I am not writing here of someone whose sexual identity is in question, or having both male and female characteristics, but of a mechanism: the androgynous peripheral assembly system -- the full title of the electro-mechanical mechanism used for the docking of space vehicles.
A veritable genius of an engineer, Vladimir Syromayatnikov (often spelled, incorrectly, as Syromaitnikov) died this month (October 2006) in Moscow. He was aged 73. His death has not received the attention that it should but his life was well documented.
Syromayatnikov joined the top secret Energia Space Research Corporation based in Star City (aka Zvyozdny Gorodok) East of Moscow in 1956, after graduating from a technical university in Moscow. The immediate technical goal in that period of time was to build a clinically-efficient delivery system for the Soviet Union's growing nuclear arsenal. Many of the scientists in the German missile program were repatriated by the United States after WWII, mostly voluntarily. Others, those working in the mostly-underground facilities East of Berlin, were repatriated -- probably a little less voluntarily -- by the Soviets. But given labs and any amount of equipment you want, plus pleasant living facilities and food, most scientists would probably throw up their arms and say "what the hey."
Syromayatnikov began his top secret work improving German rocket motor tilt actuators whose operational timing determined when a V-2 rocket would close off its motor and cruise down to an unknown target in London. While you could hear the missile's engine, they said, you knew you were safe. The modified mechanisms were built into the Semyorka (translated something like "old model seven" -- could have been my first car, with a name like that!) intercontinental ballistic missile with a claimed range of over 4000 miles. It later became the first stage of the two-stage spacecraft which first flew in 1957, an incredibly fast development time.
Sputnik 1 carried a dog named Chernushka, a mannequin -- given the rather Imperial name of Ivan Ivanovich -- and some biological specimens. Sputnik 2 carried a dog named Zvezdochka. The three-stage Vostok 1, which the Soviets estimated could put 5 tonnes into low-earth orbit, flew in 1961 carrying Yuri Gagarin -- and started the space race which put the Americans onto the moon with what looked an aluminum foil-wrapped craft. Six Apollo missions landed on the moon between1968 and 1972.
The design of Syromayatnikov's androgynous peripheral assembly docking system was one of the greatest feats of the Soviet space program. It not only allowed two vehicles to dock with one another -- with an access between them large enough for both humans and materiel -- it prevented depressurization, and (this was the most important feature) it allowed safe and complete disconnection between the vehicles within a fraction of a second.
The design was adopted not only by the Soyuz craft and the sadly-departed Mir space station, but also by the US Apollo program and the Space Shuttle orbiters, the European Space Agency, and, of course, the International Space Station. The system was tested on unmanned vehicles in the mid 1960s and then with crewed vehicles in 1969. The design was updated in the 1990s for the Mir/Atlantis joint program and has remained unchanged since.
Syr is the Russian for "cheese," and Syromyatnikov liked to call himself the "big cheese." He was big in science and engineering, that is for sure, being awarded the Lenin Prize in 1976...and although he worked on over 200 missions of one kind or another he never had a single space failure. He published the first part of his autobiography in English in 2005, 100 Stories About Docking and Other Adventures in Space, being a fluent English speaker after spending time in the United States working with NASA programs. Sadly, the volume does not appear to be available in mainstream book distribution.
We would like to think that this fabulous engineer is, even now, using one of his dream transport systems -- sailing on the solar winds of space -- to transport him to unbelievable planets…
