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What happened in the night of September 26, 1983, at the cosmodrome of
Baikonur is hard to believe. But it did happen. Seconds before a spaceship
was to leave Earth, an extraordinary development was reported at the launch
pad. "Extraordinary" seems to be much too calm a word in a report on that
most dangerous turn of developments.
The crew of the Soyuz T-10 spacecraft - commander Vladimir Titov
and navigator Gennady Strekalov - were very busy from the previous morning
till well into the night: they were putting in order their flight papers,
getting familiarized with the spacecraft, packing up, doing some pre-flight
exercises and talking to medical workers. Days and hours added up to make
a chain of routine developments. Nothing spelled out danger.
Gennady Strekalov recalled in a later TV interview that
"He and Vladimir Titov had taken the most strenuous training program.
But one day he approached Titov with the following words: "Volodya, there
is something i don't like about it, only I can't figure out what. It's
some sort of bad vibes." The two cosmonauts knew to the dot all they were
supposed to know and their new mission was Strekalov's third and Titov's
second. Six hours before the takeoff Strekalov called his mother on the
phone. She tried to talk him out of flying. She said things would go wrong.
She begged him not to fly. And she was sobbing. This is, according to Strekalov,
how mothers are apt to foresee things."
The sun was still shining when the two men went to the launch pad.
They put on their spacesuits in the test-and-assembly building, exchanged
a few jokes with media men and made their report to the chairman of the
government commission.
Here is the booster missile. Seen from afar, it looks impatient:
covered with a film of hoar frost, heavy with fuel, held in check by its
own weight and the steel frames.
They took an unhurried walk to the elevator: spacesuits are good
for outer space but they restrict your movements and make it difficult
to walk on Earth.
The accompanying technicians helped Titov and Strekalov into the
spacecraft and into their armchairs. The hatch was closed. Time for a regulation
checkup. Over the radio, they got in touch with mission control.
The mission control coordinator declared a two-hour pre-takeoff alert.
The takeoff was scheduled for 23:37:49.
They made all the necessary moves. Went through the motions, really,
because they had drilled all the pre-takeoff moves with the help of simulators.
They knew everything to the dot and could signal each other messages with
their eyes. The checkup over, they were free to relax for a few minutes.
Gennady recalled their first joint mission. "Those who did combat duty
say no shell hits an old shell crater," he said with a grin in reference
to the unsuccessful attempt to dock with the Salyut space lab that they
made five months before.
One-minute alert! The "all red alert" signal in the launch pad loudspeakers.
Time for the cable mast to let go of the booster. 25 seconds
before zero time, black smoke, tinged with red and yellow flames, and enveloped
the booster. There was no roar of the engines although the roar of the
engines usually accompanies the sight of fire.
Back to the recollections of Vladimir Titov:
"The last seconds before the takeoff...We are waiting for the shoveoff
and the roar down there which will let us know that the engines are functioning.
One second, another...Weren't we waiting too long? Then I felt the booster
jerk. I thought it was the wind because it was time for the tanks to be
filled up...A wave of slight vibration. I don't know why but I did not
like that vibration. Again, I thought of the wind. The vibration was hardly
perceptible and, two or three seconds later, I stopped perceiving it altogether.
A glance at the watch. Zero time! But here came the second wave of vibration.
It swelled up. I had no time to figure out what was happening before the
blow came. The word "explosion" flashed in my brain. But I had no time
to get frightened."
An eye witness, newsman Mikhail Ryabov, remembers that
"the white column of the booster missile, illuminated by spotlights,
seemed to tumble down. The red-black and yellow flames leaped up to the
uppermost end of the missile. "There are people there! This thing is about
to explode! This 300-ton contraption will blow to pieces the takeoff frame.
It will blow to pieces everything here!"
Fear replaced the feeling of dull apprehension. "It's about to explode."
Something dashed into the darkness. Was it the missile? No, the missile
stayed there. The darkness of the night bore down heavily upon it. It glowed
and burst bubbling on the border between the light and the dark.
The emergency rescue system did its job, - I heard someone say.
The searchlights scanned the sky for the spacecraft. The people glimpsed
a parachute. The automatically operated devices must have done their job.
But what about the people? More moments of tension and a cloud of dust
rose in the steppe. Now the soft landing engines must have done their job.
What about the crewmen? Were they alive yet?
Vladimir Titov:
"the low crackling sound brought me back to reality. The explosive
charges were going off. For a moment I grew cold, then realized that the
missile had gotten rid of its nose cone and that I ought to memorize every
detail of what was happening. That was the most important thing to do.
And I was to record as much as I possibly could of what I had to say about
what was happening. We heard someone's voice in the earphones. But we had
already figured out what was happening. The parachute had opened and we
felt the spacecraft rocking lightly. We looked at each other but kept silent.
The spacecraft landed on the bottom. We saw the launch pad burning in the
left porthole. The rapid flow of thoughts stopped short. We felt as if
we had tumbled down from heaven to Earth. We had been looking forward to
that flight, dreaming of it, working, training for it. And, all the effort
went down the drain."
The emergency rescue system did a good job, which puts the light
on the hidden potential of the machinery. But no machinery will start functioning
of its own accord. Two persons have to simultaneously push two buttons
to make that machinery function. Should they stall for a few seconds and...Flight
coordinator Aleksei Shumilin said in a televised interview that:
"it took mission control nine seconds to make a decision. Should
the decision be delayed by just one second, the crewmen would not have
been saved and the spacecraft would have fallen into the fiery foundation
pit.
Vladimir Shatalov, who had flown three space missions before taking
charge of the cosmonauts' training programs, was among the first to get
to the landing site:
"thank God, they were alive. "Well, guys," - I told them, - "first
things first: take a stiff drink and relax. Then we'll figure out what
has happened. You'll have another chance to fly yet." They asked me if
they would be sent on another mission. "Sure," - I told them, - "sure you'll
have another chance to fly yet."
What remained of their booster missile was burning at a distance.
Vladimir Titov: "they often ask me if I felt frightened. I don't
know what is supposed to be the right answer to that question. I never
thought of being frightened. Honest - I didn't! We pretend to face lots
of dangerous turns of developments that fall slightly short of real emergencies,
at our training sessions. We do this to be able to make reasonable, highly
professional and sober-minded moves under similar sets of developments."
They had a narrow escape. Should they resign as cosmonauts? Oh, no,
not yet! It took General Shatalov three months to keep his word and send
Gennady Strekalov on another space mission. But Vladimir Titov, with his
record of two unsuccessful missions, had to wait much ionger before taking
off again. People started talking of a Titov syndrome, sympathize with
"the unlucky cosmonaut," drop hints at some sort of "psychological barriers."
His name was repeatedly stricken off prospective crewmen's lists. Titov
felt like halting the flow of time in orbit and hurrying time up on Earth.
You want time to race fast if you've set yourself a goal. And Vladimir
Titov did meet his goal. He took off for his third space mission in December
of 1988 and spent 366 days and nights in orbit. A year under zero gravity!
A leap year, to boot.
And one last thing. Many experts feel that an emergency rescue system
on the order of the Soyuz's would have saved, in 1986, the lives of those
who manned the US-made Challenger...
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