On April 9, 1962, a feature film called “The Very First”, directed by Anatoly Mikhailovich Granik at Lenfilm studio, appeared in the Soviet box office. It covered the astronauts’ training, their everyday life and even their relationships with girls, but, of course, without mentioning real people.
The movie was started before Gagarin’s flight, but was prepared for distribution only after it, so the picture was seamlessly integrated with footage of the arrival of the first cosmonaut in Moscow, the rally on Red Square and the reception at the St. George Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace. Perhaps most interesting today are the last scenes of the film, in which “close-up” fiction is mixed with realism: after the reception, the leaders of the rocket and space industry (the mysterious chief designer brilliantly played by Vladimir Yakovlevich Samoilov) stroll through the Kremlin and speculate about the future of extraterrestrial expansion:
“How would you feel about slightly changing our work program?” “Will it mean flying to the moon?” ‘Not at once, of course. First a round trip, and then really… to the Moon”. “To the Moon?” “Isn’t that enough for you?” “No…” “Not enough! Not enough for me, not enough for all of us. Do you know what they asked us there today? They asked us: what’s next? We said: we have a long-term plan for the Academy. We know, they said, we have a long-term plan – but what’s next? And you know, it took my breath away… Indeed, what’s next, huh?” “Next? To get serious about the planets. Use the entire circumsolar space for the needs of mankind. In short, reconsider the Copernican system”. “And then?” “Next, new rockets. Without them, we’ll just be hanging out at the back of the solar system. Stars are the future of mankind. The unification of civilizations, a common galactic culture…” “And humanity will become immortal? Immortal…”
It does not matter which characters utter these words. Practically we have a monologue before us, the meaning of which is to designate global goal setting of the first shy steps of cosmonautics in its philosophic dimension.
As an illustration of what was said by the conditional Council of Chief Constructors, the final scene is a young cosmonaut Sergei Sazonov (actor Igor Borisovich Pushkaryov) launches triumphantly from the spaceport to the Moon (because the appearance of the R-7 was classified, he flies away on some cigar-shaped “fool”, transforming into a German “V-2” on the way).
The film set up a certain mood: the development of extraterrestrial space will continue, we have a plan, we will not give the leadership to anyone, sign up for astronauts! But in reality plans were constantly changing, adjusting to the political situation, and the young students of the squadron, like fictional Sazonov, were forced to wait years for their chance to sit in the chair of the ship, time after time, repeating the same instructions and practicing at full stretch. Not all of them were able to endure this ordeal.
As we remember, in December 1961 the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union allowed sixty more trainees to join the Cosmonaut Training Center, including five women. If the women have no problems, because they did not require any special skills, the selection of men was delayed: now they were looking for not just healthy pilots, and pilots who have all the other advantages and higher education. Only a year later, on January 10, 1963, by order of the Air Force Commander fifteen people were accepted as cosmonauts.
From the “Gagarinskogo” set of newcomers differed more solid age and had more practical experience under their belt. The oldest, Lev Stepanovich Demin, was 37 years old the day after admission. The youngest was Vitaly Mikhailovich Zholobov – he was only 24. All of them, as stated, had higher education, many graduated from the academy, and Lev Demin completed his doctoral dissertation on missile defense and defended himself four months after enrollment in the squadron. For the first time there were four rocket specialists among cosmonauts: all of them participated in tests of combat rockets at test ranges or were military representatives of rocket forces at enterprises. An amazing thing: engineer-captain Pyotr Kolodin from the Plesetsk test site managed to “overcome” doctors, not having a thumb of his left hand. But alas he did not fly into space, remaining on the “bench”.
In 1963 the cosmonaut corps was not only replenished, but also reduced. On March 27 Grigory Nelyubov, Ivan Anikeev and Valentin Filatiev got into an unpleasant story near the railway station Chkalovskaya. There are many versions of what happened there, but the most reliable are those collected by Oleg Valeryevich Varyanik and Alexander Pavlovich Lyuty for their book “Half a Step to Launch”, devoted to Grigory Nelyubov, the cosmonaut number 3. On that ill-fated day, Nelyubov accompanied his wife, Zinaida Ivanovna, a student at Moscow State University, to the electric train. He was on “sick leave,” so he was dressed in civilian clothes. On his way back he went into the cafeteria to buy a bottle of beer. There he met two of his comrades-in-arms, Anikeev and Filatiev, who were inebriated and were trying to measure their strength in their hands and accidentally hit the salt shaker and broke it. The barmaid yelled at them and called the patrol. Nelyubov tried to calm down the incident, although he could have done without it, as he was in fact an accidental participant of the conflict. During the conversation Grigory insulted the head of the patrol – an officer from the test pilots’ squadron. He suggested that everyone go to the commandant’s office, and the next day he filed a report on the three cosmonauts.
Lieutenant General Kamanin wrote in his diary:
“April 4 [1963]. ‘…’ Hermann Titov came by, too. I asked him how he felt about the ‘case’ of Nelyubov, Anikeev, and Filatyev. Herman replied that he felt sorry for Nelyubov, that they had said a lot of unnecessary things about the guys. Then I told Titov that the fact of going to the “diner” and drinking is incompatible with the title of cosmonaut. He hesitated for a moment, then firmly stated: “The guys knew that they were strongly discouraged and even forbidden to enter such establishments. They knew they were forbidden to drink – they had already been punished for that – let them answer for their stupidity.” April 5. ‘…’ Yesterday I received from [Mikhail Petrovich] Odintsov the official documents on the fact of the drunkenness of the three cosmonauts on March 27, 1963, at Chkalovskaya station. This is not the first time Nelyubov, Anikeev, and Filatiev have been spotted drinking. The latter two are of no value as cosmonauts (drunkenness, weakness and poor academic performance), and this case gives us the legal right to release them. Nelyubov was one of the first “Gagarin’s” six and at one time was a candidate for the 3rd or 4th flight, but then showed poor results on the centrifuge and got sidetracked. He was less to blame for this accident than the others (he was in civilian clothes and tried to persuade his comrades to leave early). Vershinin, Rudenko, Rynoye and Odintsov are in favor of firing all three cosmonauts. Gagarin believes that only Filatiev should be fired, while Nelyubov and Anikeev should be severely punished, but kept at the Center. It would be right to fire all three, even though they make up 25 percent of the total number of cosmonauts trained to fly. I am in favor of dismissing Filatyev and Anikeev from the Center and of trying one last time to check Nelyubov, who was quite recently one of the best cosmonauts in the first set”.
In the end the Military Council of the Air Force decided to expel all three for the edification of the others. Commander Vershinin ordered Kamanin to inform the expelled cosmonauts. The latter later recorded:
“April 19. I spent the whole day in the CPC. At the general formation of the Center’s officers they announced the Commander-in-Chief’s order to expel Filatiev, Anikeev and Nelyubov. After the order was announced I talked to the guys. They were stunned by such a blow, but endured it bravely. The only thing they asked me: before sending them to the regiments, to give them the opportunity to train in flying on airplanes in one of the schools or retraining centers”.
The life of Grigory Nelyubov ended tragically. Although Kamanin promised him personally that in a year and a half he would send a call to the unit where Nelyubov was assigned and would reinstate him in the CPC, he did not fulfill his promise: he had enough other things to worry about. Nelyubov faithfully served in the 224th Air Fighter Regiment near Kemerovo, in Primorsky Krai, but he could never come to terms with the fact that he was expelled from the unit. Several times he came to Moscow by himself, tried to meet with Nikolay Kamanin and Sergei Korolev, began drinking heavily and as a result on February 18, 1966 he committed suicide – threw himself under a train.
At the Cosmonaut Training Center, too, not everything was in order. Since the squadron was expanding, and future plans demanded more trained personnel, Nikolai Petrovich Kamanin concluded that the doctor, which was and still was the head of the CPC of Air Force Evgeny Anatolievich Karpov, would not be able to handle the increased volume of duties, so in December he nominated to the position of chief Major General of Aviation Mikhail Petrovich Odintsov, who at that time was first deputy commander of the Air Army in Khabarovsk. In January 1963 Odintsov began his work, but his managerial “style” aroused sharp dislike among the CPC personnel. First of all, assuming a new position, he did not want to consult with the flying cosmonauts, who had a better understanding of the realities of life in the Center and had every right to claim a joint decision of questions. This approach hurt their ego. But they were even more hurt by the new orders established by the Major-General. Odintsov did not want to admit that cosmonauts were somehow different from ordinary officers, advocated observance of the daily routine, demanded compliance with the “Regulations on Cosmonauts”, including bimonthly outfits, and cancelled all privileges. Odintsov forbade the squad members to go home to Chkalovskaya after the day’s program, demanding that they remain in Star City and engage in self-training.
As a result, a month later, the cosmonauts staged a “revolt”: on February 21, Yuri Gagarin and Pavel Belyaev held a party meeting at which Gagarin delivered a paper entitled “The role of the Communists in observing the rest and labour regime of cosmonauts”. Alexei Leonov and Boris Volynov also spoke at the meeting, sharply criticizing Odintsov’s policy. In response, he pointed out the inadmissibility of such criticism from the junior rank, but even after his statement, the meeting decided to ask the Chief of the Air Force and the Main Political Department of the Army to curtail the ambitions of the newly minted head of the CPC. The generals were divided in their assessment of the “rebellion” – it was even proposed to punish Gagarin approximately. However, Nikolai Kamanin preferred to settle the matter and advised Odintsov to respond adequately to critical comments. Nevertheless, the confrontation continued, and the major-general committed several clumsy actions that caused Kamanin to question his protégé’s fitness for duty:
“On June 12 [1963]. ‘…’ Today Marshal [Sergei Ignatyevich] Rudenko had a lengthy conversation with General Odintsov. The conversation began on the initiative of Odintsov. He told the marshal: “The Center works without a rudder and without a wind, we have no annual work plan, we are not clear about the future. The Center is a building site, with lots of building materials, but no construction plans, the architect has not yet put his efforts into it…” etc. We talked to Rudenko about this conversation for two hours. It made a bad impression on the marshal, and he directly told me: “I’m afraid that Odintsov will blab something like this to any of the big leaders (here the marshal gave the example of the case when he was let down by M. M. [Mikhail Mikhailovich] Gromov in front of Stalin during the war). He is simply inept; he will have to be replaced: it is necessary to select such deputies who could take his place at any moment. Yes, I am more and more convinced that Odintsov cannot be a good chief of the Center, he lacks thoughtfulness, tact, and sometimes just common sense. The cup of patience was overflowed by the reprimand given to Yuri Gagarin for “drunkenness at the start, pannibalism with subordinates and ignoring instructions from the head of the Center” – all of these accusations did not correspond to reality. Claims against Odintsov accumulated, and on July 16, the Military Council of the Air Force unanimously voted to remove him from office. Major General Nikolai Fyodorovich Kuznetsov, who had headed the Chernigov military aviation school, was appointed the new head of the CPC. The cosmonauts liked him – with Gagarin’s light hand he was soon nicknamed “our aunt” (apparently, the title “our uncle” stuck with Kamanin).
At the same time, Kamanin understood that sooner or later Yuri Gagarin should become the head of the CPC of the Air Force. On July 27, 1963 the Lieutenant General wrote: “I have more and more strong thoughts about appointing Gagarin to this position. Gagarin is 29 years old, he knows the business and people well. True, he is busy studying at the academy, he has no high demands to his subordinates, little experience in organizational and administrative work, but these are not insurmountable obstacles. When I was his age I myself commanded an aviation brigade, and I commanded well. ‘…’ I have a serious and maybe long struggle ahead of me, but Gagarin will be the head of the Center. Kamanin begins to give the first cosmonauts various tasks, in one way or another related to acquiring “command” skills. Those with varying success try to meet the expectations. November 6, 1963 Yuri Gagarin was another rank – in record time he went from second lieutenant to colonel, which in other officers usually takes from fifteen to twenty years. And yet, as Kamanin noted in his diary, “two and a half years of world fame did not spoil Gagarin. Consequently, he would make a very good boss for the cosmonauts. The rank of a colonel allowed him to apply for a high post in the Center of Cosmonautics, and in the same November Kamanin offered Yuri Alekseyevich to be Kuznetsov’s deputy. On reflection, Gagarin agreed, and on 20 December 1963 he took up the staff positions of deputy chief of the CPC of the Air Force for space flight training and chief of the department of space flight training. His duties as commander of the cosmonaut squadron were taken over by Andriyan Grigorievich Nikolaev. The next day Gagarin gathered his comrades and made a short report, in which he pointed out “shortcomings in the behavior of some cosmonauts. Thus he immediately made it clear that even though he would not behave like Major-General Odintsov, who was fixated on the observance of the charter, he would not tolerate violations of discipline. Although Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was best suited for the role of the head of the CPC and had nothing against such an appointment, he dreamed of returning to flying. And he hoped to go into space again. After all, it was only for the sake of this that he risked his officer’s career and his future by leaving on a call to Moscow.
Back in February 1963 Gagarin underwent a medical examination in order to receive a certificate of fitness to fly and to take part in one of the existing projects. Lieutenant General Nikolai Kamanin found himself in a quandary. Here is what he wrote in his diary (March 2, 1963): “We have not resolved the main question about Gagarin – will we prepare him for repeated space flights? It seems to me that there is no need to risk the “Columbus of space” by sending him on a flight that any other cosmonaut can perform. Gagarin himself is seeking permission to fly and prepare himself for future spaceflight. We will have to try to convince him to give up flying and prepare himself to be one of the main leaders of space activities in the USSR”.Another entry on the same subject (April 4, 1963): “Gagarin stopped by yesterday. He had just returned from Kirzhach, where he had conducted six training parachute jumps. This is the first attempt since his space flight to regain his cosmonaut form. Gagarin hopes that someday he will make more space flights. It is unlikely that this will ever happen – Gagarin is too precious to humanity to risk his life for an ordinary space flight.”
Yuri Gagarin himself understood that his direct superiors would oppose his intention to return to space, but one way or another he was going to get his way. Since there were few ready-made spacecrafts and the number of candidates for orbital flight was growing due to enrollment in the CPC of new students, he had to lobby in every possible way to expand the program of manned launches, and he intended to do this.
