Bernstein's failure to join the space race: his commentary on Tsiolkovskii's "Mechanics in Biology" (1964)

October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I into orbit from Tyuratam in Turkistan. An event "with the suddenness and surprise of a Pearl Harbor and of the impact of a Hiroshima atomic explosion" (Stoiko, 1970, p. ix). Nor would this be the only time America lost to the Russians in the space race. November 3 of the same year, Sputnik II carried the dog Laika, the first living being who traveled, and died, in space. In the USA, Senator Lyndon B. Johnson lamented: "Control of space means control of the world" (quoted from Heppenheimer, 1997, p. 126), and attempts were made to speed up Wernher von Braun's launching program (Piszkiewicz, 1995; cf. Von Braun, 1968). Alas, on December 6, when the American rocket began to lift, "it seemed as if the gates of hell had opened up. Brilliant stiletto flames shot out from the side of the rocket near the engine. The vehicle agonizingly hesitated for a moment, quivered again, and in front of our unbelieving, shocked eyes, began to topple" (Halberstam, quoted from Heppenheimer, p. 127). Thus, at the UN, "Soviet delegates asked their American counterparts if the United States might wish to receive foreign aid under Moscow's program of technical assistance to backwards nations" (from Heppenheimer, p. 128). Von Braun finally succeeded with the Explorer I on January 31, 1958, but for the Americans the agonizing wasn't over. On August 21, 1957, the Soviet Union launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), this time carrying a dummy, but able to carry a nuclear bomb (Harford, 1997). So, the first ICBMs in the world were aimed at the USA. And then, on the morning of April 12, 1961, Yuri Gagarin shouted "Poyekhali" ("Let's go!") (quoted from Heppenheimer, p. 172), and was launched into space at 9:06 to fly "over America" 51 minutes later. Quite naturally, the Soviet authorities wanted to show that Russia had been ahead all the time, and historical heroes were in strong demand. The Russians didn't have to look far.