On the remotest reaches of the Kazakh steppe
sits one of the few true Soviet success stories. Covering over 5,000 sq km, it exists as a
slice of Russia within modern Kazakhstan, a place that’s frozen in winter, and suffocated
by heat in summertime. Yet this unprepossessing place has a significance
that dwarfs almost anywhere else in the former Soviet Union. That’s because this place is Baikonur Cosmodrome,
the Soviet gateway to the stars. One of the world’s most iconic spaceports,
Baikonur first arose in the chilly depths of the Cold War as a place to test secret
long-range missiles. Under the watchful eye of its chief scientist,
Sergei Korolev, it blossomed into something more. It was from these launch pads that Sputnik
I made its historic flight; that Laika the dog began her journey to the stars. It was also at Baikonur that Yuri Gagarin
ushered in the Space Age, changing humanity’s destiny. In the video today, Geographics is stepping
both back in time… and out into the depths of space. The Missiles are Flying
In the middle of the 1950s, the USSR found itself with something of a problem. This wasn’t one of those bad problems like
only having one clean sock to wear. This was a good problem. A very good problem, at least from a geopolitical
view. The Soviet Union, you see, was just getting
too damn good at designing missiles. In the wake of WWII, the victorious powers
had all scrambled to get hold of Nazi V2 technology, recognizing this weapon could change the world. From 1946, the USSR had been testing missiles
from Kapustin Yar, near what is today Volgograd. But, by 1954, that nearness had become a huge
liability. Famed Soviet rocket scientist Sergei Pavlovich
Korolev was close to perfecting a long range missile, the first Intercontinental Ballistic
Missile - or ICBM - in world history. But testing such a weapon from Kapustin Yar
would likely result in both missile parts falling on populated areas, and the radio
operators on the ground losing contact with the rocket mid-flight. So Moscow decided Korolev needed a new site. A new place where he could test his toys for
the glory of the motherland. It was from this defensive necessity that
Baikonur Cosmodrome would be born. The search began on March 17, 1954. These were the dark times of the Cold War,
before the Khrushchev Thaw, and the Soviets were terrified the Americans might beat them
to an ICBM. After all, it was the US that had spirited
Nazi V2 scientists away, that had taken the lion’s share of Hitler’s superweapons. So more than just finding a new test site,
they needed to find one fast. Across 1954, sites were rejected: along the
Caspian Sea, up near Europe. Finally, a specialist pouring over an old
map hit the jackpot. Out in the vast emptiness of the Kazakh steppe
lay a remote railroad. The closest real settlement was over 320km
away, while a convenient branch of the rail line led to an abandoned mine. It was remote. Secretive. It seemed to good to be true. And, of course, it was. The area of steppe this anonymous official
had selected was as inhospitable as Mars. In winter, temperatures plunged to minus 40C. In summer, they hit plus 45C. There were duststorms. Blizzards. Plagues of rats that carried the actual Plague. But it was also the only place that could
be ready in a tight timeframe. In short, this was a case of: “in Soviet
Russia, missile test site choose you!” In January, 1955, the first survey team arrived. Legend has it one of them hammered an upturned
piece of railroad into the ground, its tip pointing to the stars. It was at this spot that Baikonur’s first
launchpad would be built. Finally, on June 2, 1955, it came. The orders were given to start building. And so it was that, on that very day, anonymous
builders toiling in the baking heat of the Kazakh summer broke first ground on what would
become humanity’s gateway to the universe. The Sky’s (No Longer) the Limit
Picture the worst vacation you’ve ever had. The one where everything went wrong and your
luggage was accidentally sent to Albania, while the hotel turned out to be cold and
filled with rats. Are you picturing it? Good, because that awful vacation of yours
was a non-stop, all-expenses paid party at the Ritz compared to what Baikonur’s builders
had to suffer. Given the nature of the project, the authorities
decided early on that experts were needed. This meant bringing the 217th detached engineering
battalion over from the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. Also located on the Kazakh steppe, Semipalatinsk
was a health and safety nightmare, a place awash in radiation where overhead nuclear
tests were conducted without warning. Yet even those who’d worked in Semipalatinsk
found Baikonur hard to bear. When the 217th Battalion arrived in August,
1955, there was no infrastructure. Although 3,000 workers were already at Baikonur,
they were busy on the non-sensitive stuff. The 217th Battalion’s whole raison d’etre
was to build the sensitive parts. So they were driven two hours into the wilderness,
dumped on the plain, and told to get to work. The trucks that accompanied them then drove
away, having only given each man enough rations and water for one day. For the next few weeks, the 217th was forced
to sleep on the hard ground under the stars, in an area crawling with rats, never knowing
when - or if - the next truck might show up with more rations. Under those conditions, it’s a wonder they
didn’t all just start eating one another. Yet, bad as they had it, the 217th weren’t
alone in their misery. No structures were built to house workers
until early spring of 1956. Throughout the Kazakh winter of 1955 - when,
remember, temperatures could drop so low they’d give brass monkeys nightmares - Baikonur’s
builders slept in flimsy tents and did their business outside. Despite this, slowly, and surely, Baikonur
began to grow. Not that it was actually known as Baikonur
at this point. Officially, the new test site was nameless. Unofficially, it was referred to as Tyuratam,
after the nearby branch in the railroad. But since everyone today knows it as Baikonur,
we’re just gonna use that name throughout the video to avoid confusion. So, now you know. By early 1957, the site had gotten so big
that word had leaked to the Americans that there was a new missile facility under construction. Over the next few months, U2 spyplanes hummed
over the empty steppe, desperately trying to photograph the Soviets’ secret new project. Finally, in August, an ariel photo of Baikonur
landed on Eisenhower’s desk. Using old Nazi maps of the USSR, the CIA was
able to pinpoint the complex’s location. But by then, it was too late. On August 21, Baikonur announced itself to
the world in spectacular fashion. While building work had been going on, chief
scientist Sergei Pavlovich Korolev had finished his design for an ICBM. That hot day, he launched his prototype from
Baikonur, sending it streaking across the pale blue skies; a glowing dot capable of
bringing untold destruction. The R-7 flew nearly 6,500km, from its launchpad
on the steppe, all the way to the remote Kamchatka peninsula. It was the first successful ICBM launch in
history, a full 15 months before the Americans would launch their own. But brilliant as Sergei Korolev was, he wasn’t
interested in simply building missiles. No, he was a man with a plan. One that would go far beyond the confines
of the Earth. Satellite of Love
OK, we’re gonna step back in time now. Away from Baikonur’s missile tests, away
from Kazakhstan, all the way back to 1907, to a small city to the west of Kiev in Ukraine. It was here, one freezing January night, that
Sergei Korolev was born. Since the early story of Baikonur is as much
the story of Korolev’s genius as it is of the cosmodrome, it’s worth us getting to
know him. To understand just how truly unconventional
his life was. As a teenager, Korolev was obsessed with aeronautics. As his country fell to civil war in the 1920s,
he designed aircraft. When the dust settled on the civil war, he
took that passion all the way to university in Moscow. Like many in those early days, Korolev was
a true believer in the Soviet system. He held onto that belief even as Stalin rose
to power. As brutality became commonplace. At first, this belief rewarded Korolev well. He graduated and became a Soviet rocket designer. But not even loyalty was enough to save him. On June 27, 1938, at the height of the Great
Purge, four men broke into Korolev’s apartment. They tied him to a chair, beat him senseless. Korolev’s teeth were knocked out, his jaw
shattered when they smashed a glass jug across his face. At the end of it all, Korolev was made to
sign a confession. Then he was dragged away to Siberia, to the
Gulag. In the years of punishment that followed,
Korolev never would find out what his crime was. In Siberia, the Gulag broke the tall, heavyset
scientist. Reduced him from a man into a wounded animal,
barely clinging to survival. That Korolev survived at all is thanks to
Adolf Hitler. In mid-1945, just as Korolev’s body was
on the verge of giving out, he was abruptly released. Not only that, he was made a colonel in the
Red Army and sent to Germany. It wasn’t until he reached Berlin that Korolev
understood. At a secret site, he was given access to V2
parts the Soviets had captured. Faced with such sophisticated tech falling
into American hands, Moscow had decided it needed all its best rocket scientists back. Luckily for Moscow, no rocket scientist was
better than Sergei Korolev. From 1945 to 1957, Korolev toiled away, unlocking
the secrets of the V2. Building on it. Expanding its reach. Finally, on August 21, 1957, his R-7 ICBM
was sent up from Baikonur, proving Soviet supremacy. But, by now, Korolev had developed bigger
plans. Still intensely loyal to the Soviet system
despite his years in the Gulag, Korolev followed up his R-7 launch by immediately getting to
work on a different type of payload. A payload that was about the size of a beachball,
with four long, thin antennas sticking out like spindly limbs. Korolev christened this payload Sputnik I. At 7:28pm on October 4, 1957 - mere weeks
after the successful R-7 launch - Baikonur cosmodrome shook with an almighty rumble as
the rocket carrying little Sputnik blasted off into the skies. By just after 9pm that evening, Korolev’s
creation had made a full orbit of the Earth, the first manmade satellite to ever do so. With the launch, Baikonur had just fired the
starting gun on the Space Race, on the obsession that would drive the US and USSR for the next
fifteen years. And if you think Sputnik is impressive, just
wait till you see what Korolev does next. The Madman and the Eagle
The early days of Baikonur under Korolev often sound like a collection of firsts. First #1. November 3, 1957: a stray dog named Laika
becomes the first animal to orbit the Earth. First #2. September 14, 1959: the probe, Luna 2, becomes
the first manmade object on the Moon, after it crashes into the Sea of Serenity. First #3. August 19, 1960: two dogs, Belka and Strelka,
become the first animals to orbit the Earth and - unlike poor Laika - return alive. Not that everything went swimmingly. It was under Korolev in 1960 that the Nedelin
Catastrophe also took place, when an ICBM exploded on the launchpad, killing up to 150
of Baikonur’s staff. Yet such setbacks didn’t stop Korolev from
soon hitting the greatest first in scientific history. In October, 1959, teams seconded to Baikonur
fanned out across the USSR, visiting air bases, subjecting pilots to a series of tests. These tests were so rigorous, so damn difficult
that only 20 pilots passed them. Of those 20, only two made it to the final
stage. One of them, Gherman Titov, was the educated,
poetry-quoting son of a teacher. The other was a former peasant from the sticks
with a hardscrabble background. His name? Yuri Gagarin. But Korolev would come to know him as “my
little eagle”. By April, 1961, it was clear one of these
two men would be first into space. But which one? They were both excellent pilots. Both in excellent physical health. But Gagarin had something Titov didn’t. A powerful backer, working behind the scenes. At that time, the premier of the Soviet Union
was Nikita Khrushchev, himself from poor, peasant stock. So when Korolev mentioned that he was down
to choosing either a middle class boy or kid from a peasant family to go into space, Khrushchev
immediately started pressuring for the peasant boy. And that was how, on the morning of April
12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin found himself strapped into a Soyuz rocket at Baikonur, waiting to
make history. Inside the control room, there was silence. There was no countdown, which Korolev thought
was a dumb, American affectation. At 09:06am, the chief science officer pressed
the ignition key. There was a rumble, the rocket started to
shake, and then nothing but Gagarin, wildly yelling “Poyekhali!”, or “let’s roll!”. 11 minutes later, at 09:17am, Yuri Gagarin
became the first human being to reach space. For over an hour, Gagarin circled above the
Earth, seeing things no-one had ever seen before, and only a handful have seen since. "I can see clouds. I can see everything. It's beautiful," he said. Controlled by Korolev back in Kazakhstan,
he circled the Earth as Radio Moscow broadcast news of Baikonur’s triumph, as people took
to the streets to cheer. Finally, at 10:20am, Korolev pressed a button,
and Earth’s first-ever spaceman returned home. Gagarin landed outside the village of Smelovka
just before 11am. According to Gagarin, as he approached the
ground, he saw a village girl and her mother watching him in awe. “I began to wave my arms and yell. I said I was a Soviet and had come from space." The woman and girl weren’t the only ones
awestruck that day. Across Europe, across the Americas, as news
broke of Gagarin’s flight, people looked to the skies and felt the faintest tingle
of awe. Newspapers from across the world contacted
Moscow, desperate to know where Gagarin had flown from. To cover up the cosmodrome’s true location,
some anonymous official instead supplied them with the name of a town over 320km away: Baikonur. Barely a month later, JFK pledged to put a
man on the Moon. But the initiative seemed to be with the Soviets,
seemed to be with Communism. Until, suddenly, it wasn’t. In January, 1966, Korolev collapsed, having
never recovered from the injuries he sustained in the Gulag. When he was rushed to hospital, doctors tried
to run an oxygen tube directly into his lungs. But Korolev’s jaw was so badly malformed
from his interrogation in 1938 that it proved impossible. Korolev died that day, taking Baikonur’s
dreams of greatness with him. Just two years later, Gagarin was dead too
- killed in an aircrash. Shorn of its leading lights, Baikonur faded. In summer, 1969, just weeks before Neil Armstrong
set foot on the Moon, Baikonur tried to test launch the Soviet lunar rocket, N1. Instead, the rocket exploded on the launchpad,
causing untold damage. It was a symbol of the way the Space Race
had changed with Korolev’s passing. Never again would the Soviets be dominant. Never again would Baikonur be the world’s
gateway to the stars. Or would it? As we’re going to see, reports of the cosmodrome’s
death were greatly exaggerated. Magic and Ritual
After Korolev died, Baikonur didn’t exactly fall into disuse. It continued to send cosmonauts into space,
including hitting a small number of firsts: from the first woman in space, to the first
spacewalk, to the first rover on another celestial body. In 1978, the Soviets even signed an agreement
with a dozen other countries to send astronauts from all over the world into orbit. Over the hundreds of missions that followed,
a strange belief system began to grow up around the launches. A set of rituals hovering somewhere between
tradition and religion. Let’s take a little look at them, shall
we? The first thing you need to know about flights
from Baikonur over the last few decades is that they’ve all run like clockwork. At precisely 7am, the Soyuz rocket is always
drawn out of its hanger. Weirdly, the vehicle that does the towing
only has one functioning headlight. No-one really knows why, except it’s meant
to bring good luck. And, when you’re sat atop a gigantic bomb
aimed at the inky depths of space, good luck is something you’ll definitely be needing. After the Soyuz takes its place on the launchpad,
it’s blessed by Russian Orthodox priests, who sprinkle it with holy water. They then step back and wait for the cosmonauts,
at which point the rituals get really weird. The night before any flight, anyone taking
off from Baikonur is expected to stay in the same hotel, where they all watch the 1969
Soviet comedy-musical western White Sun of the Desert. We’ve only seen clips from this movie on
YouTube, but it looks like what you’d get if you mixed Monty Python with a box of your
grandpa’s old Hustler magazines and topped it off with a sprinkling of Das Kapital. Utterly bizarre in other words. Marxy Python movie over, the cosmonauts then
all sign their names on their hotel room doors in black sharpie pen. Come morning, a bus takes the riders to the
recently-blessed Soyuz… but not all the way. First, it must stop en-route so the male cosmonauts
can urinate against the back wheels. Supposedly, this is something Gagarin did
before his legendary flight, and no-one wants to break the tradition. When the now urine-soaked bus finally drops
them at the launchpad, a group of Kazakh cheerleaders waving gold pompoms welcomes everyone off
the bus. They then walk through a tree-lined avenue
to where their rocket awaits. Incidentally, this avenue is another ritual. Everyone cosmonaut who flies from Baikonur
is asked to plant a tree before they go. Finally, as the crew sits in their capsule,
ready for lift off, ground control plays them a mixtape of four songs; traditionally Russian
love songs, although things like Elton John’s Rocketman have been known to sneak in. This done, the rituals are finally complete. Assured they will return safely, the cosmonauts
then lift off for the stars. The thing is… the rituals kinda do work. In all its history, Baikonur has only suffered
a handful of cosmonaut fatalities (if you exclude the Nedelin Catastrophe, which was
a faulty missile). Its safety record on the launchpad is one
of the best in the entire world. If that requires urinating on a bus and planting
a tree to maintain, then so be it. But don’t go thinking this is just something
the crazy Soviets did. Everyone, from Russians, to Japanese, to Americans
are expected to partake in these rituals when flying out of Baikonur. How did Americans come to be flying out of
a Soviet cosmodrome, we hear you cry? We’re glad you asked. The Gateway Closes
The end nearly came to Baikonur in 1991. That year, the Soviet Union unceremoniously
collapsed, leaving 15 brand new states blinking in the harsh daylight. The collapse actually happened halfway through
a Soviet mission to the Mir space station. Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev became trapped up
there for nearly a year when the USSR’s dissolution left him with no return ticket. But Krikalev wasn’t the only one jeopardized
by the sudden geopolitical shift. Baikonur was almost destroyed by the collapse,
too. On December 16, 1991, Kazakhstan became the
last of the Soviet Republics to declare independence, taking the cosmodrome with it. Although Russia and Kazakhstan urgently signed
a joint agreement to keep cooperating on Baikonur that same month, practical problems soon got
in the way. At the time of Kazakhstan’s independence,
only a third of Baikonur’s workforce was Kazakh. This created widespread resentment when the
chaos of the post-Soviet years led to food and fuel shortages. In 1992, there were riots at Baikonur. The following year, 1993, there was serious
unrest. At the same time, a lack of resources meant
parts of the ailing cosmodrome were lost to anything from wear and tear to fires that
may have been started deliberately. For a short time, it looked like Baikonur
might become yet another post-Communist tragedy. Something else swallowed in the flames of
the economic shock therapy applied to the region. Luckily, help came just in time. In 1994, NASA began diverting money to Biakonur
to help with upkeep. The worst problems dealt with, Moscow and
Almaty came to an agreement on the cosmodrome’s future that same year. For a cost of $115 million annually, Russia
would rent Baikonur until 2050. Until that time, both would work to maintain
it. And they would invite the entire world to
fly from there. The first American to take off from Baikonur
was Norman Thagard, in 1995. Although he was the first - likely intended
as a goodwill gesture from Washington towards future scientific cooperation - he wasn’t
the last. Over the next few years, several Americans
flew out of Baikonur, their numbers increasing as the International Space Station took shape. It briefly looked like Baikonur might have
found its groove at last, as a second tier space port, behind those operated by NASA. But then events conspired to take it right
back to the very top. In 2011, NASA retired the shuttle service,
stating that the agency would transition to using commercial services. With the shuttle gone, Baikonur and its Soyuz
rockets were suddenly the only major gateway humanity had left to the stars. Since then, Baikonur has remained just that:
our best portal to space, the place all cosmonauts and astronauts have to go to if they’re
serious about leaving the Earth. Oh, it’s not the only one. China’s manned space program has been growing,
and Beijing operates its own launch sites. But, for most potential spacemen, Baikonur
is the place to go. At least, for now. At time of this video’s writing, space travel
appears to be on the cusp of change. In the US, SpaceX could be launching manned
missions from American soil within months, ending Washington’s reliance on Baikonur. In Russia, construction of a new cosmodrome
near the Chinese boarder is underway, one which will take most Russian traffic from
the early 2020s. When both those things come to pass, Baikonur
may suddenly find it is no longer so important. But all that is still to come
For now, this monument of Soviet engineering in the bleak grasslands of Kazakhstan’s
steppe remains the best there is, an icon from the past that’s still leading us into
the future. Baikonur may have begun life as a weapons
testing range, a place where machines were designed that could end human lives. But, thanks to the genius of one man, it became
something so much more. It became the place from where we humans took
our first baby steps out into the Cosmos. All that exploration that lies in our future
- the first human on Mars, the first robot probe to the surface of Jupiter’s moons
- all of it began here, with one man’s extraordinary vision. It’s usefulness may be coming to an end,
but Baikonur’s influence will be felt for centuries
to come.
