After the end of World War II, people around the world wanted to be able to restore the peaceful life of the past. However, the protracted Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union has only just begun, and the competition between the two countries has covered many fields, and the space industry has been able to sprout. Since the former Soviet Union was in an economically inferior position, it concentrated its efforts on vigorously developing the military. Even if they already have a variety of advanced weapons, nuclear weapons are still the "killer tools" for great powers to balance each other.
At that time, the United States had taken the lead in developing intercontinental missiles, which multiplied the crisis of the former Soviet Union, vowed to catch up with the United States, and urgently needed intercontinental missiles to defend the United States. The R-16 intercontinental missile is an indelible tragic memory of the former Soviet Union, which can be called a catastrophic event in the history of rocket development. This disaster directly "wiped out" the rocket elite of the former Soviet Union, hundreds of top experts were directly vaporized, and Marshal Mi I Nejrin was killed on the spot. In the 35 years since the death of Marshal Mi I Nejrin, the cause of death indicated in public information was a plane crash, when in fact Marshal Mi I Nejerin was killed by the R-16 ICBM explosion.
In the final preparatory phase of the soviet union's plan to develop and test launch the first intercontinental missile, researchers conducted a final inspection and found that there was a problem with the engine circuitry, fuel was constantly oozing, and the launch task had to be completed within 24 hours. In order to solve this thorny problem as soon as possible, the team of rocket experts took the risk and repaired the rocket that had been filled with fuel, which was a serious violation. As a result, an accident occurred, the second engine was ignited, resulting in a direct explosion of the R-16 intercontinental missile that had not yet been launched, the entire launch platform became a sea of fire, hundreds of top experts were vaporized, and only the chief designer survived.
Only because at the moment before the explosion, suddenly the smoking addiction was unbearable, and smoking was strictly prohibited near the launch site, the chief designer had to go a long way to smoke a cigarette, and it was this smoke that allowed him to avoid this catastrophic explosion. The development of new types of equipment often comes at a huge cost, sometimes including the lives of researchers. The root cause of this accident is that the rocket that has not yet been prepared is forced to be launched, which also sounded the alarm for the world's military research and development personnel.
In order to "catch up", safety regulations must not be completely disregarded, and the quality must be guaranteed before the speed can be improved, otherwise it will face extremely serious consequences. This serious accident led to the loss of a large number of talents in the former Soviet Union, and also caused a huge blow to missile research and development, and finally completed the test launch of the R-16 intercontinental missile in 1961, which became the trump card in the hands of the Soviet Union and made the Western countries sleepless at night.
(Text/Shi Tai)