I served in both the USAF and Army for an entire career during the Cold War when we were taught that the Soviets were pure evil. For the past 4 years, I have begun to study the Russian language. I have developed a tremendous respect for the Russians. You have to strip away the politics of ideology and look at people through the lens of being fellow human beings who all want the same things in life - to be happy and serve their country with honor. I have found the Russian people to be the sweetest, most kind and generous beings you can meet. I hate the divisive nature of politics.
I studied Russian language, history, and politics in college back in the 1970s. We'd planned a trip to Moscow, but Putin's antics put an end to that. You might enjoy the Different Russia channel here on TH-cam. She shows you everyday life in Moscow. She has to avoid talking about the you-know-what because of you-know-who but otherwise life goes on. The link is (with the period) www.youtube.com/@differentrussia.
This is a very good documentary. At 50:39 it says, "The other contender [for first female cosmonaut] was airbrushed out of the official history. Her name is Valentina Leonidova Ponomareva (maiden name Kovalevskaya). She was a pilot with 320 hours to her credit accrued on PO-2 and Yak-18 aircraft at her local sports club. She also had the distinction of having graduated from the prestigious Moscow Aviation Institute and having served as a scientist at the Department of Applied Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Yuri Gagarin opposed her selection because she was the only one of the five female candidates who was a mother. She went on to be the head of the History of Aviation and Cosmonautics Group at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
I remember going to see Sputnik pass over our area in 1957. What we didn't know at the time, and is not mentioned in this program, is that what most people actually saw was the rocket's core stage, which was much brighter than Sputnik and orbited along with it.
I watched this entire series on the original broadcast dates. It provided an excellent snapshot of the Soviet space program in its sunset. Being a child of the 1950s, I remember when most of the info presented here was an absolute mystery in the West. Sadly, none of the films in this series are available commercially in first generation quality. Hopefully, the masters still exist in a vault somewhere.
18:30 The commentator is making a mistake when he mentions that the German V-2 rocket ALMOST reached space. In fact the V-2 DID reach space. A manmade object first crossed the socalled Karman Line, the (albeit a bit artificially drawn) international dividing line above which ''space'' is said to begin, in 1944 and it reached an altitude of 176 kilometers. However it did not reach enough speed to go into orbit. That's the difference: The V-2 did reach space, but never reached orbit.
Some did reach low-Earth orbit. Statistically, three V-2 rockets should have orbited the Earth, due to the combination of a little more fuel in the tank and low air pressure due to weather. They probably crashed into the oceans a few years later as they gradually lost speed.
@@NorceCodine You’re going to have to provide some documentation to support that claim. I could find no evidence of anything but some suborbital flights as described. It would have required about three times the speed the V2 was nominally capable of to reach orbit.
@@NorceCodine this is simply untrue. Like Emdee5632 said, you can't reach orbital velocity with the amount of deltaV that the V2 was designed for. Regardless of how much more fuel you put in the tanks. The Rocket Equation is quite strict in this matter
Good documentary. Korolev was a genius and the Soviets were first in many things. The Russians are still first in many things. Let us remember that sixty years later there are countries that dont even have that technology today.
Soviets arrested Korolev numerous times just because he was ukrainian. Ukrainians were first, not soviets. And today we see, russians are unable to do any space related things without ukrainians.
@@just_inker2584That is not the case, Korolev was born in the Soviet union, that time Ukraine didn't exist, plus Russia is not able to do space things because of corruption and lack of will, not because it is not capable of
@@JuPiTeR_0211 soviet union is a state, not a country, it existed for a short period of time then disappeared as a mistake. By that logic, russia didn't existed either. Yes, it's not capable of doing anything by itself, all it can do is attack other countries and steal from them.
@@JuPiTeR_0211 soviet union is a state, not a country, it existed for a short period of time then disappeared as a mistake. By that logic russia didn't existed either. Yes, it is not capable, all it's capable of is attack other countries and steal their achievements.
@@JuPiTeR_0211 soviet union is a state, not a country, it existed for a short period of time then disappeared as a mistake. By that logic russia didn't existed either. Yes, it is not capable, all it's capable of is invade other countries and steal their achievements.
@@TheBandit7613Yet we never managed to get a satellite into space for us first. So thats set in stone. Besides it was the FIRST satellite, nothing too complicated. What’d you expect?
@@tomcarrillo3595 Our first satellite was the first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt and had 3 thermometers in it. It sent live data for 4 months then the batteries died. It was only 4 months behind Sputnik. So ours actually did something useful instead of transmit beeps.
Thanks for posting this video. It is easy to forget the impact of Sputnik and the threat of Soviet tech at that time. The propaganda and influence effects were immense and game changing. The historic events here also sadly describe the legacy of brutal soviet dictatorship.
Too many lies, and cover ups. One of their rockets blew up on the launchpad, and killed over a hundred people. One ship, on entry, had the parachute fail to deploy, and killed all 3 Cosmonauts when it smashed in the ground.
Love Korolev's comments to his co-workers after "Sputnik's"launch-"Today we have taken the first step on the road to the stars!"-(not "we have achieved nuclear parity with the USA")
But amid the triumph, Soviet officials, ever obsessed with secrecy and image, already were airbrushing history. Some local papers quoted witnesses who saw Gagarin parachuting down. But the official version had him landing in his capsule, so the KGB rushed to confiscate all the contradictory accounts in print.
Sergei Korolev was put in the gulag because he was accused of being a Ukrainian revolutionary. He would have lived many more years and moved humanity forward if he did not suffer the horrible abuse in the gulag.
Yeah... Nothing better than good old fashion america is better than anyone propaganda... Im amazed they used color footage on some of the soviet space program bits... Because they were so evil that they were in black and white.
Сергей Королев.🇷🇺. Sergey Korolev was born in one of the provinces of the Russian Empire. simply put, Sergey Korolev was born in Russia. His homeland is Russia.
Sergey Korolev was born in Zhytomyr in 1907. At the time, Zhytomyr was part of the Russian Empire, but not what was traditionally considered to be Russia itself. As with many parts of eastern Europe, what belonged to who has shifted over the centuries. Zhytomyr was part of the Ukraine independence movement during the revolutionary year of 1917; Ukraine's independence was recognized by the Provisional Government, but renounced the Bolsheviks, so they were conquered again. Today, it's part of Ukraine. I suspect Korolev had more important things on his mind than which border was where when he was born.
I served in both the USAF and Army for an entire career during the Cold War when we were taught that the Soviets were pure evil. For the past 4 years, I have begun to study the Russian language. I have developed a tremendous respect for the Russians. You have to strip away the politics of ideology and look at people through the lens of being fellow human beings who all want the same things in life - to be happy and serve their country with honor. I have found the Russian people to be the sweetest, most kind and generous beings you can meet. I hate the divisive nature of politics.
I studied Russian language, history, and politics in college back in the 1970s. We'd planned a trip to Moscow, but Putin's antics put an end to that.
You might enjoy the Different Russia channel here on TH-cam. She shows you everyday life in Moscow. She has to avoid talking about the you-know-what because of you-know-who but otherwise life goes on. The link is (with the period) www.youtube.com/@differentrussia.
I feel exactly the same for Americans. Once you strip the politics and ideology, generally there is a nice person behind. Peace.
This is a very good documentary. At 50:39 it says, "The other contender [for first female cosmonaut] was airbrushed out of the official history. Her name is Valentina Leonidova Ponomareva (maiden name Kovalevskaya). She was a pilot with 320 hours to her credit accrued on PO-2 and Yak-18 aircraft at her local sports club. She also had the distinction of having graduated from the prestigious Moscow Aviation Institute and having served as a scientist at the Department of Applied Mathematics of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Yuri Gagarin opposed her selection because she was the only one of the five female candidates who was a mother. She went on to be the head of the History of Aviation and Cosmonautics Group at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
RIP Alexei Leonov
What a legend, and a great artist
Wanna feel old? This documentary is closer in time to Gagarin's flight than today.
Woooo!
Yes by 93 days IS closer to gagarin than to post of video
I remember going to see Sputnik pass over our area in 1957. What we didn't know at the time, and is not mentioned in this program, is that what most people actually saw was the rocket's core stage, which was much brighter than Sputnik and orbited along with it.
I watched this entire series on the original broadcast dates. It provided an excellent snapshot of the Soviet space program in its sunset. Being a child of the 1950s, I remember when most of the info presented here was an absolute mystery in the West. Sadly, none of the films in this series are available commercially in first generation quality. Hopefully, the masters still exist in a vault somewhere.
18:30 The commentator is making a mistake when he mentions that the German V-2 rocket ALMOST reached space. In fact the V-2 DID reach space. A manmade object first crossed the socalled Karman Line, the (albeit a bit artificially drawn) international dividing line above which ''space'' is said to begin, in 1944 and it reached an altitude of 176 kilometers. However it did not reach enough speed to go into orbit. That's the difference: The V-2 did reach space, but never reached orbit.
I did a double take when I heard this too. Thanks for your clarification.
Some did reach low-Earth orbit. Statistically, three V-2 rockets should have orbited the Earth, due to the combination of a little more fuel in the tank and low air pressure due to weather. They probably crashed into the oceans a few years later as they gradually lost speed.
@@NorceCodine That is the first time anyone told me you can reach Earth orbit at only 6000 km/h...
@@NorceCodine You’re going to have to provide some documentation to support that claim. I could find no evidence of anything but some suborbital flights as described. It would have required about three times the speed the V2 was nominally capable of to reach orbit.
@@NorceCodine this is simply untrue. Like Emdee5632 said, you can't reach orbital velocity with the amount of deltaV that the V2 was designed for. Regardless of how much more fuel you put in the tanks. The Rocket Equation is quite strict in this matter
Good documentary.
Korolev was a genius and the Soviets were first in many things. The Russians are still first in many things.
Let us remember that sixty years later there are countries that dont even have that technology today.
Soviets arrested Korolev numerous times just because he was ukrainian. Ukrainians were first, not soviets. And today we see, russians are unable to do any space related things without ukrainians.
@@just_inker2584That is not the case, Korolev was born in the Soviet union, that time Ukraine didn't exist, plus Russia is not able to do space things because of corruption and lack of will, not because it is not capable of
@@JuPiTeR_0211 soviet union is a state, not a country, it existed for a short period of time then disappeared as a mistake. By that logic, russia didn't existed either.
Yes, it's not capable of doing anything by itself, all it can do is attack other countries and steal from them.
@@JuPiTeR_0211 soviet union is a state, not a country, it existed for a short period of time then disappeared as a mistake. By that logic russia didn't existed either. Yes, it is not capable, all it's capable of is attack other countries and steal their achievements.
@@JuPiTeR_0211 soviet union is a state, not a country, it existed for a short period of time then disappeared as a mistake. By that logic russia didn't existed either. Yes, it is not capable, all it's capable of is invade other countries and steal their achievements.
Excellent.
I've tried to find a copy of this for years
Sputnik was way ahead of its time in the space industry.
Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...
Hahaha! Yeah, right!
@@TheBandit7613Yet we never managed to get a satellite into space for us first. So thats set in stone. Besides it was the FIRST satellite, nothing too complicated. What’d you expect?
@@tomcarrillo3595 Our first satellite was the first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt and had 3 thermometers in it. It sent live data for 4 months then the batteries died.
It was only 4 months behind Sputnik. So ours actually did something useful instead of transmit beeps.
@@TheBandit7613And then in just 4 months the Soviets sent Sputnik 2, so checkmate
Thanks for posting this video. It is easy to forget the impact of Sputnik and the threat of Soviet tech at that time. The propaganda and influence effects were immense and game changing. The historic events here also sadly describe the legacy of brutal soviet dictatorship.
They also had this guy in the gulag for years. What a disgrace
The Soviets placed thousands of economically an scientifically valuable people in the gulags. Most never made it out alive, some did most did not.
Gulag makes you smat !
Typical
I have to wonder how many were in the gulag that never got out.
@@PatientZirolol
WOW look at the date on this one! MONTHS before the USSR collapsed.
I feel the same way about the Soviet space program as many space geeks in the US--grudging respect.
Nobel peace prize never even considered
Too many lies, and cover ups.
One of their rockets blew up on the launchpad, and killed over a hundred people.
One ship, on entry, had the parachute fail to deploy, and killed all 3 Cosmonauts when it smashed in the ground.
@@unitedwestand5100oh really what about failures in your country lol
@@unitedwestand5100"Too many lies, too many coverups" yes they did but that was because of their bad leaders
Love Korolev's comments to his co-workers after "Sputnik's"launch-"Today we have taken the first step on the road to the stars!"-(not "we have achieved nuclear parity with the USA")
But amid the triumph, Soviet officials, ever obsessed with secrecy and image, already were airbrushing history. Some local papers quoted witnesses who saw Gagarin parachuting down. But the official version had him landing in his capsule, so the KGB rushed to confiscate all the contradictory accounts in print.
Sergei Korolev was put in the gulag because he was accused of being a Ukrainian revolutionary. He would have lived many more years and moved humanity forward if he did not suffer the horrible abuse in the gulag.
39:17 transition sound building suspence
This rocket was built in designs entire program post to be used as a weapon
Completely illiterate post.
Learn how to write sentences.
Surprisingly the “Russian right stuff” was made by a UKRAINIAN Sergiy KOROLEV 🇺🇦✌️
Советский Сергей Королев. А ко всему советскому у вас ,мягко говоря, неоднозначное отношение
He was from a Ukraine that didn't turn it's back on it's own mother Russia.
lol no different than the us space program being made by a nazi that somehow got a pass while a crap load got tried and hung
Actually huge difference lol
@@YuriOrlovdboh I’m not at all blaming him I think the us are horrible hypocrites
44:50 triumphant sounds
Yeah... Nothing better than good old fashion america is better than anyone propaganda... Im amazed they used color footage on some of the soviet space program bits... Because they were so evil that they were in black and white.
13:12 marshall tukachevsjy ftg
Сергей Королев.🇷🇺. Sergey Korolev was born in one of the provinces of the Russian Empire. simply put, Sergey Korolev was born in Russia. His homeland is Russia.
Sergey Korolev was born in Zhytomyr in 1907. At the time, Zhytomyr was part of the Russian Empire, but not what was traditionally considered to be Russia itself. As with many parts of eastern Europe, what belonged to who has shifted over the centuries. Zhytomyr was part of the Ukraine independence movement during the revolutionary year of 1917; Ukraine's independence was recognized by the Provisional Government, but renounced the Bolsheviks, so they were conquered again. Today, it's part of Ukraine.
I suspect Korolev had more important things on his mind than which border was where when he was born.
24:00 and comrade Stalin appears to have a post it note over his face!😂. Trust no one!