Soviet space Program, 1958–1959

Two notebooks written by Konstantin Feoktistov, outlining both the immediate organization and the future plans of the Space Program during these years.



Two lined notebooks, foliated 2–98 and 2–100 respectively, extensively filled with notes and calculations in Konstantin Feoktistov's hand (a few pages in a secretarial hand), regarding the Soviet Space Program; the first with a censor's stamp issuing the notebook to Feokstistov, 24 February 1958, the second similarly 7 December 1958; both with a series of censor's "annual checks," 1969 to 1987, to make sure no leaves had been removed; and both with an official declassification of 7 December 1989, permitting Feoktistov to take possession of the notebooks. Cloth spine, paper-covered boards.

Two notebooks written by Konstantin Feoktistov, outlining both the immediate organization and the future plans of the Space Program during these years. Two lined notebooks, foliated 2–98 and 2–100 respectively, extensively filled with notes and calculations in Konstantin Feoktistov's hand (a few pages in a secretarial hand), regarding the Soviet Space Program; the first with a censor's stamp issuing the notebook to Feokstistov, 24 February 1958, the second similarly 7 December 1958; both with a series of censor's "annual checks," 1969 to 1987, to make sure no leaves had been removed; and both with an official declassification of 7 December 1989, permitting Feoktistov to take possession of the notebooks. Cloth spine, paper-covered boards.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The origins of the Soviet Space Program. These highly important notebooks provide direct documentation of the organization of the Space Program in the months after Sputnik hitherto unavailable to researchers anywhere. Their author, Konstantin Feoktistov, has been assuredly one of the titanic figures of the Soviet Space Program, but evidence of his numerous critical roles over the decades has been largely hidden from view. Born in 1926, Feoktistov even at the age of ten was precociously drawing up plans for a project of explorations of the moon. As a teenager in World War II, while serving as a scout for the Russian army, he was captured by Germans, shot, and left for dead, but managed to survive and recover. He joined Korolev's design bureau in 1955, and became the chief engineer of the program that Korolev directed.

As these notebooks make clear, Feoktistov had major responsibility for assigning and coordinating the work of the dozens of research and design institutes, often referred to by number-coded names, which were involved, creating the many studies, systems, and components of the Soviet space program which can be tracked month-by-month, with detailed comments by Feoktistov on the personnel involved, the state of progress, the achievement or non-achievement of production goals and deadlines, and so on.

Notebook I contains moreover two remarkable essays by Feoktistov in which we see in him, as in all the great figures of space exploration, the engineer and the visionary combined. On leaves 53 and following, Feokstitov composed "A Long-Range Program to Master Outer Space," beginning with the words, "circumpolar space must be mastered and populated by mankind." He went on to outline a multi-stage plan, through 1965, of progression from unmanned satellites in earth's orbit, to unmanned satellites landing on and circling the moon, to manned satellites in earth's orbit, culminating finally in manned flights to Venus and Mars, and a permanently settled station or colony on the moon.

A variant program, leaves 77–83, lays out plans over an even wider period, 1957 to 1970, with a retrospective look back to 1950, which Feoktistov dated as the beginning of a true space, using "single-stage rockets for vertical launches of research equipment into the upper layers of the atmosphere," followed by two-stage and three-stage rockets.  On leaf 88, Feoktistov put forth briefly in "Main Objectives of the Current Stage" his most powerful vision: "outer space is the future of mankind": "Mankind is already crowded on earth, and it is imperative to find not only a suitable planet, but to learn to live a full life in outer space.  The current stage is only the first ..."

The 1958–1959 notebooks of Feoktistov give a picture of the Soviet Space Program in both its organizational and experimental details, and in the driving forces of imagination behind it, that has not hitherto been available except through the veil of propaganda.  In Feoktistov's notebooks we see the shape that was given to the program in the months immediately following Sputnik, when Khrushchev discovered, to his own amazement, what a powerful propaganda coup had been scored with that single flight of a small sphere carrying two radio transmitters.

The Feoktistov notebooks were treated as classified material for decades following their composition, with annual reviews by a censor to ensure that no leaves had been removed from them.  In late 1989, following his retirement from the program, Feoktistov was able to have them declassified and delivered into his personal possession.