IN SEVENTH HEAVEN

History doesn't just happen: it is people who make it. Their names are often heard, but there are also times when they are forgotten. The thing about space exploration is that the names of many people in this field - engineers, rocket-designers, physicists and chemical engineers - have remained unknown for many years.

Space exploration is the main subject of the Russian writer and journalist and the author of a number of books on science fiction and popular science, Anton Pervushin. He is one of those people today who rubs shoulders with experts, researches old archives and uses their information in his work. As the writer said in an interview with R+, many of the key events linked with space exploration took place here in Baku.

Soviet space exploration began with building rockets but basically the state was wary about this field of engineering.  Soviet scientists needed a lot of time and effort to convince people of the need to develop this young industry. In 1932 a problem arose with the fuel for the rocket designed by the famous Sergey Korolev. At the time it was necessary to create as viscous a fuel as possible, but what was really required was a solid, high-energy fuel.

Korolev sent the engineer, Nikolay Yefremov, to Baku where he was due to give a lecture on rocket technology. "There he met a man called Gurvich, who worked at the Azerbaijani Oil Institute who told him about 'thickened' petrol," Pervushin says. "The production technology of this product is very simple: petrol is blended with resin creating a kind of lubricant. The Baku 'thickened' petrol prompted [Mikhail] Tikhonravov to the idea of creating a new rocket, which was given the notation 09." And in this case rocket-building technology became much simplified. The launching of the first Soviet rocket - "GIRD-09" - took place on 17 August 1933 at the Nakhabino launch site near Moscow. Driven by "Baku fuel", the rocket reached an altitude of about 400 metres in 18 seconds. Korolev regarded these figures as quite successful and offered them to a higher authority which finally approved rocket-engineering as a future industry. 

Karim Karimov

Unfortunately, in its early stages, rocket-engineering was inseparable from war. By the start of the Second World War there were a whole group of rocket experts in Baku, the most important of whom was the already well-known young engineer, Karim Karimov. Like his Baku colleagues, he used solid fuels for his rockets. Of course, fascist Germany was way ahead of other countries in rocket-building, and after the war experts from the USSR and the USA came to the Peenemunde proving ground (the rocket centre of the Third Reich near the town of Peenemunde in north-east Germany) and other "science towns" of the Reich to study their designs.

In 1946 Karimov was sent to the German town of Nordhausen where the famous V2 rockets were manufactured in workshops carved out of the mountains, although way before the Soviets, American scientists, who were the first to tap into the "intellectual property" of the Reich, were able to take away from there the most valuable designs, as well as their celebrated creator, Werner von Braun, who 15 years later became the pioneer of American space exploration. Soviet rocket scientists, therefore, had to gather the few crumbs of information which the Americans left behind. By a great stroke of fortune the rocket scientists were able to recruit the head of the technical department of the Peenemunde Institute, von Groetrub.

Karimov later laughed as he recalled how the Soviet experts and their humble workers were struck by the habits of this domineering and temperamental German and his wife. And they were allotted a separate private residence. What's more, Groetrub demanded that a cow, whose milk he was used to drinking and nothing else, be brought over to the USSR with them.

As for Karimov himself, he was noted for his simple nature, his astonishing commitment and energy and his ability to reach the right decision in the shortest possible time. So he was easily able to progress from senior engineer to head of operations. Two decades after the war, Karimov was working on developing inter-continental missiles. Soon the Soviet-American race transferred from earth to outer space, and Karimov was asked to switch to space research. The designer himself recalled how at first he regarded this as a personal demotion and was a little aggrieved. In 1965 he was assigned to the Ministry of General Machine-building and headed the Main Space Directorate there. In 1966 he became chairman of the State Commission for Manned Flights and worked there for a quarter of a century, which only came to light in 1987.

Karimov often used to say that any trifle, however small, and the slightest flaw could destroy the whole project and wipe out the work of hundreds and thousands of experts and, worst of all, take human lives. He would personally accompany the cosmonauts, and all the time he felt great responsibility for their safety. In his memoirs, he said that Vladimir Komarov, who carried out the second space flight in "Soyuz-1" in 1967, was killed on returning to earth because the internal surface of the container housing the parachute had been made at a factory where there had been procedural violations. The result of a similar stupid mistake was the tragic death of the crew of "Soyuz-11" of Georgiy Dobrovolskiy, Viktor Patsayev and Vladislav Volkov.

Meanwhile, the "cold war" was at its height, and the Moscow hierarchy was chasing up the designer. At a session of the Defence Council in July 1967, [Leonid] Brezhnev expressed his dissatisfaction at the disruption of the "Voskhod" programme which, he said, was damaging the USSR's standing as a great space power. Among the general secretary's few opponents was Karimov, who said that the lives of the cosmonauts must not be put in jeopardy.

Karim Karimov worked on all the USSR's projects in manned space exploration. He retired at the age of 74 but continued to work as a consultant at Flight Control Centre and 3-4 times a week, and always at the same time of 07.10, he would leave for work by commuter train.

Tofiq Ismayilov

One cannot fail to recall the contribution made to Soviet space exploration by Tofiq Ismayilov, a Doctor of Technical Sciences and academician of the International Engineering Academy. He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Electrical Engineering and Communications in 1956. Returning to Baku in 1964, Ismayilov first worked as an engineer and then taught at the Azerbaijani Polytechnic Institute. At the beginning of the 1980s he moved to the Institute of Physics of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences where he was engaged in scientific work on semi-conductors. In 1985 he became founder and director of the first and only centre in the USSR for the study of the earth's natural wealth from outer space of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences. Ismayilov had a huge gift for bringing people together and creating a team of like-minded people and selecting the best and most talented experts. The next and, alas, the last milestone in Ismayilov's career was the post of director and chief designer of the Association of Space Research and Scientific-Production Developments of the Azerbaijani National Aerospace Agency. On the fateful night of 20 November 1991 Ismayilov was on board the helicopter in which the flower of the Azerbaijani nation, politicians and scientists were flying to Karabakh to try and prevent the already raging conflict there. Tofiq Ismayilov was on the Mi-8 helicopter that was shot down by separatists with a heat-seeking missile.

Musa Manarov

Another of our compatriots who contributed to the development of space exploration was Musa Manarov.  From 21 December 1987 to 21 December 1988 he flew as onboard engineer on the "Soyuz TM-4" spacecraft, and then transferred to the "Mir" orbital complex. At the time Manarov set the still world record for time in orbit of 365 days, 23 hours. That year he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. From 2 December 1990 to 26 May 1991 Manarov completed his second flight as onboard engineer on the "Soyuz TM-11" and the "Mir" orbital complex lasting 175 days and two hours. He has completed seven space walks lasting 34 hours and 23 minutes.

Outer space is mankind's predestination

In those far-off days of the 1960s and 1970s, not only advanced intellects but ordinary people were confident that the space era was to come, if not today, then tomorrow. Science-fiction writers in the USSR and the USA placed their heroes who conquered Mars and Jupiter in the not so far-off 1980s. At that time there were a lot of symposiums on rocket engineering. And the leading theoretician of space exploration, [Mstislav] Keldysh often came to Baku. And it was in Baku, in his report at the International Astronautics Congress in 1972, that he expressed complete confidence that "outer space would become mankind's predestination". He said: "We may confidently say that mankind will carry out inter-planetary flights. And, just as many years ago no-one could predict what mankind would find on new continents, no-one can say what it will find on the planets. Perhaps, in many years' time, those who fly to other planets and modern space rockets will seem just as primitive and amateurish as the ancient canoes on which the first brave seafarers plied the oceans seem to us. After all, we are only at the beginning of a journey beyond the earth. We still have to solve many complex technical questions. But this process has begun, it is growing in pace, and there is no doubt that K.E.Tsiolkovskiy's prophetic words about conquering the whole solar space will be mankind's predestination in the next century… "