Dear Jason (and Elon), It Wasn’t Russia That Launched Sputnik!
A (very) personal story
Dear Jason Hehir and Elon Musk,
Let’s start with important things first. Jason — thank you for the touching and genuinely inspiring documentary. It is the second documentary we could watch together with my daughter (aged 10) and son (aged 7) almost without hearing, “Daddy, we are bored.” Elon — thank you for so many things. Among others: for being my hero and making the Inspiration4 mission possible to ordinary people (that is not only the “space billionaires” club).
“Yeah, it’s finally here!” — that was the first reaction upon seeing a notification from the Netflix watch OS app, informing that the first episode of Countdown is now available. “Why are you so happy? Your face changed just in a second,” a client asked on the other side of a Zoom meeting. Here is a rough English translation of a conversation that followed:
— Do you know what Inspiration4 is?
— Ah, is that your “space boy stuff” again?
— Well, I haven’t seen the movie yet, just a notification from my watch that popped up right now during this call. It’s not even an entire movie, just the first episode of a series being released. However, from what I’ve read about it, it looks like this movie won’t be about space. It will be about human relations here on Earth.
We quickly moved on, back to the meeting agenda. I pushed myself into waiting until the evening and promised “not to open Netflix” until 21:00. Binge-watching is not “my thing” at all. The previous series on Netflix I recall watching until the end was Fargo (season 3). That was almost a year ago. And after starting writing this letter, I watched “Last Dance” to understand: to whom I’m writing?
Growing three kids, a garden with over two hundred trees in a remote village in Northern Ukraine, and running an online consulting business takes a lot of effort and time. Sorry, Netflix, there’s no time for productivity killers. However, I’m still paying for the monthly family plan. The one in which each family member can pick one of those funny icons. Therefore, who cares?
The Long-Awaited Episode Is Finally Here
So precisely at 21:00, after closing the business day (actually, quite a fleeting thing in the times of lockdown and hybrid work) and checking on the plants in the garden, I opened my laptop and clicked on a much-awaited title. It was a night with a lot of stars in the sky. The light pollution index around this place is one of the lowest in Ukraine. The population here either died already because of age or moved to bigger cities to seek some job. Unfortunately, quite a few people here have English language proficiency and computer literacy at a sufficient level to enjoy the perks of remote IT consulting.
The screen turned blue from the Milky Way and the starry sky in the opening sequences of your movie. The calm voice of Jeffrey Kluger helped to “tune into” a story. “Space is the place we have been striving to go since we first looked up at the stars,” Mr. Kluger continued while the historical sequence started on the screen. “1957, ok, that’s the Sputnik story”. And then, all of a sudden…
A Lesson in the History of the USSR
It’s common for Americans to use “Russia” for the country that once was “the Soviet Union.” Winston Churchill did it extensively in his WW2 memoirs; American presidents, media, and culture icons did that as well, referring to “Soviet people” as “Russians.”
What’s the problem with that? Well, technically, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik from Baikonur. That’s Kazakhstan, speaking in modern terms. Therefore, using the logic of “geography” — the same Glorious Nation that (not really) gave us Borat Sagdiyev, launched Sputnik. Sounds not precisely accurate, right?
Besides Kazakhstan and Russia, there were 13 other republics in the Soviet Union. Unlike the United States, most of these countries did not “join the union” voluntarily (before 1861, that is). For example, Bolsheviks destroyed the independent Ukrainian state back in 1917–1921 to create the Ukrainian Socialist Republic, which then joined the USSR. In the case of the Baltic states, they fell prey to Molotov Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 (that was before Hitler forced his “friend” Stalin to change sides). However, unlike Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Ukraine could not regain formal “independence” after WW2.
So Who Did Launch Sputnik? And What Does It Have to Do With “Pobeda”
Well, the Soviet people did launch Sputnik. “Soviets” were an artificial nation, consisting of Russians, Uzbeks, Tadjiks, Lithuanians, and all the other “Soviet nations” large and small. And if you take Russia itself, there are 22 more nation-states “hidden” inside it. All those people, not “Uncle Joe,” had won WW2 for the Soviet Union. They died in the trenches by millions. They sacrificed all they had for the common cause. Sometimes those people did so, even after being humiliated and tortured by the very same “motherland” just years before the war had started.
This entire generation brought about the “Pobeda” or “the victory time” (not the subbrand of Aeroflot airlines) — a feeling which the modern Russian state-owned businesses, together with their state propaganda machine, are not shy to claim as their own. In the US, it was a generation that fought at Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and ultimately launched humans to the Moon. Jason deserves credit for creating a great “historical trolling” storyline by comparing ventures of Bezos and Branson to Soyuz (the first but not the ultimate spaceship) and Musk’s SpaceX to the Apollo program. Nevertheless, the person behind Soyuz’s mission deserves a separate mention.
Serhiy Korolev — Elon Musk from Gulag
Serhiy Korolev was born in Zhytomyr (the city was in the part of Ukraine, which was annexed by the Russian Empire back in the XVIII century). He grew up in Nizhyn, 90 km from where I’m writing this text now. Here he developed his love for air and space adventures and a dream of launching humans into space. In 1924 Serhiy enrolled at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute. His talent got noticed by the Communist party bosses, and he started a stellar career in the Soviet space industry. Until 1938 that is, when Korolev was arrested, beaten, and tortured under wild accusations of “anti-Soviet scientific sabotage.”
Fast forward the story: it’s almost like “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you…” quote — people usually attribute it to Mahatma Gandhi, but some basic fact-checking proves this attribution to be wrong. Korolev survived Gulag, contributing substantially to the Soviet WW2 technology. When the Space Race started, the Soviets turned Korolev into a hero from the enemy of the state. His Vostok-K rocket had launched the first human into space. Unfortunately, Serhiy Korolev died in 1969 during angiosarcoma removal surgery (Hayley should know this). What’s the reason? There are several explanations, each leading back to Serhiy’s time in Butyrka and Gulag.
According to one explanation: an NKVD interrogator broke Serhiy’s jaw when trying to force him into admitting “sabotaging the Soviet state.” Unfortunately, the jaw did not heal correctly because of the lack of appropriate treatment. Twenty-something years later, doctors intubated Korolev, and the broken jaw blocked the air influx in the middle of a surgery. So what’s the dark irony of this story? The Party decided to bury Korolev right in the Kremlin Wall: next to the KGB bosses, who were behind the system of oppression that killed Serhiy. Russia is the country of pathos indeed.
Why Do I Care?
“Ok, ok, it’s not Russia, it’s the Soviet Union. The point is clear. Still, why is this such a big deal?” This is why: claiming some (false) association with modern tech and (in particular) Elon Musk recently became a trend among post-Soviet “napoleons,” be it Lukashenka or Putin. That’s evident: space and politics always walked hand-in-hand. For Russians, “being first in space” is currently a matter of national pride. So even though the Sputnik launch occurred over 60 years ago and modern-day Putin’s Russia has very little to do with it, they claim it.
On the other hand, Putin’s Russia has a lot to do with the illegal land grabs in the XXI century, armed intervention in Ukrainian Donbas, Novichok poison, and state-sponsored terrorism. A space flight of four bright people can directly impact human life, inspire a human being to do something great, aspire for something bigger. But, unfortunately, bad politics and war can ruin everyday lives in almost the same manner.
My connection to space travel is Leonid Kanter. He was a controversial but still wonderful human being: a father, a fighter, a traveler, and a documentary cinema director like you, Jason. Leonid spent his mid-20-s traveling with a stool (the tiny piece of furniture, not feces) across all the five “oceans” (fact-checking shows there is surprisingly only one, according to the National Ocean Service). He was the founder of the place from where I am writing these words now.
He had everything we, humans, call “a success”: family, kids, inspiring projects, and a life full of adventures. Yet, things were just not right in Eastern Ukraine, where Russian post-colonialism resulted in an artificial armed conflict, starting to take a toll on real human lives. It’s wild to observe how the same beings that plan on being multi-planetary and developed a civilization capable of launching themselves into space, start killing each other just out of hatred. And this hatred is spurred using the same modern technology. Leonid came back from a war zone with interesting footage and a broken heart.
I recalled our conversation in Summer 2017, a year before Leonid committed suicide. He just completed the Mama Africa festival with help from a team of international volunteers. We sat near the campfire late at night. Almost everybody went to sleep. He was tired and happy. “What’s your next frontier, Mr. Traveller?” I asked, and he pointed a finger up in the sky. “Oh, did you know they re-launched Falcon 9 for the first time this Spring? It will make space travel way more affordable. You can go one day.” He just smiled. Knowing Leonid, he would win his way into Crew Dragon like he always did in life. However, the war had broken something inside him.
How SpaceX Helped Survive My Personal Hell
By 2019 I also started experiencing dark times. That wasn’t a “depression-depression” with a hint of suicide (Hennadiy is a vital bitch), but still, it was difficult to handle. I knew “in theory” how post-wartime PTSD works… Or so I thought until it had started hitting hard. At some point in autumn, I found myself sitting on a couch in my backyard and starring in the night sky for hours. Probably, I was looking for some answers there. Probably, that was hope.
As you know: there is less light pollution in the countryside, and you can see things you can’t see in the city. At some point, I started following the little bright “stars” in the sky. It brought calmness and the feeling of beauty. Of course, it was Starlink. At some point in Spring 2020, there was a whole “train of stars.”
Tiny bright little things are separating from “the mom” and follow each other like ducklings. It makes you experience the “magic” of the human mind in real-time, creating a feeling that you are part of something bigger. All of a sudden, those differences we have here on Earth start to fade away.
“Get braced, no more meditations guided by satellites. They are dimming those gadgets at the astronomers’ request,” a friend said. That sounded like a total joke. Until I discovered Darksat. So if that’s what professional astronomers need, let’s have it. It’s just important to understand that those small human-created dots in the night sky sometimes deliver more than what we call “light pollution.” Is this what helped Serhiy Korolev survive his Gulag time and ultimately launch humans into space?
Can One Fly into Space from a Restaurant?
Before volunteering for the Ukrainian Army in Summer 2014, I was in Moscow as an employee of Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile operator. It was a lush event organized by Vimpelcom, the parent company of Kyivstar. The story of how the largest Ukrainian telco, funded initially with Norwegian money from Telenor, ended up being part of the Russian telecom agglomerate deserves a separate storyline. I attended a corporate meeting of data officers from various telcos of the group: Italy, Bangladesh, Ukraine, and other countries, with speakers from Twitter, Google, etc.
After the event, the hosts organized a gala party on a high-speed riverboat, decorated with 4G banner ads (remember, that was 2014) of Beeline, the brand Vimpelcom owned in Russia. At some point, the boat was passing the “luxury” quarters of Moscow. The inscription in white neon among old Soviet marble stones of the waterfront read: “One can’t fly into space from a restaurant” (из ресторанов в космос не летают). You cannot defend your country or its civic society from a restaurant as well.
I am proud to be living in Ukraine, the home country of Serhiy Korolev and a World economy that was a part of a Union of nations that launched Sputnik and the first human into space. We had our ups and downs throughout the three decades of our independence. In 2014 we paid the dare price for the perks of that Soviet past. Now we live in a free society. However, the price was high. Some did pay with their lives, some — with lifelong trauma.
Nevertheless, it was for a cause. Currently, Ukraine is following the right trajectory: we have a democratically elected president and parliament, freedom of speech, and a liberal economy: all the prerequisites for growing up the next generation of entrepreneurs who will launch humanity to the new frontiers.
Despite the recent political troubles surrounding Zenit, the future of the Ukrainian space industry and its launches is a matter of “when,” not “whether.” Not to name numerous Ukrainian diaspora, working for SpaceX 😉 I don’t see this trend in Russia, where they recently started arresting the bright people again… for participating in the opposition rallies. It’s easy to brag about “Sputnik” and “Pobeda” to those Courchevel folk from the chique restaurants and take the false credit for things other people created while, at the same time, you silence the dissenters by removing the opposition apps from App Store and Google Play.
So what’s another achievement for Inspiration4 and the Countdown besides raising $210 million for St. Jude? You inspired people like me to find their voice and speak out. Thank you for that again. And thank you for an excellent documentary. Just please remember: the correct historical attributions do matter. Be it “here” on Earth or “there” in space.
