The Vostok Capsule

The Vostok Space Capsule was the first thing to send a man into space. That alone makes it worthy of mention as a great design, but let's break down the characteristics that made its accomplishment possible.

Getting into space is often considered an incredibly complicated procedure. But in the 1950's-60's few people knew just how complicated. The Russians embraced this ignorance and found ways to easily work around it. When a spacecraft is launched it has to endure all kinds of stresses, the g's and vibration of launch, the vacuum of space. But the most hazardous part of any space mission is the re-entry. Most space capsules have to come back to earth under just the right circumstances otherwise they may be incinerated. The early space programs didn't have all the information on what those circumstances were, so they tended to over-engineer their creations.

The capsule of the Vostok is the single thing that made it possible for the Russians to beat America to space. It wasn't designed with any maneuvering equipment that could be used during re-entry. Because of this it was designed to mechanically adjust to any problems that it encountered during the inferno. One, it is spherical. This shape allowed the entire capsule to be covered in heat shielding while minimizing surface area. This design allowed the  Vostok to tumble as it could without the maneuvering equipment. But the engineers worked to minimize this. The capsule was also designed so that its center of gravity would work to orient it properly during descent. These are all very simple solutions to problems were not be completely understood at the time.

Americans, on the other hand, decided to go with the complex solutions. The Mercury capsules were cone-shaped with a single heat shield that had to face the direction of decent the entire time which was done through the aerodynamics of the capsule which took extra time to study and dial in, while the Russian sphere was a well understood design. This extra time spent in the complexity of the capsule by the Americans allowed the Russians to get to space first.

The Russians were the first to get to space because they were able to solve complex problems sufficiently with simple solutions. The Vostok capsule is a testament to this. They were able to use existing knowledge to create something that could hold up under anything that might happen and which they couldn't completely predict.

Though, is should be remembered that while simple, sturdy design often succeeds, it may not bring about the complete solution.The Russians could get to space first with spheres, but they could never get a man to the moon. That took the more complex systems that America created.