A small ball with a “mustache” antennas: how was the first satellite
MOSCOW, 4 Okt — news, Anna Urmantsev. Queens vs Wernher von Braun. This confrontation has defined the entire era. Two genius designer, working on different sides of the cold war, trying to bring his country to the leaders of the space race technologies.
This dramatic confrontation is compounded by the fact that Werner von Braun is a Nazi, taken to the US at the end of the war under a secret program Paperclip. Under this program, all of the outstanding German minds were beginning to be captured by U.S. intelligence, and after a detailed interrogation is equipped with new documents, “scrubbing” their past.
The first report carefully transported von Braun to the U.S. Department of defense (US Department of Defense) took place on 12 may 1946. It was called “Preliminary design of an experimental space ship orbiting the Earth.” This report said that the missile for launching, weighing in at 227 pounds for entering a circular orbit with altitude of about 480 kilometers can be created in five years, that is 1951. The Soviet Sputnik could never be a pioneer, if the U.S. military responded to the initiative of von Braun’s consent. However, the Americans much later appreciated the breakthrough potential of its proposals.
On the Soviet side were also presentations and discussions. Especially hot was held in March 1954. It was called: “whether the science of the artificial satellite of the Earth?” This round table was attended by prominent figures of Soviet science: applied mathematician Mstislav Vsevolodovich Keldysh (organizer of meeting), the physicist Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa, chief designer Sergei Korolev. It was a lot of interesting ideas about the future opportunities the study of ultraviolet spectra of stars, refining the movement of the moon, the implementation of accurate weather forecasts, the study of cosmic rays and so on. However, the case seemed very expensive — the annual budget of the Academy of Sciences, in the words of Keldysh! And the discussion came to a standstill…
Companion saved Pyotr Leonidovich Kapitsa: “it is absolutely new, — he said, — here we are going into uncharted waters, and it always brings the fruits of science, which cannot be predicted in advance, but they will. Artificial satellite to do.”.