenty two hundred German V
two rocket scientists. And when I say recruited, I mean
kidnapped several hundred Germans and put them on trains and
took them back to the Soviet Union, and they put
(15:38):
them in teams through reverse engineering this rocket. The man
in charge of operation Asiovikim was Sergey Pavlovitch Korlev Serga
Karlov in many ways of counterpart to von Braun, very
charismatic person like von Braun, a very good organizer. He
was able to inspire people even when he was really young.
He walked in the room, people knew that this guy
(15:59):
was something special. Kra Lev was born in nineteen o seven.
He fell in love with flying as a child and
began taking flying lessons at sixteen. He later studied under
the pioneering Soviet aviation designer Andre Tupolev, who would go
on to design many of Russia's most iconic aircraft. His
interest in space began while working as the lead engineer
(16:20):
on one of Tupolev's bombers. What if he wondered, liquid
fueled rocket engines could be used to allow the bomber
to fly higher, further faster forms. This amateur group in
just a bunch of young guys in their twenties getting
together building rockets on their own, you know, melting silverware
at home to build rocket carts and things. And then
(16:42):
they get snatched up by the Stalinist government who recognizes
that these guys are smart, and they get repurposed into
an actual design institute to build rockets. There's no space
at this moment. It's about rockets for war. Cora Leev
was not interested in making weapons, but his group saw
the research as a means to an end, and then
his life took a darker turn. The shadow of the
(17:05):
Great Purge those upon the nation. There's a nationwide great
purge going on in nineteen thirty eight. Hundreds of thousands
of people are arrested on false charges. It's kind of
the apex of Stalinist paranoia, but a lot of people
lose their lives. Karlav was one of those sort of
caught up stadions. Enemies real and imaginary are executed hundreds
(17:25):
of thousands tall in the Blood Path. Korlv was falsely
accused and the newly married father of an infant daughter
was sentenced to be shot, but on the day of
the execution, his actual sentence was commuted and he was
a sentenced to ten years in a gulaub camp. So
he got sent off to Siberia, a brutal, brutal camp
where he works as a gold digger, and he loses
(17:49):
a lot of his teeth has scurvy, he has injuries
on his head and neck, and all sorts of horrible
things happened to him. Emaciated and near death, Korlav was
saved when he was transferred to a special gulag for
learned intellectuals who might be of use to the state.
I don't think he ever got over that. He was
a very hard hitted, you know, rude person. He didn't
(18:09):
have time for people who were just screwing around wasting time.
In ninety four, shortly before the end of World War Two,
kor Lev was freed and ordered to begin designing ballistic missiles.
One of his first duties was traveling to Germany to
help the Soviets collect as much information, manufacturing, and engineering
on the V two program as possible. The Russians started
(18:31):
by reverse engineering the V two, creating ever larger, more
powerful vehicles, and he rose through the ranks until he
was a really important guy by the mid fifties. Tis
passed in the prison was eventually sort of blotted out.
While the Soviet government was keen on intercontinental ballistic missiles,
kor Lev, like von Braun, recognized that the same technology
(18:52):
could with only a few modifications launch probes or even
people into space, but the Kremlin had no interest in
his outlandish ideas. That was until the US declared its
intent to launch the first ever artificial satellite into outer space.
It was mostly hot air. The Americans technology did not
(19:12):
yet match their robust rhetoric, but coral V was confident
that with what he and his team had already designed,
Russia could embarrass the Americans and get to space first. Today,
a new moon is in the sky, a twenty three
inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a Russian rocket.
You are hearing the actual signals transmitted by the Earth
(19:34):
circling satellite, one of the great scientific feats of the age.
On October fifth, ninety seven, the Soviet Union stunned the
world by launching Sputnik, the first human made object to
ever orbit the Earth. As it did so, Sputnik sent
out a distinctive beeping sound that could be heard by
anyone with a simple Ham radio. For Washington, the sound
(19:57):
was terrifying. When the news gets to the s all
held bricks loose and people are kind of freaking out
because if they can put a satellite into space, they
could put a bomb into space and they could land
on you know, Oklahoma, ar Kansas. America wouldn't get its
first satellite, Explore one, into space until four months later,
aboard a Jupiter sea rocket designed by who else, Erni
(20:18):
von Braun. Do you have ange an American? I've been
so await, pray for work for as the Army successful
launching a Victor one, but by that time Russia had
already one up to them. Sputting one is launched on
October four, and once the Soviets realized that it was
(20:40):
a very powerful pr tool, they wanted to do it again.
And Nikita Krushchov, who was the chairman of the Communist
Party at the time, he calls in carla Evin says
can you do this again? And Carlos says yes, and
I can do you one better. I could put a
little animal into this satellite. And so Sputting two was designed,
built and launched, and US than a month nine fifty
(21:05):
seven year of space and Sputnik dogs, like a first
space traveler, was ready for the takeoff. Nestled the board
was like a stray dog plucked off the streets of Moscow. Unfortunately,
the Soviets had not yet developed the technology to get
like a back home again. And she died in orbit.
And some people say, wow, okay, I think that goes
deep in the night is one thing. But a live
(21:26):
dog go on into space. What does that tell us
about how advanced their program is and what their objectives
are in space? And suddenly the Sputnik situation goes from
being sort of a curiosity a concern to being a
major crisis. Sputnik one and two were like giant wrecking
balls to America's pride. Suddenly a new front was opened
in the Cold War. The space race. In the rocket's
(21:50):
finery wake was America's sober realization that the battle had
just been joined and that the work of self preservation
was at hand. It's based historian Amy share a title.
So it became this push to figure out, well, you know,
we have to show our dominance in space, because dominance
in space is dominance in technology, dominance in rockets which
(22:11):
are missiles, dominance and our ability to solve problems and
show that we're the strongest, best nation. And so the
United States and the Soviet Union, their competition on which
system or government is going to win out gets tied
to space. And of course The Soviets love this idea
at the beginning, because they're ahead, von Braun and corals
wacky ideas about humans in space didn't sound so wacky
(22:34):
to their respective governments anymore. One of the things that
happens as a response to spot Nick is the creation
of NASA immediately within less than a year in October.
But now we have come to a new day, and
I say it is to become part of a new agency,
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Right out of the gate,
(22:54):
NASA launched the Mercury program, developing one man space capsules
designed to prove that humans can live and work in space.
Von Braun and his team were moved under NASA's umbrella.
He became the director of the new Martial Space Flight Center,
developing ever larger rockets, and though no one was asking
for it yet, he began drafting plans for his magnum Opus,
(23:16):
the Saturn operations paper clips. Former Nazis were no longer
advising Americans, they were leading them back in Russia. Korlav
was also promoted. He essentially leads the Soviet space program
for the next ten years or so, not that anyone
in the West knew who he was. His name was
never mentioned in Russian newspapers anywhere. He was just called
(23:39):
the chief designer. Official reason given why they didn't disclose
his name was that, you know, they were afraid that
the CIA would come and kidnap him or something terrible
would happen. In fact, even many of the Russian engineers
who worked beside Karlav didn't know who he was. This
only added to his mystique. And the Soviets they didn't
have anywhere near the side program at the United States had.
(24:01):
They were brilliant, and they were very nimble, and they're
watching very carefully what the United States just doing to say,
what can we do to outdo the United States? Up
until nineteen so we didn't really have a human spacefight program.
They had a what can we do to embarrassing the
United States program. Nineteen fifty nine was a very good
year for coral Lev and the Russians. The Luna program
was their robotics program to explore the Moon. The first
(24:23):
goal they wanted to do us to just impact the
surface of the Moon, which was a very difficult navigational
problem because the Moon is moving around the Earth. And
they did that with Luna to the Luna three was
a really ingenious spaceship essensed to spun around the back
of the Moon, photographed it, and transmitted the picture back
to the Earth. This was the first time anyone had
seen the Moon up close. In addition to the Luna probes,
(24:45):
Coral lev also began working on the N one, a
profoundly powerful rocket capable of escaping Earth's gravity. Well, the
end one was the response to the Saturn five. It's
a giant rocket capable of ultimately launching about metric ton
since Earth or bid. Truly a great leader, a great name.
(25:11):
Yah MC president to John F. Canada as a new
decade dawn. John F. Kennedy ran for President of the
United States on a platform pledging to close the space
race gap and move America into first place. The Americans
ushered in nineteen sixty one, not with a dog in space,
(25:32):
but with a chimp named ham M has done it.
He has moved man closer than ever before to his
age old dream of traveling the heavens Now it was
time to send a human being. That human was Alan Shepherd,
one of the original Mercury seven astronauts. When Shepherd informed
his wife that she was hugging the very first man
(25:52):
to go into space. She replied, who let a Russian
in here? More prophetic words could not have been spoken.
First success in space when the Russians pushed a man
across the po he was Yuri Gagara. In April twelfth,
nineteen sixty one, twenty seven year old Yuri Gagarin became
the first human who travel to space and orbit the
(26:12):
planet in Vostok One. He remains to this day, I
think one of the most recognized names in all of
Russian history. Most Russians, if you asked who won the
space race, they would say, well, we want it. We
got the first guy in space. As with Sputnik just
two and a half years earlier, America had its collective
breath knock out of it. When Alan Shepherd heard the news,
(26:34):
he slammed his fist on the table so hard that
others in the room were certain he'd broken it. The
mood of the White House was no less volatile. Kennedy
ordered Vice President Lyndon Johnson to figure out something dramatic
that the United States could do to best the Soviets.
Johnson met with a number of NASA officials for ideas
but it was Verde von Braun who most impressed him.
(26:55):
Von Braun pitched something outlandish, a moon landing. The ex
Nazi was confident that he could get Americans to the moon.
By nineteen sixty eight, Johnson passed von Braun's recommendations to
the President, who signed off on it. The United States
was going to the Moon. Three weeks after Euryga Geron's
history making flight, Alan Shepard became the first American in
(27:18):
space aboard Freedom seven. His flight lasted only fifteen minutes.
He was launched into space on a Redstone rocket, the
direct descendant of von Bronze V two. Now it was
time to sell America on von Bron's big idea. On
(27:40):
nine sixty one, just twenty days after Shepherd's fifteen minute flight,
President Kennedy stood before Congress and said, I believe that
this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before
this decade is out of landing a man on the
Moon and returning him safely to the Europe. We think
of Kennedy as the space races loudest and most ardent cheerleader,
(28:03):
and he was at least in public. But on a
day in nineteen sixty two, Shortly after John Glenn became
the first American to orbit the Earth, Kennedy sat down
with NASA Administrator James Webb, arguing that all of NASA's
scientific and technological efforts should be subservient to Apollo. Let's
listen in on a recording only made public in two
(28:23):
thousand and one. I think it is the top priority
that we had that very clear. This is uh important
for in an act of political reasons and whether we
like it or not, in intensive race. So I think
we have to take the US the top priority. NASA
Administrator Webb and Jerome Wisner, the President's scientific advisor. We're
arguing that before the United States could land on the Moon,
(28:44):
NASA would first need to come to grips with a
lot of unknowns about outer space. But Kennedy didn't want
to hear any of it that we do or to
really be hie and getting onto the mole ahead of
the writing why can't space we join a lot? Because
by guys? Would women tell? Everybody reamed the space boys.
Nobody believe that the policy ought to be a position
(29:06):
of the top priority program of the agency and one
of the two to the fan the top priority United
States government sending it's kind of funny because I'm not
that interested in space. Let me repeat Kennedy's words, I'm
not that interested in space. The view that I grew
up with in the nineteen sixties was that Kennedy was
(29:26):
this guy who was really interested in space and was
a leader in the space program, and and saw human
destiny in space and all these things that people imagined
um and that that sort of myth grew for a
long time. Now, when those tapes came out, it became
really crystal clear Kennedy's goal wasn't to send people to
the Moon, or to explore space or any of the
other stuff. What he really had was a political problem
(29:47):
with the Soviets beating us up over space spectaculars on
a regular basis, and he just wanted it to stop.
Despite his stirring rhetoric. That's all the space race was
to Kennedy, and he had good reason to think the
Soviets were win that race. In the summer of nineteen
sixty three, they launched Vostok three and four. The two
craft met in space with just four miles separating them,
(30:09):
and engaged in the first ship to ship communications. One
of the two cosmonauts would later marry a woman named
Valentina Tereshkova. Tereshkova became the first woman to fly in
space aboard Vostok six in November of that year. The
twenty six year old textile worker was the first woman
in space, A feat of dubious scientific value perhaps, but
(30:30):
what is its rather in propaganda another first for the
Soviet 'gen She made nearly fifty orbits over three days
and is still the only woman to ever undertake a
solo mission. America wouldn't put its first woman into space,
Sally Ride, until nineteen eighty three, a full twenty years later.
Kennedy soon began to regret endorsing von Braun's crazy moonshot idea.
(30:52):
He and others were beginning to realize just how unrealistic
the plan was. Kennedy has a realization that Apollo is
super expensive, might even bankrupt the budget, and he floats
this idea of a giant project with the Soviets. While
speaking before the United Nations, Kennedy said, finally, in a
theod why the United States and the Soviet Union of
a special capacity in the field of space, there is
(31:15):
room for new co operations. I include among these possibilities,
a joint expedition to the Moon. Premier Nikita Krushcheff ignored
him if America was going to save face, he was
going to have to make good on Kennedy's promise. On
November six, seven months after the launch of Gemini one,
Kennedy visited Cape Canaveral and toured the facility with von Braun,
(31:38):
inspecting the extraordinary hardware already in use and the Saturn
one rocket, the predecessor to the Saturn five. The President
came away from his visit with the renewed enthusiasm for
the Apollo program, designed to follow after Gemini. He was
back on board. Five days later. President John F. Kennedy
was shot and killed. Back aboard Apollo eleven, the crew
(32:10):
sets up for another television transmission. Charlie Duke is now
in the capcom set all you're packing our part names.
That's the focus A little bit out the way through
the Earth in the center of the brain lemming it
came from it is huh, Well, I'm really looking at
a bad brain here, then, might want The image is
(32:31):
blurry enough that Duke has confused the Moon for the Earth.
Bad enough not fun in the right landing. But when
I got to that the right planet, Buzz decides to
poke Duke a bit and remind him that he doesn't
even know where in the moon he and Neil were.
I'll have a little that one down. We're making it
get tomorrow and tomorrow and itbody here that it really
is the one we're leaving. Oh not the guy. Neil
(32:54):
starts the broadcast, showing off boxes of moon rocks and
soil samples that they're bringing back to Earth for Judy.
We know a lot of scientists standard by to be
the later example, and incidic we get onto the ship.
I'm sure these boxes will need with the transferred and
deliberate started to the later receiving laboratory. Now it's Buzzes turn,
(33:16):
but he's not thinking about moon relics. He's thinking with
his stomach. And I'd like to take through a little
bit for you. Development taken place and a department. He
unwraps a food cube. Designs, uh, we're designed to remove
the problem of ad income. Many problems voting around in
(33:36):
the cabin, so I designed a particular side that would
be able to go into the mouth all at once.
Michael decides to take a quick detour and become a
science teacher. Is in effect, is a little down a
rating for the kids at home, all kids everywhere for
that matter. I was gonna tell you how you drank
water out of a book, but I'm afraid I built
(33:58):
a bone to foe and uh, if I'm not careful,
I'm gonna go right over the dot. Can you can
you do the water lapping around at the top of
the kid. That's the permanend of eleven. I'll tell you
what I just I just turned that point over and
I get out of the water over again. Okay, okay.
Michael flips the spoon over and the water resting in
(34:19):
it now hovers in the air as tiny spherical globules
and say, up there, and we don't know where over
at the one up it is good in another And
that really is what Michael swallows several of the tiny
water spheres in midair. A couple of decades into the
twenty one century, we're used to images like this from
the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, But in nineteen
(34:41):
sixty nine, images like this we're downright magical. Thank you
for malla kids in the world who gave l from
all right, get damn, I want to I'll get you
that very quint then I never think youre No, that's
perimend I repeated to bite on that point. No, you
tell uh uh by getting larger. There the play for
(35:03):
a coming out there no matter where, rabb all it
all it bight to good home Lincoln, cer liv being
happy to have you back. Can you tell the guys
in the ship are really starting to loosen up after
years of intense training. They are finally heading home as
conquering heroes from Dallas, Texas and the Flash. Apparently official
(35:28):
President Kennedy died at one Central Standard time some thirty
eight minutes ago. When we left off, John F. Kennedy
had been assassinated. Two hours and eight minutes later, Lyndon
Johnson was sworn into office. One of his very first
acts was renaming Cape Canaveral. It would now be called
(35:49):
Cape Kennedy. He also doubled Apollo's budget. Johnson comes in
and he says, Okay, the moon landing program. This is
our tribute to our Slane President, and we are going
to the moon. And no, and the Kremlin has any
doubt in your mind that Lyndon Johnson is out that
kicked their butts. The Servis realize, Holy Mackarel, Americans are
really serious about going to the moon. Von Braun Saturn prototype,
(36:10):
the Saturn one, successfully blasted off into space with a
dummy Apollo spacecraft to top it. Though the Saturn one
was only half the size of the future Saturn five,
it was a validation of everything von Braun had been
pushing for five four three two one ignition. It was
(36:32):
now definitely only a matter of time until man with
first set foot on the Moon. And yet, despite all
of America's successes, Sergey Kurliev and the Russians were still
embarrassing the United States at every turn. In nineteen sixty five,
Alexei Leonov became the first person to conduct a spacewalk.
Leonof brought a suicide pill with him just in case
(36:55):
something went wrong, and he very nearly had to use it.
But when he tried to get back in, he couldn't
get back in the air log because his space suit
had ballooned. Leonov's space suit became bloated in the vacuum
of space. He was literally floating inside of it. His
hands slipped out of his gloves and his feet came
out of his boots. The only way he was able
to get back inside his spacecraft was by releasing his
(37:17):
precious oxygen until the suit became compact enough for him
to squeeze through the hatch. The first artificial Earth satellite,
the first Moon probes, the first animals in space, the
first man in space, the first woman in space, the
first crew in space, the first spacewalk. So far, the
space race belonged to the Russians between seven and about
(37:39):
nineteen sixty six. There's very few firsts that actually belonged
to the US. If you were watching this happened, you
would have very little confidence that America would get to
the Moon first. But America was about to close the gap.
On March nineteen sixty, Gus Grissom and John Young flew
on the first two man mission J and I. Three.
(38:01):
Later that summer, ed White conducted a twenty minute spacewalk
while aboard Gemini four. Finally the United States had caught up.
Over the rest of nineteen sixty five, Gemini would continue
to break records, including the first orbital rendezvous and the
longest time spent in space up to that point fourteen
days on Gemini seven, and then tragedy struck the Soviet
(38:22):
space program. Chief designer Sergey cora Lev went into the
hospital for a routine surgical procedure. He never came out.
He goes in for surgery to remove like what's what
was thought at the time, benign growth. But during the surgery,
the doctor finds that there's a quite large tumor and
its cancerous. In removing that, they had to anesthetize him obviously,
(38:45):
but he had a very weak heart because of his
time in the Gulag. Cora Lev was just fifty nine.
Coral Lev died, and then the whole Soviet program was
kind of thrown into upheaval. They've lost their their key
engineering leader, and they replaced them, but nobody was really
a replacement for surgery Corralov. The tide had finally turned.
Astronauts Pete Conrad and Dick Gordon performed the first ever
(39:08):
direct descent rendezvous with an uncreweded Gina target vehicle. This
wasn't just for fun, This was a test run for
what would later be Apollo's command and lunar modules and
the Russians. They landed Lunar nine on the Moon, the
first soft landing of a spacecraft. It was their twelfth attempt.
Rocket science is hard. The Russians also put the first
(39:29):
satellite around the moon, Luna ten. These are hardly minor accomplishments,
but probes are not people of the moon. It wasn't
that they didn't spend enough money. Wasn't that they weren't trying.
They spent a boatload of money, and they had huge programs,
but they were disorganized and they started late. Their system
(39:49):
was really chaotic. It works for short term bursts of things,
but it wasn't suited for long term, sustained periods of innovation.
The other reason is that there were a lot of
competing factions within the communist system who had these huge
engineering empires, and they didn't get along. They were constantly
fighting for the same resources. While he was alive, korl
(40:12):
Lev was only occasionally successful at unifying the various factions.
Once he died, none of his predecessors seemed capable of
navigating those fraud political waters. Nineteen sixty seven nearly derailed
both countries space programs. This was the year of the
Apollo one fire. It was also the year in which
Sawyer was one crashed that's the story that opened this podcast.
(40:33):
The Americans took a long, hard look at their program
and eventually rallied von Bron's magnificent Saturn program boasted success
after success. In fact, the Saturn five would be launched
a total of ten times and never once suffer a
significant failure. The former ss man was now an American hero.
The United States finally had the Moon in their sights,
(40:56):
and while the Russian people were convinced that their country
would still be the first to the Moon, the engineers
and cosmonauts were not fooled. They could see the writing
on the wall. After the death of Camrad, Morale plummeted,
and although the propaganda machine was still going at full power,
fooling their American counterparts into believing that their communist nemesis
was still neck and neck with them, they recognized there
(41:18):
was no way they were going to beat the United
States to the Moon. The only thing left to do
was beat them in a circumnavigation of the Moon. But
fearing just that possibility, NASA pushed the launch of Apollo
eight up several months and four days before Christmas. Jim Levell,
Frank Borman, and Bill Anders orbited the Moon method who
(41:39):
we would like then you God created Earth. Apollo seventeen
astronaut Harrison Schmidt. Yeah, I think beginning of Apollo eight,
Americans really started to gain some confidence that the Cold
War was not going to go on forever. The Russians
last victory in space came just a few months ahead
of Apollo eleven, in which soy Use four and soy
(42:01):
Use five both crude met in space and docked. They
opened hatches to allow the cosmonauts access to both craft,
but that was the end of it. In February of
nineteen sixty nine, five months before Apollo eleven, Russia tested
coral Lev's powerful AND one rocket for the first time.
Before he died. Coralav realized that if Russia was going
(42:22):
to best the Americans into space, they'd have to take
some shortcuts. Rather than a cluster of large, expensive engines
as on the Saturn, cora Lev opted to fit the
N one with thirty small engines, and instead of testing
each stage of the N one separately as the Americans did,
Corala Have proposed they build the entire end one and
test it fully assembled. They bring it to the padded
(42:47):
nineteen sixty nine, they tried to launch it four times,
and all four times it explodes. The rocket, known as
kor Lev's last dream, was dead. His vision of men
visiting the Moon would come to pass, but the flag
planted there would be the stars and stripes, not the
hammer and sickle. Von Bronze moon vision was fully realized
in July of nineteen sixty nine. With Apollo eleven. The
(43:10):
space race was over. Moon landings wouldn't have happened without
this intense political issue between the United States and the
Soviet Union. I mean, the space races is, let's not
kid ourselves a product of the Cold War. I mean,
this had nothing to do with science, or exploration or
any like goodness of mankind. This was entirely about showing
the Soviets that were better back on Apollo eleven. The
(43:37):
guys are still bored. Michael calls Charlie Duke and Mission
control just to idly chatty on the night. Were really
booming along here with all activity. Can barely believe it
are you doing? Then you're made up on the kind
build drinking. A later, mission Control begins hearing some creepy
(44:02):
sounds emanating from Apollo eleven. Once again, the guys are
trying to get a rise out of everyone in Houston.
The song is music out of the Moon by Less Baxter,
and Neil loves it all right in a mind about
an album pointy hair, hand out the man, but it's
been a little frank or you're bank with a little
(44:26):
blow that it sounds odd because the primary instrument is
a theorem, in which, fittingly enough for today's conversation, is
a Russian musical instrument that to this day is forever
and inseparably associated with space. Neil may like his therem
and music, but mission control and not so much thank you.
(44:52):
As the guys prepare for sleep, Duke relays one last
piece of news to the crew. President Nixon is the
preparative cloud. Greek Europe returned convicted that within thirty one
years the man will have vincit at least one of
the planets bearing some form of line. In the year
two thousands, we on this Earth will have been the
viewer where there will be a form of line. As
(45:13):
of two thousand and nineteen, when I am recording this podcast,
that prediction has yet to come true. We will be
taking a look at the current state of the U. S.
Crude space program. In our final episode, Day seven is over.
On day eight July are penultimate episode, We're going to
look at what happened after the astronauts got home. They
(45:33):
left as reality stars and returned as the biggest celebrities
on the planet. But behind the ticker tape parades, the
world tours, and the White House Dinners lay a dark reality,
a future riddled with depression, alcoholism, and fractured families. This
podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and trade
(45:54):
Craft Studios. Executive producers Ashe Seroia and Scott Bernstein, in
association with High Five Content and executive producer Andrew Jacobs.
Amazing research and production assistants by associate producers Brian Showsau
and Natalie Robomed. Licensing rights and clearances by Deborah Correa.
(46:14):
Our incredible editor is Bill Lance. Original music by Henry
ben Wah. The experts who contributed to this episode were
NASA Chief Historian Bill Berry, Professor Asaf Sadigi, Space historian
Amy Sherry Title, and Apollo seventeen astronaut Harrison Schmidt. Special
thanks to everyone at NASA who made this podcast possible,
(46:35):
especially the incredible technological wizardry of consulting producer Ben Feist,
who's responsible for organizing and cleaning the eleven thousand hours
of mission audio you're hearing selections from in this podcast special.
Thanks also to consultant Gina Delvack Kennedy Election Archive audio
compliments of the South Carolina Political Collections, University of South
(46:56):
Carolina Libraries. Licensing rights and clearances by Deborah Correa. This
is a brand new podcast and we're so excited to
be sharing it with you. Help us spread it far
and wide, tell your friends, leave ratings and reviews, and
chat about it on social media. Our hashtag is nine
D I J. We would love to hear what you think.
New episodes come out each week, so be sure to
(47:17):
subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Brandon Phipps. Thanks
so much for listening, and I'll see you next episode.
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