Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk - a scientist of the USSR with a White Guard past. He was born in 1897, June 9. At the beginning of the 20th century, he calculated the optimal flight path to the moon - the “Kondratyuk route”. Subsequently, his calculations were used by NASA in the Apollo program. We will consider further what else Yuri Vasilievich Kondratyuk was famous for .
Biography from birth to desertion
The real name of the future outstanding scientist was completely different. Yuri Kondratyuk is the pseudonym of Alexander Ignatievich Shargey. He was born in the city of Poltava, in the family of a Russified German woman and converted to Jewish Catholicism. Great-grandfather was Anton Andreevich Schlippenbach, who participated in the Patriotic War of 1812.
Alexander spent his childhood in the house of his grandmother and her second husband. She was a midwife, and he was a zemstvo doctor, and later the head of the 3rd department of the state chamber. When the boy was one year old, his father went to Germany, in Darmstadt, to study at the Higher Technical School. After some time, the mother began a mental illness, as a result of which she was placed in a hospital under s. Small Budischi. Here she spent the rest of her life.
In 1903, the father moved his son to St. Petersburg. Here Elena Petrovna Giberman came into their family. She was the daughter of a famous gynecologist and translator of medical publications P.I. Lurie-Giberman. The following year, 1907, Alexander entered a gymnasium on Vasilvesky Island. In 1910, his half-sister Nina was born. In the same year, his father died suddenly. Alexander returned back to his grandmother’s house.
From 1910 to 1916 he was educated at the Second Poltava Gymnasium, which he graduated with a silver medal. Upon completion of training, Alexander enters the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute, the mechanical department (currently - St. Petersburg Polytechnic State University). However, in November 1916, upon conscription, he was transferred to the ensign school. Before demobilization in the spring of 1918, he participated in battles on the Turkish front. Being an officer of the tsarist army, after the revolution of 1917 he was mobilized into the White forces, but he deserted.
After the Red Army captured Kiev, Alexander tried to go abroad on foot. But he was detained and returned back. Fearing reprisals for his past, with the help of his stepmother, Elena Giberman received new documents. From that moment he became Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk, a native of Lutsk, born in 1900. According to these documents, he lived the remaining time.
First employment
From 1921 to 1927, Yuri Kondratyuk worked in the Kuban, southern Ukraine, and the North Caucasus. Here he was a lubricant, a trailer for wagons, an elevator mechanic. In 1927, he moved to Siberia under the threat of Chechen repressions. It was easier to hide here under a false name. In Novosibirsk, Yuri Kondratyuk gets a job at the Khleboprodukt enterprise. Here he had to take part in the construction and improvement of elevators. Just at that time, he built the famous "Mastodon" - a granary with a capacity of 13 thousand tons. The structure was created without a single nail. In the same period, Yuri Kondratyuk several times came to Biysk. Here he lectured on the mechanization of the grain storage process.
Trial
Meanwhile, the management of the Khleboprodukt enterprise doubted the reliability of Mastodont, which was created by Yury V. Kondratyuk. The arrest on charges of sabotage took place in 1930, July 30. The company's management warned that the author of the project not only did not use nails, but did not even draw up any drawings. As a result, Yuri Kondratyuk was sentenced to three years in the camp on charges. "Mastodont" stood for more than 60 years and was destroyed in the mid-90s from a fire.
New activity
Meanwhile, the camp was replaced by work in the special bureau No. 14 formed in Novosibirsk for engineer prisoners. Coal projects were developed here. Yuri Kondratyuk was involved in this activity. His biography is filled with various amazing events. So, while working in bureau No. 14, he managed to obtain an copyright certificate and a patent in the field of mining and mine equipment. In addition, he has published a number of articles on special issues. Among them were the facilitation and acceleration of mine sinking during formwork mechanization of rock-cutting and concrete work, reinforced concrete pile driver, etc.
Crimean wind farm
During the existence of the specialized bureau, a competition was held to create sketches of this installation. Yuri Kondratyuk got acquainted with the conditions. He carried out the design of a wind farm in collaboration with Gorchakov. A little later Nikitin, the creator of the Ostankino television tower, was also brought to work. Sketches were completed by November 1932. The authors, after a short period of time, receive permission to travel to the capital. At the competition, their project was the best. In 1933, at the insistence of the People's Commissariat of Industry, Kondratyuk was prematurely released from deportation. By the next 1934, the sketch of the wind farm was completely finalized. The construction of the installation foundation began in 1937 on Mount Ai-Petri. However, already in the next, 1938, work was discontinued due to the refusal to build powerful wind farms. Over the next two years, Kondratyuk designed small experimental wind farms.
Interesting fact
While working on sketches of wind farms, the practical experience that Kondratyuk Yuri Vasilievich had, his biography, and achievements, interested him in S.P. Korolev. The latter counted on cooperation. However, Kondratyuk Yuri Vasilievich did not accept this proposal. According to one version, he motivated the refusal by existing obligations related to work on wind power plants. According to other sources, the reason was that the activities related to military projects were tightly controlled by the NKVD. In the case of verification, his White Guard past and the fact of falsification of documents could have been revealed . The consequences could be very serious.
Participation in the Second World War
At the very beginning of the war, Yuri Kondratyuk enlisted as a volunteer. He was enlisted in the 2nd Infantry Regiment of the 21st Moscow Division of the Kiev Region, in the communications company, as a telephone operator. In October 1941, the unit left the encirclement. After that, Kondratyuk served in a coherent company of the 47th Infantry Regiment of the 194th Division. After that, he was the commander of the pro-platoon and platoon of the 1st Battalion, which was part of the 2nd formation of the 49th Western Army. According to the recording of the “Book of Memory”, Yuri Kondratyuk (Yuriy Kondratyuk) died in 1942, February 25. He was buried in the Oryol region, near the village of Krivtsovo.
Founder of astronautics
Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk over the years of his work has released several works. So, regardless of Tsiolkovsky, he was able to derive the basic equation of rocket flight using the original method. In addition, Kondratyuk gave a description and diagram of a four-stage installation using oxygen-hydrogen fuel, a paraboloidal nozzle, a combustion chamber in an engine with a staggered and different arrangement of nozzles, and much more. All this he outlined in his book "To Those Who Will Read to Build" in 1919.
Key ideas
In his work, Kondratyuk suggested:
- Apply atmospheric resistance when braking a rocket during launch to save fuel.
- Departing a ship during the flight to other planets to the orbit of an artificial satellite. To plant a person and return him to the station, use a small take-off and landing installation. This proposal was implemented in the Apollo program.
- Use the gravitational field from oncoming cosmic bodies for after-dispersal or braking when flying through the solar system. This proposal was called "perturbation maneuver."
In the same work, Kondratyuk considered the possibility of using solar energy to power the spacecraft's onboard system, as well as placing large mirrors in low Earth orbit to illuminate the surface of the planet.
Second work
In 1929, he created a book on the conquest of interplanetary spaces. In it, Kondratyuk outlined the sequence of the initial stages of space exploration, which he described in his first work. So, in a new book, the author proposed to supply satellites within the near-Earth orbit using a rocket-artillery system. Today this method is implemented in the form of cargo-transport ships of the Progress type. Also in the book, Kondratyuk investigated the issues of thermal protection of spacecraft during their movement in the atmosphere.
Memory
A lot of effort was put into restoring the good name of Yuri Kondratyuk by his colleague and fellow soldier, and later the design engineer of the bureau named after Lavochkina B.I. Romanenko. After retiring, he devoted himself entirely to "interplanetary" journalism. In memory of the outstanding achievements of Kondratyuk, many monuments were created, streets were named, commemorative coins were issued. So, the monuments were installed in the city of Poltava, in the city of Komsomolsk (at the technical school). In the Krylovsky district of the Krasnodar Territory, in Art. October, created a memorial museum Kondratyuk. Since 1992, the Novosibirsk Aerospace Lyceum was named after him. In Novosibirsk and Kiev there are Kondratyuk streets. In the latter, on one of the houses, a memorial plaque was installed . In Ukraine, at one time a medal was also established to them. Yu. V. Kondratyuk. In 1997, his name was assigned to the Poltava Technical University. Currently, it is the National Technical Institute. Yu. V. Kondratyuk. In 1970, one of the craters on the far side of the moon was named after him. In the capital of the Russian Federation - Moscow - there is a street. Kondratyuk, which is part of a complex of intracity sections dedicated to space exploration. Until 1965, this street was called the 2nd Novoostankinsky Lane. In 1997, a commemorative coin was issued in Ukraine, and in 2007, 2 postage stamps with the name Kondratyuk. There is a street dedicated to the memory of the figure in Rubtsovsk. Here is one of the oldest enterprises for the processing and storage of grain products. In Kamen-on-Ob - the city where the famous "mastodon" was built - there is Kondratyuk Street. A monument was erected on the embankment in honor of the designer. In 2012, June 21, the Google search engine put up a logo in honor of Kondratyuk. In 2014, on October 18, an outstanding scientist and designer was admitted to the Gallery of International Glory in the city of Alamogordo. In the Oryol region, in the Bolkhov district, on the territory of the memorial near the village of Krivtsovo, a memorial sign Kondratyuk was built, which was supposedly killed here during the bloody battles of the Second World War.
Conclusion
Despite his fairly anti-Soviet past, Yuri Kondratyuk made a huge contribution to the development of domestic astronautics, design, construction and a number of other industries relevant to the country. His books have received wide practical application not only in Russia but also abroad. Unfortunately, in the pre-war years there were no such opportunities for realizing creative and scientific potential. Nevertheless, Kondratyuk managed to create many projects that left a mark in domestic history. He was distinguished by a lively mind, tremendous energy, a serious attitude to everything that he did. Of particular importance in restoring the memory of him was the activity of Romanenko. Largely thanks to him, many facts of Kondratyuk's biography became known. Romanenko released a book dedicated to the life and work of his outstanding colleague and fellow soldier. If it were not for his death in the battles of the Great Patriotic War, it is likely that the world would have learned about the new discoveries and achievements of Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk. Many of his developments are used at the present time.