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  Soviet cosmonaut selection: schedule and size

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Author Topic:   Soviet cosmonaut selection: schedule and size
Robert Pearlman
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Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 10-22-2013 04:00 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
In writing the obituary for Dmitri Zaikin it got me to thinking about the size and schedule for the Soviet Union's first class of cosmonaut trainees.

Why (if it is known) did the USSR wait almost a year after the United States chose its Mercury 7 astronauts to select its first cosmonaut candidates?

And why such a large number (20) out of the gate — especially when the Vostok (and Voskhod) flight count ended up to be close in number to the Mercury flights?

Hart Sastrowardoyo
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Posts: 3445
From: Toms River, NJ
Registered: Aug 2000

posted 10-22-2013 08:20 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Hart Sastrowardoyo   Click Here to Email Hart Sastrowardoyo     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Weren't there much more Vostok and Voskhod flights planned, but cut in order to maintain competition with the United States?

Michael Cassutt
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Posts: 358
From: Studio City CA USA
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 10-23-2013 10:20 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Michael Cassutt   Click Here to Email Michael Cassutt     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The first decree authorizing a Soviet human spaceflight program was only signed in November 1958, with a decree about selecting cosmonauts following in May -- a month after the Mercury astronaut announcement. Various organizations were competing for funding for projects, not just space-related but also for missile work. Human flight was something Korolev and Keldysh wanted to pursue, but it was simply not a priority for the Council of Ministers at that time.

Beginning in August 1959, groups of medical specialists from the Soviet air force began visiting air bases and soliciting candidates for the cosmonaut team. I've read for years that around 3,000 were considered or heard the briefings though I've also heard 1,000, which seems more likely.

About 150 were chosen to enter medical screening, which took place at the Air Force's medical institute in Moscow beginning October 3, 1959. The whole process took almost three months, into late December.

A dozen candidates were identified fairly early (and seem to have reported to Khodynka Field in Moscow, the first "center") in early March 1960. Others sort of trickled in, late selectees who in some cases arrived at the center as late as May 1960.

Why twenty?* According to a story that is too good to discredit, Korolev was asked how many cosmonauts he thought his program would need. Korolev apparently said, "How many did the Americans pick?" Told that the number was "seven," he said, "three times as many".

* In fact, there were 29 finalists submitted to the "mandat commission" or credentials committee that made the final decision. Nine were rejected at that state, likely for one kind of political reason.

Robert Pearlman
Editor

Posts: 42988
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 10-23-2013 10:32 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Robert Pearlman   Click Here to Email Robert Pearlman     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Thanks Michael, that answers it.

It adds another dimension though, to Gagarin being first in space, having been chosen 11 months after NASA kickstarted its own manned space program.

Zaikin's and other original candidates' names weren't known until much later, but did the Soviets immediately make public the number of candidates they had chosen? As illustrated by the Korolev anecdote, I am wondering if there was any space race rivalry to "our corps is bigger than your corps" between the U.S. and USSR.

Michael Cassutt
Member

Posts: 358
From: Studio City CA USA
Registered: Mar 2005

posted 10-23-2013 11:48 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Michael Cassutt   Click Here to Email Michael Cassutt     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I followed this pretty closely from the 1960s on, and am pretty sure there was no public disclosure about the size of the first selection until at least the late 1970s. (In I AM EAGLE, the Martin Caidin-authored version of Titov's biography, the number "twelve" is mentioned, but I don't believe anyone treated that as definitive.)

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