Word: korolyov
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Khrushchev goes on to describe how the Russians developed their first rocket after Stalin's death in 1953. The project was supervised by Sergei Pavlovich Korolyov-"probably our most prominent and brilliant missile designer." Once, Khrushchev recalls, Korolyov reported to the leadership on his work...
...what he showed us as if we were a bunch of sheep seeing through a gate for the first time. When he showed us one of his rockets, we thought it looked like nothing but a huge cigar-shaped tube, and we didn't believe it could fly. Korolyov took us on a tour of a launching pad and tried to explain how the rocket worked. We were like peasants in a marketplace. We walked around and around the rocket, touching it, tapping it to see if it was sturdy enough. We did everything but lick it. Some people...
Several models of Korolyov's first test rocket, called Semyorka (Number 7) exploded. Khrushchev reveals that in one such incident in October 1960, Mikhail Yangel, a colleague of Korolyov's, survived only because he stepped into a special insulated smoking room to have a cigarette. Dozens of other witnesses, including Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, then commander in chief of Soviet missile forces, were burned to death. Despite these early failures, Khrushchev notes that "thanks to Comrade Korolyov and his associates, we now had a rocket that could carry a nuclear warhead." The Semyorka, Khrushchev adds, paved the Soviet road...
Some of my conversations with Comrade Korolyov made me worry that if war ever came, our enemy might be able to destroy our Semyorka before we could get it into the air. The rocket was fired from a launching pad which looked like a huge tabletop and could easily be detected by reconnaissance planes or satellites in orbit around the earth...
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