Flag of the Soviets, Lead Us to Victory

While the Americans tried to regroup, Korolev thought about how to continue his winning streak. Against the military establishment, intent on seizing rocketry, and against the doctors, who were afraid of long exposures to space, he succeeded with Gherman Titov’s flight in breaking Gagarin’s record. This time, the reaction of John Kennedy, newly installed in the White House, was commensurate with the problem. In 1961, the young president, bolstered by von Braun’s cooperation, dared to promise that America would put a man on the Moon within the decade and bring him home safely. The delay with the Russians could be made up by tapping into the country’s immense economic and technological resources. Meanwhile, NASA was putting chimpanzees and eventually astronauts into orbit, starting with John Glenn. But Korolev had no intention of getting caught up. Overcoming resistance to long flights, he launched parade expeditions of two Vostok spacecraft: a prerequisite for building complex structures in orbit. One of the pilots was Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman cosmonaut. A proletarian who, thanks to a subsequent happy motherhood, gave further proof that space was not off-limits to humans. Then, one by one, the great puppeteers of this wonderful circus passed away.