At the Baikonur cosmodrome, I saw how a giant rocket “Energy” in a roar and flame carries the spacecraft “Buran” into orbit. And when it landed, I touched its hot scaly surface, and it seemed to me like a miracle that had flown in from space. At the Plesetsk cosmodrome, I saw how a rail-based missile was being tested: the taiga around was lit up with a flying light, and the rocket shot up, turning into a clean star melting in the universe.
So now, going from Blagoveshchensk to the Vostochny space center, I was impatient, looking forward to seeing the gate leading from the Far East directly to Mars. The Eastern Cosmodrome, which is three hours away from Blagoveshchensk, revealed to me from afar its excellent technocratic plastic, man-made among wooded hills. The launching table is a giant concrete slab, in the depths of which pipes, cables, channels for hydrogen-oxygen, air ducts with hot air pass. This table must withstand the multi-ton weight of the rocket, the pressure of the roaring fiery plasma, push away the rocket and launch it into the universe.
Mobile high-rise tower is piled up above the launch pad. It has several levels, several work sites on which the combat crew is deployed - people who equip a rocket in flight. Immediately, at the tower, rise steel trusses, which, during launch, embrace and hold the rocket. The tower on the rail approaches the rocket closely, and the combat crew fills it with fuel, heats the surface, monitors a variety of sensors that see through the rocket from the base to the top, from the starting engines to the head part where the satellite rests. A continuation of the starting table is a long concrete chute, which during the launch rages furiously raging plasma, losing its speed and running, dying away from distant forests.
The Soyuz missile is delivered here from beyond the Urals by railway in a disassembled form. And parts of the rocket, covered in a thick tarpaulin, are immovable in the hangar, resembling enormous cocoons. Before the start, they will be uncovered, fastened together - a delightful, divinely beautiful butterfly will fly out of these cocoons and rush through space orbit.
Three rocket launches have already taken place at the Vostochny cosmodrome. Two of them failed, and the third suffered failure. Nearby, the construction of the second stage of the Vostochny cosmodrome for the new Russian Angara rocket has already begun, and later for the super-heavy rocket - the one with whose appearance the lunar and Martian projects are associated.
Why Russia needed the Eastern Cosmodrome? Baikonur, from which the Soyuz and Proton launches were launched, no longer belongs to Russia. It belongs to the neighboring, albeit friendly, state. But history has taught us to expect unexpected whims of even the closest friends. And Russia decided to create its own cosmodrome, not subject to the whims of history. The rockets from the Eastern Cosmodrome throw satellites into geostationary orbits, where they hang motionless, inspecting the same piece of land from a height. And of course, one of the reasons why the Vostochny space center arose here, and with it the new city of Tsiolkovsky, is the development of the Far Eastern lands.
Together with the cosmodrome a bundle of enormous energies appeared here. Trails, roads, high-voltage masts, graduates of technical universities - young, strong, full of enthusiasm. The city of Tsiolkovsky in the future will turn into a science city with laboratories, research centers, faculties. Once there was a rocket division "Topol", but it was folded, and the military camp was turned into a young developing city Tsiolkovsky.
Lunar and Martian projects make Mars and the Moon neighborhood Blagoveshchensk. The trains will arrive here by rail, and Martian cities, Martian factories, future Martian forests, in which Martian birds and Martian squirrels will settle in, will be brought here in disassembled form.
The Cossacks and explorers, by their movement to the east, secured the great spaces and lands of Russia. But they also secured the dome of the starry sky behind Russia, creating an endless Russian cosmos, to which rockets are now taking off.
Russian people are cosmic, they dream of the sky. Not only those on which the birds fly, clouds float, but on nights at which the stars twinkle. They dream of a sky in which the everlasting heavenly life shines, there are no sins and vices, violence and evil, where grace and righteousness reign and there is no death.
The Russian dream of heavenly existence and immortality was embodied in the teachings of Russian cosmists, among whom Nikolai Fedorov is striking in the grandeur of his ideas. A modest librarian, who did not leave the St. Petersburg Public Library, created the theory that the people of Earth, rallying in a universal impulse, combining luminous God-like morality and the most advanced achievements of science, are able to resurrect, raise from the graves past generations of dead people, dress them with flesh, give them back their breath.
Tsiolkovsky, a student of Fedorov, was engaged in the development of rockets and the theory of astronautics, so that in the event of this universal resurrection to resettle the resurrected people on other planets, because the Earth is not able to accept such a number of resurrected. The technical military space, developing according to the laws of Tsiolkovsky, is based on the spiritual divine space, in which the Russian dream of immortality is realized. And perhaps, at the entrance to the Vostochny Cosmodrome, there will be a monument to Nikolai Fedorov, hugging the tree of life.
Charming young woman Elena Tarasova - an engineer from the battle calculation. She prepares a rocket, participates in launches. An enlightened man who dreams, as a child she wanted to drive huge machines and become a naval sailor or military pilot. Born here in the Far East, in a small town, Elena graduated from the institute and became a leading specialist. She says that every rocket launch is a startling event that fills with delight. It is looking forward to launching an extra-heavy rocket at the Eastern Cosmodrome, dreaming that Russia in space will once again become the most advanced power in the world.
I was at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, and it seemed to me a mysterious wind that blew among these lands, for three centuries drawing many people into my movement: Cossacks, army men, Stolypin immigrants, Soviet Komsomol members. This wind, with its mysterious breaths, led these people to the shores of the Pacific Ocean and further to Alaska, up to Fort Ross. This wind still blows today. But here, in the area of the Vostochny cosmodrome, it curls and rises upward - into the universe. And the dreamy Russian soul, caught up by this mysterious wind, rushes upwards, into infinity, where its lunar settlements and Martian cities are waiting, and above — where all the heights end and the gardens of the divine Russian paradise flourish.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.