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We chose to go to the moon

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Starman, Jul 16, 2019.

  1. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Actually, they had not perfected the BREAKING SYSTEM to slow the capsule from a ballistic trajectory. And he ejected from 20,000 feet.
     
  2. cjericho

    cjericho Well-Known Member

    Local? the shop steward?

    he prob should be running bingo games in the psych ward.
     
  3. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    The heat shield was ok, otherwise Gagarin (or any other Vostok cosmonaut) would have been burnt to cinders by the time they were ready to eject.

    The problem was the actual landing on the ground; the parachutes on Vostok capsule only slowed it to about 25 mph on landing.

    The US had similar concerns with Mercury, leading to the inflatable-bag arrangement under the heat shield. But mainly the US coped with the problem by using water landings.

    (Had any Gemini capsule been forced into a land landing, the astronauts might also have ejected. The official assessment was that a Gemini landing on land was survivable but would probably result in hospital-grade injuries. Ditto for Apollo.)

    The USSR did not have the naval resources for ocean landings, so they concluded the Vostok cosmonauts should eject and come down by parachute.

    This caused problems with FAI, the international aviation records agency, whose rules specified that to count as official orbital flights the occupant must land with the ship.

    So for several years the USSR just flat out lied and said the Vostok cosmonauts landed in the ship; they did not.

    By the time they got to Soyuz in 1967 (first successful flight 1969) they came up with a retro braking rocket system which ignited a brief blast of thrust a couple of meters off the ground.

    As a result when Soyuz capsules land there's an explosion-like smoke cloud when the ship touches down, leading first time viewers to believe the ship has blown up.

    Scroll to about 0:55:

     
    Last edited: Jul 17, 2019
  4. Neutral Corner

    Neutral Corner Well-Known Member

    Cool. Thx.

    I grew up a space kid. Read the sf books with the V2 and hydrogen atom label on the spine. We lived in Tampa in the early 60's, and on a good day could see contrails from Cape Canaveral launches. My godfather was a fighter pilot, stationed at MacDill AFB. At that time camera lenses were unable to record a rocket's flight after the first few seconds. They'd have two F-105s with wing cameras stand on their tails, hit the afterburner, and fly straight up while filming for as long as possible. Very cool job.

    He was killed in the 'Nam flying Wild Weasel missions against NVA SAM sites. RIP Jim Musgrave.
     
  5. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    They also didn't have the geography. Their launch site was leased from the Kazakh government to provide the southernmost site possible . . . but the latitude was still about equal to Portland, Maine, and it was landlocked. The only open Russian waters were in the Arctic circle. Not very splashdown friendly for the crew or any ships having to navigate ice to reach the capsule.
     
    maumann likes this.
  6. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Right, they didn't have the ships available on the open seas to devote to space capsule recovery.

    At least on Gemini 8 and I think maybe another flight, the US had to change landing sites literally hours before splashdown; the only reason they could do this was US Navy ships were stationed at widespread locations around the world and available to help in recovery.
     
    maumann likes this.
  7. garrow

    garrow Well-Known Member

    I rarely go to the movies now in the Netflix era, but I saw the CNN Apollo 11 doc. Excellent experience. Great soundtrack.
     
  8. CD Boogie

    CD Boogie Well-Known Member

    He's right about one of those three things.
     
    DanielSimpsonDay likes this.
  9. DanielSimpsonDay

    DanielSimpsonDay Well-Known Member

    [​IMG]
    /approves
     
  10. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    He could get a job as FoxNews analyst
     
  11. John

    John Well-Known Member

    I'm thoroughly enjoying it.
     
  12. TigerVols

    TigerVols Well-Known Member

    So, the first words uttered by man on the moon to man on Earth were, "engine stop." NOT, "tranquility base, the Eagle has landed."
     
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