Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk | |
|---|---|
 Kondratyuk in 1941 | |
| Born | Aleksandr Ignatyevich Shargei (1897-06-21)21 June 1897 |
| Died | February 1942 (aged 44) |
| Cause of death | Killed in action |
| Alma mater | None |
| Occupation(s) | Rocket scientist, engineer |
| Parent(s) | Ignat Benediktovich Shargei Ludmila Lvovna Schlippenbach |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance | Russian Empire (1916–1918),Soviet Union (1941–1942) |
| Branch | Imperial Russian Army (1916—1918) Red Army (1941–1942) |
| Years of service | 1916–1918, 1941–1942 |
| Battles / wars | |
Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk (Russian:Юрий Васильевич Кондратюк;Ukrainian:Юрій Васильович Кондратюк), real nameAleksandr Ignatyevich Shargei (Russian:Александр Игнатьевич Шаргей;Ukrainian:Олександр Гнатович Шаргей; 21 June 1897 – February 1942), was a Sovietengineer andmathematician. He was a pioneer ofastronautics andspaceflight, a theoretician and a visionary who, in the early 20th century, developed the first knownlunar orbit rendezvous (LOR), a key concept for landing and return spaceflight from Earth to theMoon.[1][2] The LOR was later used for the plotting of the first actualhuman spaceflight to the Moon. Many other aspects of spaceflight andspace exploration are covered in his works.
Kondratyuk made his scientific discoveries in circumstances of war (including both World Wars and the Russian Civil War), continuouspersecutions from authorities and serious illnesses. In fact, "Yuri Kondratyuk", the name under which he became known both in Russia and abroad, was astolen identity he assumed in 1921 for his own protection.
Kondratyuk was born as Aleksandr Ignatyevich Shargei in 1897 inPoltava,Russian Empire (nowUkraine), although his family originally lived inKiev. His father, Ignat Benediktovich Shargei, was aJewish convert toCatholicism who studied physics and mathematics atSt. Vladimir Imperial University of Kiev at the time of his marriage.[3][4][5] Kondratyuk's mother, Lyudmila Lvovna Schlippenbach, of theSchlippenbach noble family, taught French at a Kiev school, and must have already been pregnant when she married in January 1897.[6] She is a direct descendant[6] ofWolmar Anton von Schlippenbach, a general who took part inCharles XII of Sweden'sfailed invasion ofRussia. Her grandfather Anton von Schlippenbach waslieutenant colonel of theImperial Russian Army and participated in theNapoleonic Wars. Aleksandr lived mostly with his grandmother and her husband inPoltava.[7]
From an early age, Kondratyuk demonstrated great abilities inphysics andmathematics. When he was old enough to attend high school, he was admitted straight into the third form of a prestigious high school, where he graduated with a gold medal for proficiency a few years later.
Kondratyuk later enrolled at thePeter the Great Petrograd Imperial Polytechnic Institute to study engineering, where he was influenced byIvan Meshcherskiy. Soon, however, he was drafted to serve inWorld War I, and was sent toensign training at one of the localPetrogradjunker schools. During his military service on theCaucasian Front, Kondratyuk filled four notebooks with his ideas of interplanetary flight. These included suggesting the use of amodularspacecraft to reach the Moon, leaving thepropulsion section of the vehicle onorbit while a smallerlander journeyed to the surface and back (the strategy eventually adopted by the engineers of theApollo program).[8] He included detailed calculations of thetrajectory to take a spacecraft from Earth orbit to lunar orbit and back to Earth orbit, a trajectory now known as "Kondratyuk's route" or "Kondratyuk's loop".
Kondratyuk left the army in 1917 following theRussian Revolution and tried to make a living stokingboilers back in Poltava. Being a former officer of theTsarist army, he was once again mobilised in 1919 to join theWhite Army. Not wishing to participate in thecivil war, he deserted during the journey fromKiev toOdessa, losing all his documents in the process. A deserter to theWhites, he was also at high risk of arrest byBolshevik authorities as a former tsarist officer.[5]
In 1920 Kondratyuk made an attempt to escape forPoland but was stopped and turned back byborder guards. In the meantime, his stepmother obtained the documents of a certain Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk, born inLutsk in 1900 and recently deceased oftuberculosis.[5] Under this new identity, Kondratyuk lived in and aroundKuban and theNorth Caucasus, working as a mechanic andrailroadworker. He settled inNovosibirsk inSiberia in 1927.[5]
Working as a mechanic, Kondratyuk completed the manuscript of a book titledThe Conquest of Interplanetary Spaces, dealing withrocket motion and issues concerning thecolonization of space. He also suggested using agravitational slingshot trajectory to accelerate a spacecraft.[9] In 1925, Kondratyuk made contact with Moscow-based scientistVladimir Vetchinkin and sent him the manuscript. Up to that time, he and his work were unknown to rocketry enthusiasts. While the book was enthusiastically received by scientists in Moscow, no publisher would touch such a fanciful work. Eventually, Kondratyuk paid a Novosibirsk printing shop to produce 2,000 copies of the 72-page work, and even then had to do much of the typesetting and operating the press himself, both to save costs but also because theequations in the book posed problems for the printer. Kondratyuk's discoveries were made independently ofKonstantin Tsiolkovsky who also worked on spaceflight issues at that time; the two never met.
Applying his engineering skill to local problems, Kondratyuk designed a huge 13,000 tongrain elevator (quickly nicknamed "Mastodon") inKamen-na-Obi, built of wood without a single nail, since metal was in short supply inSiberia. This ingenuity would work against him when in 1930 he was investigated as a "saboteur" by theNKVD. The lack of nails in the structure was used as evidence that he had planned it to collapse. Convicted of "anti-Soviet activity", Kondratyuk was sentenced to three years in agulag, but because of his evident talents was sent to asharashka (research facility prison) rather than alabour camp. There, he was first put to work evaluating foreigncoal mining machinery for the use inKuzbass, and quickly impressed the camp supervisor with his ingenuity. At the supervisor's request, in November 1931 a review board changed Kondratyuk's status from "prisoner" to "exiled", and sent him to work on Siberian grain projects. There he even managed to get a patent and author's certificate in the field of mining equipment.[10]
Kondratyuk learned of a competition to design a largewind power generator forCrimea, sponsored bySergo Ordzhonikidze, thenPeople's Commissar of Heavy Industry. With fellow exiled engineers Pyotr Gorchakov andNikolai Nikitin, Kondratyuk submitted a design for a 165-metre (500 ft) highconcretetower supporting a four-bladedpropeller with a span of 80 metres (240 ft) and capable of generating up to 12,000 kW. In November 1932, Ordzhonikidze selected this design as the winner and invited the team to meet with him inMoscow before sending them toKharkov to finalise the design and supervise its construction. While in Moscow, Kondratyuk had the opportunity to meetSergei Korolev, then head of theGroup for the Study of Reactive Motion (GIRD), the Soviet rocket research group). Korolev offered Kondratyuk a position on his staff, but Kondratyuk declined, fearing that the scrutiny he would come under the NKVD would reveal his true identity.
Kondratyuk, Gorchakov, and Nikitin worked on the wind power project for the next four years until Ordzhonikidze's mysterious death in 1937. Overnight, the project was deemed to be too expensive and dangerous and was shut down, the tower only half-built. Nikitin would later use what he had learned on this project when he designed theOstankino Tower in the 1960s. Meanwhile, the men went to work on designing smallerwind turbines (in the 150-200 kW range) to power farms. During this time, Kondratyuk learned of the arrest of Korolev on charges of treason for wasting time on designing spacecraft.
He immediately decided to divest himself of his own copious notes on the subject. The former neighbour in Novosibirsk who had nursed him back to health after his episode of typhus agreed to take his notebooks and eventually took these to theUnited States when she escaped there with her daughter followingWorld War II. He also sent a copy of his published work to theTsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics inKaluga.
Kondratyuk joined theRed Army as a volunteer in June 1941 and died in 1942 nearKaluga. The exact circumstances of his death are not known. His unit was involved in heavy fighting against theNazis in October 1941, and 3 October is sometimes given as the date of his demise. Evidence collected in the 1990s suggests that he disappeared in January or February 1942 while repairing a communicationscable at night nearZasetsky, a village in theKirovsky District of the Kaluga region.
When AmericanastronautNeil Armstrong visited the Soviet Union after his historic flight to the Moon, he collected a handful of soil from outside Kondratyuk's house inNovosibirsk to acknowledge his contribution to spaceflight, reportedly urging Soviet authorities to start commemorating Kondratyuk.[11]
Later, a science centre and college in Novosibirsk was named after Kondratyuk, as well as streets inPoltava,Kyiv, andMoscow. ThePoltava National Technical University has borne Kondratyuk's name since 1997. Additionally, Kondratyuk was the namesake of theKondratyukcrater on the Moon and the3084 Kondratyukminor planet discovered in 1977.
TheGovernment of Ukraine has issuedpostage stamps andcoins featuring Kondratyuk.
Yuri Kondratyuk was inducted into theInternational Space Hall of Fame in 2014.[12]
Kadratyuk's story and contributions to spaceflight were highlighted in the eighth episode of the 2020 American science documentary TV seriesCosmos: Possible Worlds, titled "The Sacrifice of Cassini".
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