Infinity Beckoned: Adventuring Through the Inner Solar System, 1969–1989

497 Pages·2016·14.03 MB·English

by  Jay Gallentine

Infinity Beckoned
Outward Odyssey
A People’s History of Spaceflight
Series editor
Colin Burgess
Infinity
Beckoned
Adventuring Through the Inner Solar System,
1969– 1989
Jay Gallentine
Foreword by Bobak Ferdowsi

UNI V ER SI T Y OF NEBR A SK A PRESS L INCOL N A ND LONDON
© 2016 by Jay Gallentine
Foreword © 2016 by the Board of Regents
of the University of Nebraska
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the
United States of America
Library of Congress
Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Gallentine, Jay.
Infinity beckoned: adventuring through the
inner solar system, 1969– 1989 / Jay Gallentine;
foreword by Bobak Ferdowsi.
pages cm.— (Outward odyssey:
a people’s history of spaceflight)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978- 0- 8032- 3446- 8 (cloth: alkaline paper)
isbn 978- 0- 8032- 8515- 6 (epub)
isbn 978- 0- 8032- 8516- 3 (mobi)
isbn 978- 0- 8032- 8517- 0 (pdf)
1. Space probes— History— 20th century.
2. Artificial satellites— History— 20th century.
3. Inner planets— Exploration— History—
20th century. 4. Moon— Exploration—
History— 20th century. 5. Outer space—
Exploration— History— 20th century.
6. Astronautics— Biography. 7. Astronautics—
History— 20th century. I. Title.
tl795.3.g355 2016
629.43'54— dc23
2015008519
Set in Adobe Garamond Pro by L. Auten.
Dedicated to the people of Crimea.
May this help to communicate what you
and your lands have given toward Earth’s
understanding of the solar system.
Большое спасибо!
In the eyes of the world they have no names or faces.
Not many people know who they are.
Erect an obelisk and inscribe their names in gold, so that they will
live on in the minds of their successors for centuries to come.
We pay tribute to them, value them,
and care about their personal safety.
—Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev
Contents
List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1. Beach Brainstorm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. What If . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3. Dead at Birth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
4. Failure to Communicate . . . . . . . . . . .47
5. Halt the Work, Destroy All Materials . . . .65
6. There and Back Again . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
7. Sitting Cosmonauts. . . . . . . . . . . . . .99
8. Cauldron of Contradictions . . . . . . . . 121
9. Buy- In . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
10. “Prepared Area”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
11. Laying Eggs (Somehow) . . . . . . . . . . 173
12. How Low Can You Go? . . . . . . . . . . 193
13. Three Mistakes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
14. Devil from Redondo . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
15. The Boy to Be Beaten. . . . . . . . . . . . 247
16. How to Buy a Computer That Does Not
Exist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
17. Downsurfing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277
18. Gulliver’s Travels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
19. Too Much Too Soon . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
20. Scientific Charity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323
21. Last Man Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
22. Bonneville, Notch Rock, Double Squirt,
Sudden Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
23. Postmortem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
24. Sons of a Bitch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
25. The Sum of All Nations. . . . . . . . . . . 375
26. Hang Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
27. The Rules of Resigning . . . . . . . . . . . 413
28. Wonders Never Cease . . . . . . . . . . . 433
Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
Illustrations
1. Young Gil Levin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. Don Hearth, 1968. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45
3. Chris Kraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
4. Mstislav Keldysh chatting with Frank
Borman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57
5. Semyon Lavochkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67
6. Georgiy Babakin with his son, 1948. . . . . .72
7. Testing a moonscooper . . . . . . . . . . . .87
8. Vetting the toughest drill in the world . . . .94
9. The Luna 16 team rejoices. . . . . . . . . . .97
10. The Shkolnoye Technical Zone. . . . . . . 106
11. Lunokhod 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
12. Alexander Basilevsky and Boris
Nepoklonov. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
13. Izrail Rozentsveyg with “hovertank” . . . . 123
14. Lunokhod prototype . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
15. Lunokhod 1’s descent stage . . . . . . . . . 136
16. Fixing wheels to a Lunokhod. . . . . . . . 140
17. Shkolnoye in its prime . . . . . . . . . . . 163
18. Vyacheslav Dovgan. . . . . . . . . . . . . 165