Yuri Kondratyuk

Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk
Kondratyuk in 1941
Born	Aleksandr Ignatyevich Shargei (1897-06-21)21 June 1897 Poltava,Poltava Governorate,Russian Empire(nowUkraine)
Died	February 1942 (aged 44) nearKaluga,Kaluga Region,RSFSR,Soviet Union
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)
Service/branch	Imperial Russian Army(1916-1918),Red Army(1941-1942)
Years of service	1916–1918, 1941–1942
Battles/wars	World War I World War II

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 Sovietengineerandmathematician.He was a pioneer ofastronauticsandspaceflight,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.The LOR was later used for the plotting of the first actualhuman spaceflight to the Moon.Many other aspects of spaceflight andspace explorationare covered in his works.

Kondratyuk made his scientific discoveries in circumstances of war (including both World Wars and the Russian Civil War), continuouspersecutions from authoritiesand serious illnesses. In fact, "Yuri Kondratyuk", the name under which he became known both in Russia and abroad, was astolen identityhe assumed in 1921 for his own protection.

Biography and research

Early life

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 aJewishconvert toCatholicismwho studied physics and mathematics atSt. Vladimir Imperial University of Kievat the time of his marriage.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.She is a direct descendantofWolmar Anton von Schlippenbach,a general who took part inCharles XII of Sweden's'sfailed invasionofRussia.Her grandfather Anton von Schlippenbach waslieutenant colonelof theImperial Russian Armyand participated in theNapoleonic Wars.Aleksandr lived mostly with his grandmother and her husband inPoltava.

From an early age, Kondratyuk demonstrated great abilities inphysicsandmathematics.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.

Higher education and World War I

Kondratyuk later enrolled at thePeter the Great Petrograd Imperial Polytechnic Instituteto study engineering, where he was influenced byIvan Meshcherskiy.Soon, however, he was drafted to serve inWorld War I,and was sent toensigntraining 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 amodularspacecraftto reach the Moon, leaving thepropulsion section of the vehicleonorbitwhile a smallerlanderjourneyed to the surface and back (the strategy eventually adopted by the engineers of theApollo program).He included detailed calculations of thetrajectoryto 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".

First Soviet years

Kondratyuk left the army in 1917 following theRussian Revolutionand tried to make a living stokingboilersback 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 fromKievtoOdessa,losing all his documents in the process. A deserter to theWhites,he was also at high risk of arrest byBolshevikauthorities as a former tsarist officer.

In 1920 Kondratyuk made an attempt to escape forPolandbut was stopped and turned back byborder guards.In the meantime, his stepmother obtained the documents of a certain Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk, born inLutskin 1900 and recently deceased oftuberculosis.Under this new identity, Kondratyuk lived in and aroundKubanand theNorth Caucasus,working as a mechanic andrailroadworker.He settled inNovosibirskinSiberiain 1927.

First book, engineering work and imprisonment

Working as a mechanic, Kondratyuk completed the manuscript of a book titledThe Conquest of Interplanetary Spaces,dealing withrocketmotion and issues concerning thecolonization of space.He also suggested using agravitational slingshottrajectory to accelerate a spacecraft.In 1925, Kondratyuk made contact with Moscow-based scientistVladimir Vetchinkinand 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 theequationsin the book posed problems for the printer. Kondratyuk's discoveries were made independently ofKonstantin Tsiolkovskywho 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 miningmachinery 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.

Post-imprisonment research on wind power

Kondratyuk's monument at the site of his alleged burial inBolkhovsky

Kondratyuk learned of a competition to design a largewind powergenerator 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) highconcretetowersupporting a four-bladedpropellerwith 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 inMoscowbefore sending them toKharkovto 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 Towerin 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 Stateswhen 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 CosmonauticsinKaluga.

World War II fighting and death

Kondratyuk joined theRed Armyas 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 theNazisin 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 communicationscableat night nearZasetsky,a village in theKirovsky Districtof the Kaluga region.

Selected works

• To those who would read when building(a spacecraft) - 1919 (unpublished)
• Conquest of Interplanetary Space- 1925

Remembrance and tributes

A 2002 Ukrainianpostage stampcommemorating Kondratyuk.

When AmericanastronautNeil Armstrongvisited the Soviet Union after his historic flight to the Moon, he collected a handful of soil from outside Kondratyuk's house inNovosibirskto acknowledge his contribution to spaceflight, reportedly urging Soviet authorities to start commemorating Kondratyuk.

Later, a science centre and college in Novosibirsk was named after Kondratyuk, as well as streets inPoltava,Kyiv,andMoscow.ThePoltava National Technical Universityhas borne Kondratyuk's name since 1997. Additionally, Kondratyuk was the namesake of theKondratyukcrater on the Moonand the3084 Kondratyukminor planetdiscovered in 1977.

TheGovernment of Ukrainehas issuedpostage stampsandcoinsfeaturing Kondratyuk.

Yuri Kondratyuk was inducted into theInternational Space Hall of Famein 2014.

See also

• Science and technology in the Soviet Union
• Suppressed research in the Soviet Union

External links

• Зоряний блукач із Полтави.Article in Tyzhden.ua magazine(in Ukrainian). 10 April 2009.
• Кондратюк Юрий Васильевич.Article in online Encyclopedia of cosmonautics(in Russian). Archived fromthe originalon 2011-06-16.
• Georgiy Stepanovich Vetrov,S. P. Korolyov and space. First steps. — 1994 M.Nauka,ISBN5-02-000214-3.