The Mammoth Book of Space Exploration and Disasters

The compromise was a composite rocket with “strap-on” boosters around a central “sustainer” engine, the “staging” being parallel rather than vertical. At lift-off all the rocket’s engines fired. The “staging” occurred as the engines ran out of fuel, and then fell away. Korolev’s rockets were often described as looking like a “flared skirt”. The Russians called it “Semyorka” (old number seven).

On 4 August 1949 the USSR exploded its first nuclear weapon on an Arctic test range, whereupon the US Army demanded a tactical (battlefield) nuclear missile.

Von Braun’s early years in the United States had been comparatively frustrating, his team having first been set up at Fort Bliss in West Texas under the authority of the US Army. The US Air Force had recently become independent of the US Army and wanted long-range bombers to improve its strategic bomber force. Consequently, the United States was relatively disinterested in long-range ballistic missiles. Von Braun was slowly developing a proposal for an expedition to Mars when the Army’s demand for a tactical (battlefield) nuclear missile became a priority. In 1952 the United States was developing a 10 megaton thermonuclear weapon but the “H” bomb was too heavy for even the most powerful bomber the US Air Force possessed (the B-36). In 1953 the Soviet Union exploded its own “H” bomb which was lighter but less powerful. The US bomb tested at Bikini Atoll in 1954 weighed less than 10,000 lb, light enough to be delivered by an ICBM.

US development was concentrated on its own ICBM, the Atlas missile. Whereas the United States’ advantage in computers helped them to develop lighter warheads, the USSR lacked this expertise and their weapons remained heavy until the late 1960s.

Korolev’s team was moved to a new missile test range at Tyuratam and by 1955 they were involved in a crash program to get their ICBM design into production. The Soviet leader Mr Krushchev wanted the demonstration of their ICBM to coincide with the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957. The IGY was supposed to be a year of international co-operation in scientific fields including atmospheric science. If Korolev’s prototype could carry a 2-ton thermonuclear warhead 4,000 miles (from the Soviet Union to the USA), it could carry a satellite into orbit.