A monument is erected at Cape Canaveral in the United States, from which the spacecraft launched to the moon. No, not to Neil Armstrong, the first person to set foot on the surface of another planet, but to the Russian engineer Yuri Kondratyuk. However, not everyone in our country knows the name of this genius, whose ideas the Americans took to develop the Apollo project and landed on the moon. As well as the fact that his real name and surname is not Yuri Kondratyuk at all, but Alexander Shargei.
He was born in Poltava. The name of his distant maternal ancestor is Baron Schlippenbach, a Dane in the service of Charles XII, taken prisoner during the Battle of Poltava and then transferred to the service of Peter I. And his great-grandfather was a participant in the 1812 war. The boy's childhood was not easy: his mother did not leave the psychiatric hospital and soon died, and his father married another, and practically did not appear in Poltava. Nevertheless, Sasha Shargei graduated from high school with a silver medal and entered the mechanical department of the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute. But then the First World War broke out, and Shargey was drafted into the army. He was enrolled in the school of warrant officers of one of the cadet schools, and then sent to the front.
While still at the school of warrant officers, Shargei began the manuscript "To the one who will read in order to build." In it, independently of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, he derived the basic equations of jet propulsion by his method, gave a diagram of a four-stage rocket running on oxygen-hydrogen fuel, a fuel oxidizer, an electrostatic rocket engine, and much more. It was Shargei who was the first to propose using the atmospheric drag to decelerate the rocket during descent, and the use of solar energy to power the onboard systems of spacecraft. He came up with the idea, when flying to other planets, to put a ship into orbit of an artificial satellite. And to send a person to them and return to Earth, use a "shuttle", a small takeoff and landing ship.
The textbooks include the so-called "Kondratyuk Route" - the trajectory of a spacecraft flight with a return to Earth. All these ideas, expressed by him first for almost half a century before they began to be implemented, and were used in the American program "Apollo".
After the events of 1917, the young genius ended up in the White Army, came to Ukraine. And when Kiev was captured by the Reds, he tried to go abroad on foot. But he was detained and returned back. To save himself from the inevitable execution by the Bolsheviks, he managed to get documents in the name of Yuri Kondratyuk, according to which he lived the rest of his life.
Until 1927, Shargei-Kondratyuk worked in Ukraine, the Kuban and the Caucasus, starting from a car lubricator to a mechanic at an elevator, and then moved to Siberia, where it was easier to hide from the NKVD hounds. These were difficult years of hunger and devastation after the Civil War, wandering with someone else's passport and without their own homes, under the constant threat of exposure and execution. But it was at this time that he reworked his youthful manuscript into a book called "The Conquest of Interplanetary Space" and sent it to Moscow. In the book, he also proposed using missile and artillery systems to supply satellites in low-earth orbit, which was implemented in the form of the modern Progress transport system. It was not possible to print it immediately, although Glavnauka approved the manuscript. Later he managed to publish the work at his own expense.
In Novosibirsk, Shargey-Kondratyuk built the famous "Mastodont" - a huge wooden elevator for 10 thousand tons of grain, and without drawings and a single nail - nails and iron were then in short supply. But it was for this that the inventor was accused of sabotage and arrested. The authorities believed that such an elevator would inevitably fall apart. Although he stood then for 60 years.
In 1931, Shargei-Kondratyuk was sentenced to three years in the camps, but then he was transferred to Novosibirsk to a "sharashka" - a specialized bureau for prisoners-engineers. There he began to design wind farms. He sent his project to Moscow, and won the first place in the competition there. According to his project, a fifty-meter tower for a wind farm was built in the area of the Perlovka station. During the war, it was knocked down - it was a good reference point for the Nazis during the shelling of the capital.
During one of his trips to the capital, he met Sergei Korolev, who then headed the Group for the Study of Jet Propulsion - GIRD, and he invited him to go to work for him. But Shargei-Kondratyuk refused. After reading the questions of the questionnaire, which had to be filled out in order to enter the GIRD, the former White Guard understood: after a thorough check by the NKVD of all the data, he was threatened with exposure and execution.
Soon the war broke out, and Shargei-Kondratyuk volunteered for the people's militia. He was enlisted as a telephone operator in the communications company of the 2nd Infantry Regiment of the Moscow Division. According to one source, he died and was buried near the village of Krivtsovo, Kaluga region. But according to information from other sources, he disappeared without a trace. This gave rise to the legend that Shargei survived and was captured by the Germans. Learning that their prisoner was an outstanding scientist, the Germans allegedly secretly took him to Germany, where Wernher von Braun was conducting secret work on the creation of the "secret weapon of the Fuehrer" - the "Fau" combat missiles.
After the defeat of Nazi Germany, he, along with the same Werner von Braun and other German scientists, was allegedly taken to the United States.
There he took part in the development of American space programs, including the Apollo project for landing a man on the moon.
Of course, the secret participation in the American space project of a Russian scientist who was captured by the Germans looks incredible. But if he really was captured and knew well that this captivity and his past as a tsarist officer threatened at that time with inevitable execution, would he be back in the USSR? So Shargei-Kondratyuk could easily have hidden under a different surname overseas, as he had already done once in the Soviet Union. And the main reason for this assumption is the fact that the numerous ideas of the Russian scientist, widely unknown to specialists, have been embodied in the American space project. It was not profitable for the Americans to reveal the secret of the missing Soviet prisoner, otherwise it turned out that they themselves were not able to develop and implement a project of a flight to the moon.
“We found a small inconspicuous book published in Russia immediately after the revolution,” said Dr. Lowe, who is involved in NASA's Lunar Program, after its successful completion. - Its author, Yuri Kondratyuk, substantiated and calculated the energy profitability of landing on the Moon according to the scheme: flight to the Moon's orbit - launching to the Moon from orbit - returning to orbit and docking with the main ship - returning to Earth. " It turns out, like this, indirectly, he actually admitted that the flight of American astronauts to the moon was carried out along the "Kondratyuk route".
Even more convincing in the recognition of the merits of the Russian scientist is the completely unusual act of the "first man on the moon," astronaut Neil Armstrong.
After his famous flight, Armstrong visited Novosibirsk, where he collected a handful of earth near the house where Shargei-Kondratyuk lived and worked, and then took it to the United States, where he poured it on the moon at the launch site of the rocket.
Thus, completely irrespective of whether the fantastic version about the secret participation of the Russian scientist in the development of the US program for the flight to the moon was true, his enormous merits in this matter have long been officially recognized by the Americans themselves. But here in Moscow, on the Cosmonauts Alley near the VDNKh metro station, where there is a monument to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, busts of cosmonauts and Sergei Korolyov, there is still no monument to Alexander Shargei …
But we "helped" the Americans not only in the area of flight to the moon and rocketry. Talents from Russia have done a lot in American aviation. Everyone knows today Igor Sikorsky, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, who built the world's first helicopter in the United States. But there were also our other compatriots - Mikhail Strukov, Alexander Kartveli, Alexander Prokofiev-Seversky, who actually created the American military aviation. For many years they were considered in our country "white emigrants", "deserters", "traitors", and therefore very few people in our country still know about these technical geniuses.
Alexander Prokofiev-Seversky came from a family of nobles in the St. Petersburg province. His ancestors are military, only his father distinguished himself in another field, became a famous singer, director and theater owner in St. Petersburg. "Seversky" was his stage name, which he added to the surname Prokofiev. Later in the United States, his son Alexander discarded the first part of the surname, which was difficult for Americans.
In 1914, Alexander graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, receiving the rank of midshipman. But at that time the first airplanes took off, and the young sailor began to dream not of the sea, but of the sky. He was lucky: the navy began to create air groups for reconnaissance over the sea, and Prokofiev-Seversky was sent to the school of naval aviation pilots.
After graduating from it, he began to fly, but then a misfortune happened. A bomb accidentally exploded on board his plane. Alexander ended up in the hospital, where doctors amputated his leg, fearing gangrene. It seemed that it was possible to put an end to the career of a military pilot, but Prokofiev-Seversky decided not to give up. Having put on the prosthesis, he began to train hard, and soon he could skate.
But no one believed that a pilot without a leg could fly. To prove otherwise, a young pilot in an M-9 flying boat flew under the Nikolaevsky Bridge in Petrograd.
By the way, this episode was repeated in the Soviet film "Valery Chkalov", where a Soviet pilot flew under a bridge in Leningrad, although, contrary to legend, Valery Pavlovich never did this. But the flight of Prokofiev-Seversky caused a sensation. The Chief of the Baltic Fleet Air Force, Rear Admiral Adrian Nepenin, having decided not to punish the daring man for his misdemeanor, sent a report to Nicholas II, in which he asked for "the highest permission" for the midshipman for combat flights. The Tsar's resolution was short: “I read it. Delighted. Let it fly. Nikolay ".
Once at the front, Alexander, at the age of only 23, became one of the most famous aces of Russian aviation. He was promoted to lieutenant and received a gold dagger with the inscription "For Bravery", and then the Order of St. George. He also gained fame thanks to valuable inventions in naval aviation. In particular, he created ski landing gear for "flying boats" so that aircraft could land on the ice of the Baltic in winter. He offered a movable installation of machine guns, armor plates to protect the crew.
In September 1917, he was offered the position of Assistant Naval Attaché at the Russian Embassy in the United States. At first he found himself preferring to stay at the front. But the Bolsheviks seized power, officers were killed, the army was falling apart. And then the hero-pilot decided to leave the country. In Siberia, his train was stopped by the Red Army, who were about to shoot him.
Fortunately, Prokofiev-Seversky was recognized by one of the sailors by his prosthesis, who dissuaded the "brothers" from killing the war hero.
At the same time, the prosthesis not only helped him save his life, but also turned out to be a hiding place in which the fugitive took the royal orders and money abroad.
In the United States, he first got a job at the Russian embassy. However, after Russia concluded a separate peace with Germany, the diplomatic mission was closed. Looking for a new job, Seversky met General Mitchell, a well-known aviator in the United States. Mitchell liked the young Russian pilot, who showered him with interesting ideas for improving aircraft, and he offered him a position as a consultant to the War Department in Washington.
Only now the enterprising Seversky could not sit still. Soon he founded his own firm, the Seversky Aero Corporation. There he created an automatic bomber sight. The rights to this invention were bought from him by the US government for 50 thousand dollars - a lot of money at that time. Then he introduced a number of other inventions. As a result, he received American citizenship and the rank of major in the reserve of the US Air Force.
The economic depression hit American industry hard, and Seversky's firm went bankrupt. He had to start all over again, and soon he created the aircraft building company Seversky Aircraft Corporation. Its main product was the SEV-3 amphibious aircraft developed by him, which showed excellent flight qualities. On this plane, Seversky set a world speed record for amphibians - 290 kilometers per hour, for many years no one could beat this achievement.
When the Air Force announced a competition to replace the Boeing 26 fighter, Severskiy's firm submitted the P-35 fighter for it and received a government order for 77 aircraft, becoming one of the largest aircraft manufacturing companies in the United States. Then he created a number of successful aircraft models, introduced many inventions. However, the Russian emigrant had influential opponents and competitors. In 1939, the company's board of directors, dissatisfied with his high spending on experiments, removed Seversky from the post of president of the company. Alexander Nikolaevich was upset by what had happened and decided to move away from design work.
However, Seversky did not break with aviation, showing himself to be an excellent analyst and military strategist. In 1939, he predicted that Hitler would start a war in September, refuted the opinion of American experts who believed that England would not be able to resist the Germans in the air, and also predicted the failure of the fascist blitzkrieg against the USSR. The bestseller in the United States was his book "Air Power - the Way to Victory". In it, he argued that in modern warfare, victory can only be won by gaining air supremacy and destroying the enemy's industrial potential with the help of massive bombing.
Severskiy was soon appointed military adviser to the US government, and in 1946 he received the Medal of Merit, America's highest civilian award.
The letter from US President Harry Truman, which was attached to the medal, said: "Mr. Seversky's aviation knowledge, dedication and vigorous propaganda activities played a large role in the successful conclusion of the war." An outstanding Russian aviator, who was not allowed to apply his talent at home, died in 1974 in New York. He never visited his homeland again.
Another creator of American military aviation, Mikhail Strukov, was born in Yekaterinoslav into a noble family. Studied at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. When the First World War began, he got into the cavalry, fought bravely, received the St. George's Cross and was promoted to officer. Strukov did not accept the revolution, and soon found himself in the role of an emigrant in New York. In the United States, he managed to defend his degree in civil engineering at Columbia University and start working in his specialty, he soon created his own company. He built bridges, roads, theaters and offices. In addition, he was an avid athlete, was fond of gliding. When the war began, Strukov managed to get an order from the aviation command for the construction of transport gliders. This is how the Chase Aircraft Company was born. Strukov became its president and chief designer, and another emigrant from Russia M. Gregor (Grigorashvili) became his deputy.
But the days of using gliders have passed, and after World War II Strukov created the C-123 transport aircraft. Later organizing the Strukov Aircraft Corporation, he set up the production of transport aircraft under the name "Provider" - "Supplier", which gained special fame during the Vietnam War for their unique survivability and reliability, becoming one of the "workhorses" of American aggression. In the United States, several hundred of these machines were produced, which were then also used in Thailand, Cambodia, and South Korea.
However, the Russian émigré firm soon fell victim to merciless competition in the US aviation market: it was swallowed by the giant Lockheed, who created his C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. Strukov, who was already in his eighties, announced the closure of the company and burned all the drawings and promising developments in the fireplace. The aviator had to return to his former occupations - he again began to design buildings. Mikhail Mikhailovich died in 1974 and was buried in the New York cemetery in the Bronx.
If one of the most popular transport workers for the US aviation was created by the Russian engineer Strukov, then another former officer of the tsarist army, Alexander Kartveli, who was born in Tbilisi, became famous as the designer of the best American fighters.
During the First World War, he served in the Russian army with the rank of an artillery officer. I got acquainted with aviation only at the front and was so carried away by flying that I decided to devote my whole life to this business. In 1919 he was sent to Paris to improve his flight education, where he entered the Higher Aviation School. But from Russia, where the "Red Terror" was raging, sad news came. As a former tsarist officer, he began to fear for his life, and when it became known that the Bolsheviks had also seized power in Georgia, Kartveli decided not to return to the USSR.
Having received the diploma of an aviation engineer, Alexander Mikhailovich entered the Societe industrial firm. He took part in the creation of racing aircraft, one of which would have set a speed record. Soon, Kartveli conceived the idea of building a giant plane for flights from Paris to New York. He could not find money for this bold project in France, but he was rescued by an unexpected acquaintance with the American millionaire and philanthropist Ch. Levin, who was fired up by his idea and invited Kartveli to immediately go to the USA.
There, before starting the construction of the giant, it was decided to first build its single-engine prototype called "Uncle Sam" in order to fly from New York to Moscow. However, the project ended in fiasco. Levin was stingy and put an engine less powerful than required on the plane. As a result, during the first tests "Uncle Sam" could not get off the ground. Then Kartveli left Levin and worked for some time at the Prokofiev-Seversky firm as a chief engineer.
In 1939, when Seversky was removed from the post of president of the company, and the company itself was renamed "Republic", Kartveli appointed her vice-president and head of the design bureau. It was there that the powerful attack aircraft of the Second World War "Republic P-47 Thunderbolt" was created. Until the end of the war, more than 15,000 of these aircraft were produced in the United States, while the level of losses in the United States was the lowest than that of other American aircraft. About 200 Thunderbolts were delivered to the USSR.
Then the Kartveli bureau created one of the first American jet fighters F-84 "Thunderjet". It was used during the Korean War, but when Soviet MiG-15s appeared on the North Korean side, Kartveli made an urgent upgrade of his aircraft, and its speed increased to 1150 kilometers per hour.
It was in Korea that the best fighters of that time - Soviet MiGs and American planes created by a former tsarist officer - entered the battle in the air.
The last fighter created by Kartveli was the supersonic F-105, which was widely used by the Americans during the Vietnam War, where it was shot down by Soviet missiles and our MiGs. Kartveli, as an aircraft designer, received universal recognition overseas, became a member of the National Aeronautical Association, received an honorary doctorate. In addition to fighters, he also built an amphibious aircraft, a four-engined photographic reconnaissance aircraft with a huge flight range.
The 1917 revolution forced many talented Russian engineers to leave the country. Some of them put America on the wing.
