Space Race (2005) s01e04 Episode Script

Through the centuries, to explore space was an impossible fantasy.
Then two rival scientists became locked in a race to realize that dream.
Their struggle would make history.
Sergei Korolev was released from prison to become the chief designer of the Soviet Space Programme.
He launched the world's first satellite.
It's just been announced that the Russians have put a satellite into space.
And Yuri Gagarin, the first man into space.
Despite all their success, Korolev's identity was a closely-guarded State secret.
In America, his rival, Wernher von Braun, was struggling to catch up.
The Soviets may be ready to go as soon as November.
We can't waste time trucking this capsule from state to state while the Reds are orbiting the earth.
And you prefer we kill an astronaut? Now, with the launch of America's first astronaut, von Braun is closing the gap.
And with the creation of NASA Go baby, go! the moon is in his sights.
The eyes of the world now look into space.
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
The year is now 1964.
Come on, come on.
Let's get on with it.
Sergei Korolev's role as chief designer is a well kept secret in the Soviet Union.
while everything done by his rival in America is public knowledge.
Project Apollo, destination moon.
What rocket will take these men and futuristic Apollo craft to their destination.
Let's hear about its design from the world famous rocket scientist, Dr.
Wernher von Braun.
At over three hundred and fifty feet long, Saturn V will be a giant among rockets.
Its weight, equivalent to a light battle cruiser, will be lifted into the air by a first stage of five engines producing over seven and a half million pounds of thrust.
Enough to launch over fifteen hundred Sputniks into orbit.
Space Age has truly arrived.
Space exploration is necessary for a dynamic America, and essential for the preservation of peace.
Both men have dreamed of going to the moon for over thirty years.
But Korolev can't win backing for his lunar rocket.
The money they must have.
We can't even get our plans from Lunar Mission approved, never mind the funds.
That von Braun is such a lucky devil.
First the Nazis, then the American government.
You may laugh Vasily, but he will fly his battle cruiser.
Our N1 is unlikely to even lift off the design board.
Politburo say they want Lunar Mission.
They know we must have a powerful booster like the N1 or the Saturn if we are to do it.
Do they? Do they, really, Vasily? Or do they expect us to pull it out of the bag like we always do? Without a rocket as powerful as the Saturn, we will lose.
The Saturn's engines work on the same basic principle as all rocket engines of which this is an example.
The crucial part of the design is the injector plate, like a giant showerhead spraying fuel into the combustion chamber where it ignites.
It's a process that has to be absolutely precise or the engine fails.
Allow me to give you an example.
Imagine that at thousands of times the ferocity with fuel delivered at a rate sufficient to fill a family-sized swimming pool every ten seconds.
That's what we have to achieve on the F1.
The most powerful rocket engine ever built.
Fail and we don't go to the moon.
So we're testing Engine number 008 with an injector plate F367? Senior Engineer Paul CASTENHOLZ had been testing the engine for the past two years.
Uh, yes sir, that's uh, 008 and uh, Plate F367.
But there are problems getting the ambitious design to work at all.
Everyone clear the stand.
Looks like we're about ready.
Better get to the Blockhouse.
Standby for engine test.
Turbo pump sequences initiated.
Prepare for engine ignition in ten, nine, eight.
Inside the engine, the injector plate is the most critical part of the design.
It mixes the liquid fuels together through thousands of tiny holes.
As the tens of thousands of gallons of liquid oxygen and kerosene burn, the gasses expand to create intense pressure.
The smallest upset to this smooth mix will lead to a rocket designer's worst nightmare.
Combustion instability.
All it takes is the slightest thing.
Keep me posted on modifications for the next test.
Von Braun needs five of these engines perfectly synchronized just to lift his Saturn off the ground.
Oh, it's never gonna work at that size.
Well it'll have to, or he sure as hell isn't going to the moon.
How many times have you tried this? He'll never make peace with you, because he's jealous, and always has been.
I know.
But I need him, and he knows it.
His engines launched Gagarin, Sputnik.
He knows launching the N1 will be noted.
The Politburo will still not fund Korolev's lunar rocket, the N1.
To help persuade them, he and he wife needs the Soviet's leading rocket engine designer, Valentin Glushko, a man who has long coveted Korolev's success.
I have made my position completely clear to the Central Committee and to the Politburo.
My answer is no, unless you change fuels, which you won't.
So there's the end of the discussion.
You know I can't agree to that.
Anyway, to abandon liquid oxygen now would kill the N1.
We don't have time.
You have seen von Braun's Saturn.
He uses oxygen.
I didn't see it fly.
Are we going to the moon or not? Not on liquid oxygen using large engines.
A schoolboy can tell you the problems you will get with combustion instability.
This is not about fuel, is it Valentin? This is about you and me.
I know how you talk behind my back, how you poison my relations with Khrushchev.
and now you do the same with the Politburo and Brezhnev.
Get out.
You cannot stand it when I succeed.
You'll do anything to destroy my chances.
Leave, now.
With pleasure, Valentin Petrovich.
If you don't want the job I will get by without you.
That could have gone better.
I thought you said the Politburo will never agree to funds if you don't have Glushko.
I'll manage.
I have another man in mind.
Sergei, what happened? I'm all right, I'm all right.
- Let's just get the hell out.
- take a seat please.
Take us straight home.
With the entire moon shot resting on the success of his engines Von Braun takes a radical step.
A small bomb is planted in the engine to deliberately trigger instability.
Stand by for engine test.
Turbo pump sequence initiated.
If the engine copes with the shock wave caused by the bomb he will know he's solved it.
Firing charge, mark.
All this failure is turning public opinion against von Braun.
How do you answer those who say you're using the tax dollars of the poor to fatten rich corporations? Look, we don't spend the money on the moon, we spend it here in the United States, creating jobs and new products.
Gather round while I sing you of WERNHER VON BRAUN A man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience Call him a Nazi, he won't even flown "A Nazi, Schmarzi," says WERNHER VON BRAUN Don't say that he's hypocritical Say rather that he's apolitical Once the rockets are up, Who cares where they come down? "That's not my department," says WERNHER VON BRAUN Components were redesigned and then test-fired at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, until von Braun at last gets word of a breakthrough.
Excellent, Paul.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So what was the problem? Frankly sir uh, I still don't know.
But it has been resolved.
Well we found the design of injector plate that cures the instability.
Just don't know what caused it in the first place.
Anyway, we now have an engine that runs, so uh, the F1 can go operational.
But it could re-occur.
He has to build the engines with no guaranteed that if the problem was solved.
Why the rush? The Russians appear to be doing nothing.
Don't be fooled.
The Soviets understand the significance of conquering space.
They wanna beat us to the moon, and they may surprise us any day now.
This is Diamond One.
I am ready to go out.
Just as von Braun feared, Korolev was ready with another historic first.
Soviet Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov becomes the first man to walk in space.
Diamond One calling Dawn.
Everything is going well.
Below me I can see clouds, sea, the Caucuses! I can see the Caucuses below me! Korolev hopes that the space walk's impact would help persuade the Politburo to fund his plans for a lunar mission.
The suit is performing well.
Diamond One, this is Dawn.
You have achieved your objectives.
Return to the spacecraft.
Hell.
I can't get back to the spacecraft.
The air pressure in my suit is increasing.
I can barely move my fingers in my gloves.
I can't pull myself back to the airlock.
God damn it.
Leonov's suit is so inflated, he will never fit back through the airlock.
Aleksei, try using the release valve to manually vent air from the suit.
He struggles for twelve minutes at the airlock.
With one last push, he finally manages to climb back into the spacecraft.
Today the Soviet Union announced successful completion of the first walk in space.
Pilot Cosmonaut, Lieutenant Colonel Aleksei Arkhipovich Leonov spent twenty-three minutes, forty-one seconds outside his spacecraft.
The Politburo never revealed how close the mission came to disaster.
Von Braun could only assume the Soviets are ahead.
And worse still, hostility is escalating in Vietnam.
American is torn apart, as the protest movement grows.
Von Braun is worrying about losing public support for the moon shot.
Watching from Russia, Korolev is acute aware of his rival disposal.
The industrial might of America is now focused on NASA's Lunar Programme.
In assembly buildings across the country, the gigantic Saturn V rocket is taking shape.
In high altitude tests, astronauts are training for each step of a moon mission.
In nineteen sixty-five alone, NASA has been allocated a further five billion dollars to spearhead its conquest of space.
It's here.
I have it.
We have approval for a circumlunar flight on the fiftieth anniversary of the Revolution and a manned landing within three years.
Now, we can move the N1 into full production, although They have allocated half the funds we asked for.
At last, Korolev has the go-ahead to compete directly with the American moon mission.
But with only a faction of the money, He soon found a replacement for Glushko to design his new rocket, Nikolai Kuznetsov.
How many engines are you proposing for the first stage? The first stage? - Twenty-four.
- Twenty-four? We'll need twenty-four to deliver enough thrust.
Nikolai, the American Saturn has five.
How are we going to control twenty-four engines? We'll find a way.
It's a brilliant design, which I am pleased to say will make Glushko spit.
Oh, how are we going to test a stage of twenty-four engines? When we launch.
Vasily, there's no money.
And besides, it could take three years to build a test stand large enough.
While his lunar rocket is under construction, Korolev invites the cosmonauts to see a mock-up of the capsule that will take them to the moon.
It weighs six and a half thousand kilos, and can carry three cosmonauts.
Leonov, Gagarin, and Komarov are his top candidates.
The ship has solar panels for extra power.
But the most important feature is its maneuverability.
Unlike our old Vostok, it can be piloted in space.
It can dock with other ships.
So it could link and detach to another craft, which descends to the moon.
Vladimir, take a look.
You may be the first to fly A lot- a lot more space than the Vostok.
Twice the size.
Well, there was some dispute about that.
A young designer wanted to make it so small.
I drew a chalk circle around him the size he proposed and made him stand in it.
We continued our debate.
He soon agreed to make the capsule bigger.
Sergei Pavlovich, are you all right? I'm fine.
Don't fuss.
Don't fuss.
Now, look.
Yuri, I have to go.
After leaving the cosmonauts, Korolev collapses with severe heart pains.
Doctors order him to take rest.
His deputy of twenty years, Vasily Mishin takes over while he's away.
Yes Vasily, you spoke to the Minister, yes.
I met him.
He says no further funds can be released until we submit a report.
Well of course he'd say that.
What do you expect? Sergei, I can't take this.
This job is not for me.
I'm sorry.
I'm going to have to ask to stand down.
Please, please, Vasily.
Calm down.
You can handle it.
Just tell them to continue the engine tests.
I'll deal with this when I get back.
To add to the strain NASA had developed a new spacecraft called Gemini, and is launching manned missions almost every two months.
They carry out spacewalks, test maneuvers for space docking, and set a two-week endurance record in orbit, an obvious prelude to their Apollo Moon Missions.
Serge, you ought to take a look at this.
Korolev has nothing ready to match this.
They are leaving us behind.
Korolev is taken in for exploratory surgery, and a tumor is discovered.
Is everything all right? I'm sorry.
He's gone.
While under anesthetic, Korolev's weak heart fails.
A result of the physical hardship endured during his imprisonment in the gulag.
After twenty years of anonymity, the Soviet Premier, Leonid Brezhnev, decides to reveal the genius behind the Soviet Space Programme.
His name revealed to the world, the man who had once been sent to the gulag, now had a full state funeral in Red Square.
A hero for the Soviet people at last.
Even his ashes are preserved in the Kremlin wall.
Wernher von Braun at last discovered the identity of his greatest rival.
I never knew all this was just one man.
How will they do without him? At the Cape, von Braun is soaring ahead.
Inside the largest building ever constructed, his giant lunar rocket, the Saturn V, is being assembled.
NASA is almost ready for the start of the Apollo Missions.
On the twenty-seventh of January, nineteen sixty-seven, astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee are sealed inside the new Apollo capsule for a final run-through on the ground.
What happens next throws the moon programme into crisis.
Cap Comm, I do not read you.
Please repeat.
Apollo 1, this is Cap Comm, do you copy now? For chrissakes.
I do not read Cap Comm.
Over.
God damn, If I can't talk to you from five miles away? How am I gonna contact you from the moon? A spark suddenly turns the capsule into an inferno.
The death of the three astronauts stuns America.
The spark ignited the capsule's pure oxygen atmosphere.
NASA has to go back and painstakingly rework their Apollo capsule from scratch.
Just three months later, the Soviets are ready to test their equivalent of the Apollo capsule, the Soyuz.
Once in orbit, The cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov is in trouble.
A solar panel jammed shut, the craft is starved of power.
The panel's not moving.
None of these instruments work.
We should attempt an immediate re-entry.
We keep the power demands down in orbit.
Mishin now in charged of the Soviet Space programme, faces the first big test of his leadership.
Only absolute essential systems to be left on.
All others to be switched off.
by the thirteenth orbit the automatic re-entry systems also fail.
Komarov's chances of survival are slim.
His only hope, to pilot the stricken craft home himself.
Convinced it's an impossible task, Komarov's wife is called in to say goodbye.
Against all the odds, Komarov brilliantly guided the tumbling Soyuz through the Earth's atmosphere.
But both his main and backup parachute failed.
He perished.
Why are we having these failures? I'll tell you why.
Poor work.
Bad practices.
Lazy approach.
Everybody has an excuse.
This doesn't function.
I can't get this made.
Excuses, excuses! that cover-up shoddy, useless work.
Mishin increasingly relies on alcohol to deal with the pressure.
It has been my duty to inform the State Commission, inform them, that this third failure means it is now not possible to celebrate the glorious fiftieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution with a manned flight! The cosmonauts complain about Mishin to the Soviet's leadership, citing his impatience, rudeness, and poor knowledge.
But nothing is done.
Two months later, Gagarin himself dies, killed in a flying accident.
Gagarin's death, so soon after Korolev's, is a further blow to the morale of the Soviet Space Programme, which falters on the brink of collapse.
In America, von Braun is ready for a test flight of his Saturn V rocket, an unmanned dress rehearsal for the real thing.
Standing thirty-six stories high, it weighs more than a battle cruiser.
The greatest weight ever lifted off the ground.
It takes four hundred and fifty staff to control the countdown.
Von Braun's Saturn V is to carry the unmanned Apollo capsule into orbit.
For safety, the press are held behind a three and a half mile exclusion zone.
For von Braun, everything hinges on the reliability of his engines.
Ten.
Nine.
Ignition sequence starts.
Six, five, four, three, two, one.
Yes.
With the exception of a nuclear bomb blast, the Saturn V was the loudest manmade object ever built.
It registers on earthquake censors across America.
For a hundred and twenty-five seconds, the flight is flawless.
Flight booster, go.
We're losing thrust.
Roger that.
Uh, we have a problem.
Uh, we had pogo plus minus ten G's.
Pogo.
Powerful vibrations down the length of the rocket.
If they become violent enough, they'll cause the rocket to break up.
Combustion instability frequency? Five to six cycles per second.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait, it's over.
Stage one separated.
Engine out.
- Which? - Engine Two.
Another engine out.
Flight booster.
- Oh my god.
- Go.
We've got engines two and three out.
She's falling.
Booster, it's your action.
You're go for abort? Are you go for abort? Uh, wait.
Wait.
We still have good control at this time.
Roger that.
Although the Saturn limps into orbit, Mr.
von Braun can't risk a manned flight until the engine problems are fixed.
The Soviets also have engine problems.
Their new designer, Nikolai Kuznetsov, has been forced to add extra engines to provide more thrust.
The first stage now has thirty.
But he faces criticism from Korolev's old adversary, Valentin Glushko.
During the static firing of the NK15, there was a partial blow-out of the combustion chamber.
Comrades, uh, we need not go any further.
At this stage, uh, I wish to propose redesigning the N1.
I have plans that would utilize our proven RD235 engine.
Ignoring Glushko's opposition, Korolev's dream rocket, the N1, makes a fleeting appearance on the pad.
But engineers find cracks in its outer casing.
Wernher.
Wernher.
We've had reports, reports from the CIA, that the Russians are getting close to a manned circumlunar flight, maybe by the end of the year.
With what? These are classified satellite shots of their launch pad at Tyura Tam.
They show a Saturn-size rocket.
we feel that the uh, next Saturn V Apollo launch, Apollo 8, should take a crew around the moon.
That's insane.
We won't have test flown a Saturn since we had the engine failure and pogo problem.
I know, but we can't take the chance that they do it first.
Whoever sends a man around the moon will have as good as won the race.
It will be a massive propaganda victory.
Some proposition to commit human life.
Well, if we had taken a little more risk before, we would've got an American up there first.
Okay.
We go.
Unknown to von Braun, without Sergei Korolev, the Soviets are floundering.
Why wasn't I told? Why wasn't I told? What's wrong? We lost pressure.
The proxy temperature is low, minus five.
Vasily Pavolvich, come on, let's go.
I'm not going anywhere.
With the cosmonaut losing faith in Mishin, they appealed to the Politburo for a manned flight around the moon in early December.
They were prepared to gamble their own lives to beat the Americans.
But the cosmonauts' request is denied.
Good luck, Americans.
Good luck.
Apollo 8 has cleared the tower.
The Americans send three astronauts to fly around the moon for the first time.
T plus a hundred and fifty-five seconds.
First stage separated.
The Saturn hadn't flown since the engine and pogo problems.
Apollo, you're looking good.
Your trajectory and guidance are go.
Thrust is fine.
Engines are fine.
Once the rocket stages drop away a critical step is TLI, trans-lunar injection.
The final engine burn to set them on a course for the moon.
Apollo 8, you're GO for TLI.
Roger.
Understand.
We're going for TLI.
Yes.
Commander Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders have to fly two hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles out into space and navigate for the first time into the moon's orbit.
On Christmas eve, the crew of Apollo 8 become the first human beings to look down on the lunar surface.
As they disappear behind the moon, all radio contact is lost.
If they fail to lock into the moon's orbit, they will fly on, forever lost in space.
Apollo 8, come in.
Apollo 8, this is Houston.
Apollo VII.
Apollo 8, this is Houston.
Welcome to the moon uh, Houston.
Suddenly, as they emerged from the far side of the moon, a sight unseen by human eye.
The rising Earth shining over the moon's bleak surface.
To the crew of Apollo 8, we call with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas, and god bless all of you.
All of you are on the good Earth.
The crew of Apollo 8 came within seventy miles of the moon's surface.
The next step is to actually land a man on the moon.
But just seventeen days before the American moon mission, Mishin is ready for an unmanned launch of his lunar rocket.
Now we get to see who was right.
To succeed, Kuznetsov's thirty engines must all fire together.
nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.
Ignition.
Torn apart with almost the force of a nuclear bomb, it is the most powerful explosion in the history of rocketry.
Caused by a single bolt sucked into a fuel pump, the explosion scatters pieces of debris over ten kilometers.
The failure is a State secret for twenty years.
The disaster effectively ends the career of Vasily Mishin.
In America, one last detail before the moon landing.
Choosing the flag.
To ensure no one manufacturer can profit by claiming its their flag on the moon, a NASA secretary makes a random selection.
On the sixteenth of July, Commander Neil Armstrong, Edwin Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, the crew of Apollo XI, make their way out to the pad.
One million people gather at The Cape to see them off.
Across the world, half a billion are watching.
The Saturn's main engines have to fire for a hundred and fifty seconds to take the crew safely into orbit.
Come on.
Hold together.
Hold together.
Twenty-five years had passed since Von Braun brought his rocket technology to America.
Now he is about to realize his long held dream.
To land a man on the moon.
Roger.
How does it look? The Eagle has wings.
Rodge.
Michael Collins orbits the moon in the command module.
We're go.
Hang tight, we're go.
As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin head for the lunar surface.
Things are looking great.
Thirty-five degrees.
Seven hundred and fifty.
Coming down to twenty-three.
Five hundred and forty feet at a fifteen.
Ten and fifty feet down at four.
Altitude velocity light.
But, while struggling to find a landing site, the fuel runs dangerously low.
Coming down nicely, two hundred feet.
Four and a half down.
Five and a half down.
Hundred feet, three and a half down, nine forward.
Okay, seventy-five feet.
That is looking good, down a half.
Six forward.
Fifty seconds of fuel.
Lights on.
Forward.
Forward.
Forty feet down two and a half.
Picking up some dust.
faint shadow.
Four forward, drifting to the right a little.
Thirty seconds of fuel.
Contact light.
Okay, engine stop.
We copy you down, Eagle.
Houston uh, Tranquility Base here.
The Eagle has landed.
Yes! Roger Tr- Tranquility, we copy you on the ground.
You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.
We're breathing again.
Thanks a lot.
Although the surface appears to be uh, very, very fine grained as you get close to it, it's almost like a powder.
It's uh, it's very fine.
Okay, I'm gonna step off the ladder.
That's one small step for man.
One giant leap for mankind.
While Armstrong and Aldrin are on the moon, a Soviet probe, sent in a last-ditched effort to steal some glory, overshoots their landing site.
It crashes in the appropriately named Sea of Crises.
Von Braun would mastermind another five successful manned missions to the moon.
His greater vision of a base on the moon and manned flights to other planets, is yet to be fulfilled.
is yet to be fulfilled.