Dr Berlin (14 page)

He described his emotions as he looked down from his position so many miles up. The earth, he said, was mysterious and blue against a deep black sky: he was seeing it as no other man in history had seen it. He was travelling higher and faster than anyone had done before. He was proud that a Soviet cosmonaut was the first person to have this privilege. He had with him a small photograph of Lenin, to whose memory and revolutionary achievements for the furtherance of Marxist-Leninism he now dedicated his journey. I remember feeling a sense of elation combined with enormous anxiety. We had succeeded in getting Alexandrof into space. Now we had to get him down again.

It was Voroshilov who alerted me that we might be in difficulty. ‘We’re getting a worrying read-out,’ he said. ‘We’re trying to verify the information now. It’s always possible it could be caused by a faulty transmission.’

He showed me the telemetry printouts. The problem was deeply concerning. When Alexandrof had released the catch that fired the mechanism to separate the booster from the capsule, one of the spring releases had malfunctioned. The booster engines had failed to disconnect cleanly. For a few moments the booster had swung from one unreleased cable connector before its weight had torn it free from the capsule. In the process it had damaged the left rear retro-rocket, which is so necessary for altering the capsule’s angle of flight so that it may re-enter the earth’s atmosphere as it begins its descent.

The capsule I had designed had four retro-rockets. One no longer existed. I asked Voroshilov if the remaining three were operational. He thought they were, but he added that
it was possible that firing them might set the capsule spinning uncontrollably. That would have only one result. Alexandrof would no longer have the ability to alter his current trajectory. He would be unable to return to earth.

Could we not turn the capsule on its axis, in effect turn it upside down and use the top two rockets to power the change in direction? I suggested. It was a complicated manoeuvre, I admitted, but surely worth trying. Voroshilov went away to test this solution on a computer model. Even at this stage I did not think that all was lost.

He returned within five minutes. ‘It cannot be done,’ he said, tears now in his eyes. ‘The damage is worse than we thought. In addition to one retro out of action, another is malfunctioning. We have lost the ability to manoeuvre the capsule. There is nothing we can do to bring Alexandrof back. He is flying towards certain death.’

It was an appalling moment. Nightmare and reality became one. In the background I could hear Alexandrof’s voice relaying information over the radio. On the wall was a huge electronic map on which we tracked his orbit. He had travelled more than halfway round the world by now. As far as he knew, everything was going well. Yet here, in our control centre, we were in possession of information that would transform his triumph into a death sentence. At the appropriate moment, we would press all the switches to fire his engines in preparation for re-entry. Instead of beginning his descent, his capsule would start to spin uncontrollably. He would know immediately what was happening. He would attempt to take manual control of the craft, punching in the code that allowed him to fly the capsule himself. He would go through all the emergency procedures we had rehearsed. But nothing would stop the spinning. His efforts would be futile. We would hear his questioning voice, asking for advice. We would be forced to tell him there was nothing we could do. He would be beyond rescue, his capsule would have become a steel coffin from which there
was no escape as it went spinning off into space, every moment flying farther and farther away until his radio was out of range, knowing all the time that his oxygen was running out.

We discussed Voroshilov’s calculations. He was a meticulous and careful man, of great humanity, and I had no doubt that his analysis was correct. In the short time available, I confirmed to my own satisfaction that what he was telling me was true. I checked the telemetry reports. I saw for myself that the rocket had lost its essential ability to navigate. It was now no more than a missile with a human cargo hurtling through space. There was nothing Alexandrof could achieve by any attempt to override the automatic control system manually. He was lost.

‘Ten minutes to re-entry,’ the flight controller announced.

‘We must tell him,’ I said. ‘We must warn him what is about to happen.’

‘Is that wise?’ Voroshilov asked.

‘It may not be wise, but what choice do we have? He must know his situation.’

I was given the microphone. The control centre had fallen silent. All eyes were on me. I was about to tell a man who, over the months, had discussed every aspect of my design with me and who trusted my engineering ability that he was about to die because of a mechanical failure I could do nothing about.

I cannot remember my exact words now. I told him that we had a serious problem. One of his navigational rockets was lost, the other wasn’t working. That meant only one thing. We could not change the direction he was flying in, and nor could he.

There was a long silence, then he said: ‘Are you telling me I am unable to return to earth?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is there nothing that can be done?’

‘We have investigated every possibility. We can find no solution to the problem.’

‘If that is your judgement, Comrade Director, then I must believe you.’ Silence again. ‘How long have I got?’

I looked at Voroshilov. ‘Eight minutes until we start the re-entry procedure,’ he said.

‘How much oxygen?’

‘Another two hours.’

Silence.

‘Please fetch my wife and sons. Bring them to the control centre. I wish to say goodbye to them.’

‘Very well.’ Voroshilov was weeping openly now. Three minutes later Alexandrof’s wife, Marina, and her two sons, both under five, were brought into the control centre. Voroshilov had explained why Alexandrof wanted to speak to her. Marina was pale and shaking, somehow managing to hold back her tears. I suspected she was too shocked to cry.

We listened as Alexandrof told her that because of damage to the rocket sustained in one of the separation procedures, his craft had lost the ability to navigate. He would be unable to reposition the capsule for the re-entry procedure. That meant he could not return to earth. In the few minutes he had left, he needed to tell her how to bring up their sons, what she should tell them about their father, his life and his death. As far as money was concerned, he was sure she would be given a state pension, so she would have no worries on that score. He asked her to remember him tenderly, to think back on their love and the years they had spent together, the happiness she had brought him. Then, after a decent interval, he begged her to marry again.

She broke down at that point. ‘No,’ she screamed. ‘Never. Never. I love you, Antonin. You are my husband. You will be my husband for ever.’

The two little boys were crying now, not understanding what was happening but upset by their mother’s distress. She was kneeling against one of the long desks, her head in
her arms, crying uncontrollably, repeating her husband’s name as if by intoning the name of the man she loved she could save his life and spirit him back to earth. I noticed that Voroshilov had thoughtfully turned off the microphone she had been holding so that Alexandrof could hear nothing of her distress.

‘I would like to speak to Director Radin,’ Alexandrof requested.

‘I am here,’ I said.

‘This is not an eventuality we discussed at one of our meetings,’ he said calmly. I did not know how to reply. ‘I have switched the craft to manual control,’ he continued. ‘Please give me the instructions at the correct moment. I will fire the rockets. It is always possible that something will happen.’

Voroshilov, his arm around Alexandrof’s wife, looked at me anxiously. I shook my head. ‘If you wish to do that, you have my authority to do so.’

‘Thank you for the time we spent together, Director. I enjoyed our conversations. I am sorry we will not have the opportunity to discuss this flight in the detail I had looked forward to.’

Then, as the moment to begin the countdown for the re-entry procedure approached, he fell silent. The only sound was the crackling of the radio connection, the voice counting down in the background and the sobbing of his wife.

‘I am going to fire the retro-rockets,’ he announced, as if everything was working as planned. I admired the man’s coolness. I waited, suspended, to see if all our calculations were wrong and in feet Alexandrof was able to control his capsule. If I had known how to pray or believed that there was any point, I would have done so. At that moment I would have willingly sacrificed my own life to save Alexandrof.

‘I’m spinning,’ he shouted suddenly. ‘The craft is out of control. Goodbye, Marina, Josef, Yevgeny. Goodbye.’

For a long moment his self-control held. Then I heard the most heart-rending sound of my life. Alexandrof was crying. The sound of his tears was coming across the ether to us as every second he spun fester and farther away from the earth.

‘Marina, Marina, Marina,’ he shouted between sobs.

‘He’s venting his oxygen tanks,’ someone said.

Unable to bear the concept of a slow death by asphyxiation, he was killing himself deliberately now. Then there was a curse, a scream, confused noises. The radio connection with the craft went dead. We were left in silence, the only sounds the sobbing of Alexandrof’s wife and the whimpering of her children. Alexandrof had killed himself.

*

Now do you understand that Gagarin was not the first man to go into space? Yes, he was the first man who went into space
and
returned. How strange fate is. If a small mechanical process had worked as it was intended to, Antonin Alexandrof would be alive today. He would be fêted all over the world as Gagarin is, and his name would be in the history books. Instead, you will find no record of Alexandrof as a member of that first group of cosmonauts; you will not find him in any of the photographs taken at Zvyozdny Gorodok; you will discover no mention of any Alexandrof in any training reports or in the minutes of the meeting at which the first man to go into space was selected – the debate is limited to a discussion of the merits of Gargarin and Titov. Nor in any of the files at Baikonur will you find any record of the launch of that rocket with Alexandrof on board. It is our practice to give no name to rocket launches that fail. As far as history is concerned, Cosmonaut Alexandrof does not exist.

Yes, you will find his air-force record, that is still there if you know where to look, but you will be surprised to learn that Flight Lieutenant Alexandrof died in a flying accident when his MIG 19 crashed out of control during a training flight. If you find his gravestone in a cemetery far from Moscow, you will never discover the true date of his death. The date of his accident is one month before he started his training as a cosmonaut. We have falsified the evidence of his life, but in death we are courageous enough to provide him with the honour he is due. Only on a headstone in the silence of an obscure cemetery, where no one will see it, is some small recognition of the truth of Antonin Alexandrof’s life allowed to be known. You will read the words:
Hero
of
the
Soviet
Union.
It is an honour justly earned by a good man.

*

That is my story of Antonin Alexandrof, cosmonaut and Hero of the Soviet Union, a brave man who died well before his time. Why did it happen? Was it chance, misfortune, bad luck? Or was some more malicious force at work? I asked for the test records of the release mechanism. I had checked these myself before taking the decision that we were ready to launch. The documents showed unequivocally that the system worked. We built a mock-up of the capsule and repeatedly tested the explosive bolts that were intended to force apart the capsule from the final section of the rocket that would hurl it out of the atmosphere. Again and again we tried to re-create the circumstances that had led to Alexandrof’s death. On each occasion, the explosive devices worked as they were intended to. The cable connectors separated as they were meant to. I was mystified. What could have gone wrong?

I asked Voroshilov for the original designs. At first he appeared reluctant to give them to me. When finally he produced them, I saw what had happened. There was a flaw
in the design. Although I could find no record of it, I suspected that the explosive charge had never worked properly during its testing phase. Despite that, it had been cleared for the launch, in the hope that it would work. The system I tested after the disaster was not the same as the one that had been on Alexandrof’s craft. It was the second version, in which the problem had been solved. The records had been falsified to show that version one had tested successfully.

What was I to do? A man I respected had died unnecessarily and I was responsible for his death. Had we been honest with ourselves and accepted that the component design was faulty, we would have delayed the flight until the problem was solved, Alexandrof would have survived and the flight would have been a triumph. But we had done none of these things. Someone on our team had suppressed knowledge of the mechanical problems. He had falsified the report on the trials of the detonator that separated the capsule from the rest of the craft. Why? Out of fear of the consequences that an important component in the design of the craft could not be made to work on time? Out of terror that to reveal a design fault would have intolerable personal repercussions for the technician who blew the whistle because it might have led to unacceptable delays?
Why?

Is it better to lie than to speak the truth, Andrei? Better to deny than to admit responsibility? Better to conceal than to expose? What kind of people have we become when we reverse the order by which the world works? What kind of political belief upholds the turning inside out of the sense of personal responsibility that is at the heart of all morality? The unnecessary, avoidable loss of Alexandrof taught me how far this process of self-deception has sunk into our hearts and minds. We are deceived, every minute of every day because we can no longer recognise what is true and what is not.