From: lukpla@scorch.apana.org.au (Luke Plaizier)
Subject: SPACE TRIVIA LIST - 23rd August 1993 (Full list)
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1993 19:19:36 GMT
Keywords: space trivia list Space Trivia List
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# SPACE TRIVIA LIST #
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Masterminded by:- THE NEWCASTLE SPACE FRONTIER SOCIETY
Temporarily Moderated by:- Luke Plaizier
PLEASE DIRECT YOUR SUBMISSIONS TO:-
EMAIL: lukpla@scorch.apana.org.au
snail mail: Luke Plaizier
c/o Newcastle Space
Frontier Society
PO Box 1150
Newcastle NSW
Australia 2300
Direct Voice: International - 61-49-54-7454
Inside Australia - 049-54-7454
Answering Machine - 61-49-63-5037
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This is the list of Trivia information recorded in just over 25 years
of human activity in space. In no way is this an official list of events nor
is it guaranteed that all information included in this file is accurate or
true.
This file has come about due to the happy donations of time and
information of people on the internet located at various sites world wide,
and represents a collection of information that many of them have either
found interesting themselves, or would otherwise believe that other people
might find interesting.
The MOST important thing about this is that we'd like it to be built
by the input of many people, so if you can
PLEASE DONATE SOME TRIVIA AND WE WILL ENDEAVOUR TO ENSURE THAT IT
IS INCLUDED IN THIS FILE.
Submission details are included in the trailer to this list.
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* *
* SPACE TRIVIA - Interesting Trivia Information on Manned and *
* Unmanned Spaceflight from anywhere around the *
* Globe. (Or the Universe for that matter!) *
* *
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(1) Even though Yuri Gagarin, on the first manned spaceflight, ejected
from his Vostok capsule just before landing, the official Soviet
report said otherwise for fear that the rest of the world might
not recognise the mission as a complete success.
(1a) The Federation Aeronautic International, the governing body for
aerospace records has rules specificially stating that the pilot
must be in control of the craft from take-off to landing. Vostok
cosmonauts ejecting clearly violated the rule so it was hidden.
See my book "Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight" for details.
Available from Zenith Books 800-826-6600.
[From dennisn@ecs.comm.mot.com]
(2) Radio frequencies in interstellar space between 1420 and 1720 MHz
are known as 'the water hole', as it is thought that alien
civilisations might converge and commune in radio frequencies
in this band of 300MHz. (1420 = Emission line of neutral
Hydrogen, 1720=same for Hydroxyl and together these two make
water.) [BIS, SPACEFLIGHT, Vol. 35, No. 4]
(3) In one day, SETI searchers at Puerto Rico and California, using
the new Targeted Search's Multi Channel Spectral Analyzer,
sifted through more information than had been collected on all
previous SETI efforts combined.
[BIS, SPACEFLIGHT, Vol. 35, No. 4]
(4) Silicon Engine's new Targeted Search's Multi Channel Spectrum
Analyzer, developed for a 10 year NASA-funded SETI, is capable
if listening in on some 15million frequency channels, some
with a bandwidth of as little as 1Hz.
[BIS, SPACEFLIGHT, Vol. 35, No. 4]
(5) The engines of the escape tower on the Apollo moon missions (on top of
the mighty Saturn V) were more powerful than the entire Redstone
launcher that put the first American into sub-orbital space.
[Paul.Keinanen@Telebox.tele.fi, steven@spri.levels.unisa.edu.au]
(5a) The Apollo LES (Launch Escape System) thrust was 654 kN, while the
Mercury-Redstone thrust was 347 kN. The Apollo CM mass was about 5800
kg and the LES mass was 4000 kg or about 10000 kg combined. The
accelleration would be about 65 m/s/s or about 6.5 G. As the maximum
accelleration during ascent for Apollo-Saturn V was about 4 G,
the CM+LES combination could still be separated, even if
the Saturn V engines would still be running at full thrust.
(5b) The engines on the Launch Escape Tower (LES) of the Saturn V are
indeed more powerful than the engines used on the Mercury-Redstone
booster. From [1], the LES has a thrust of at least 654 kN (147 klbf)
(Another figure of 689 kN (155 klbf) is also mentioned in [1]. The lower
figure may be the total downwards thrust since the engines have to
point at an angle to avoid burning up the Command Module if used.)
The Mercury-Redstone has a thrust of 347 kN (78 klbf) [2].
[1] M. Wilson, "Moon landing," Flight International, pp. 208-221,
6 Feb. 1969.
[2] K. Gatland, "The illustrated encyclopedia of space technology,"
Landsdowne Press, Sydney, 1981.
(6) March 19, 1959
"The Dept. of Defense announces that three atomic blasts were
detonated in space during 1958 as part of Project Argus using modified
X-17 rockets."
[-Eugene Emme, ed., _Aeronautics and Astronautics, p. 107.]
(7) LENGTH WARNING. This one is VERY large....
Hey, I don't know if you'll include this in your list of trivia but
it surely is amusing. After each launch countries are required by
treaty to announce the launch. There are no requirements about what
the contents of the announcement are. Shown below is a Chinese
announcement from 1975. It is mostly propaganda. Did you know that
launching a satellite refutes Confucius?
(Actual transcript has been shortened for space considerations.)
((TEXT) PEKING, DECEMBER 17, 1975 (HSINHUA) -- CHINA
SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED ANOTHER MAN-MADE EARTH SATELLITE ON
DECEMBER 16, 1975, UNDER THE GUIDANCE OF CHAIRMAN MAO'S
REVOLUTIONARY LINE, ON THE BASIS OF THE VICTORY IN THE
GREAT PROLETRAIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION AND THE MOVEMENT
TO CRITICIZE LIN PIAO AND CONFUCIUS, AND IN THE EXCELLENT
SITUATION CHARACTERIZED BY CONSISTENT NEW VICTORIES IN
THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION AND SOCIALIST CONSTRUCTION.
THE SATELLITE IS FUNCTIONING NORMALLY.
THE SUCCESSFUL LAUNCHING OF THE SATELLITE IS A NEW
ACHIEVEMENT MADE BY THE PEOPLE OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY,
UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF THE PARTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE
HEADED BY THE GREAT LEADER CHAIRMAN MAO, IN TAKING CLASS
STRUGGLE AS THE KEY LINK, CONTINUOUSLY CONSOLIDATING
AND DEVELOPING THE FRUITS OF THE GREAT PROLETARIAN
CULTURAL REVOLUTION, AND FIRMLY CARRYING OUT THE SERIES
OF IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS OF CHAIRMAN MAO'S INCLUDING
THOSE ON STUDYING THE THEORY AND COMBATING AND PREVENTING
REVISIONISM, ON PROMOTING STABILITY AND UNITY AND ON
PUSHING THE NATIONAL ECONOMY FORWARD. IT IS A FRESH
SUCCESS ACHIEVED BY ADHERING TO THE PRINCIPLE OF
INDEPENDENCE AND SELF-RELIANCE, BRINGING INTO FULL PLAY
THE INITIATIVE OF BOTH THE CENTRAL AND LOCAL AUTHORITIES,
UNIFYING PLANNING, WORKING ENGERGETICALLY IN CLOSE
COORDINATION, WAGING A UNITED STRUGGLE AND GRASPING
REVOLUTION, PROMOTING PRODUCTION AND OTHER WORK AND
PREPAREDNESS AGAINST WAR.
THE CENTRAL COMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA,
THE STATE COUNCIL AND THE MILITARY COMMISSION OF THE
CCP CENTRAL COMMITEE EXTEND WARM CONGRATULATIONS
TO THE WORKERS, COMMANDERS AND FIGHTERS OF THE PEOPLE'S
LIBERATION ARMY, SCIENTIFIC WORKERS, ENGINEERS AND
TECHNICIANS, REVOLUTIONARY CADRES AND MILITIAMEN WHO
HAVE BEEN ENGAGED IN THE RESEARCH, MANUFACTURE AND LAUNCHING
OF THE SATELLITE AND OTHER PEOPLE CONCERNED. 170110 UTT NY 17/O1224Z
(8) Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first men on the moon, almost
crashed onto the lunar surface. The Eagle's descent engine had
about 10 seconds of fuel left when they landed.
[From yantosca@bu.edu]
(8a) "The Eagle had landed on a countdown to abort, primarily because
propellants were sloshing away from intakes and meters, giving off
readings that the ship had entered the dead-man zone with its tanks
running dry."
[Submitted by davem@ee.ubc.ca, clarifying that although correct at
the time, post-flight analysis uncovered this problem, meaning
incorrect readings from the meters. ]
(9) The maiden launch of the first Space Shuttle, "Columbia", occurred
on April 12, 1981, 20 years to the day of Yuri Gagarin's "Vostok"
flight.
[From yantosca@bu.edu]
(10) In 1963, the Soviet Union tried to launch a rocket (from Baikonur??)
but the main engine didn't fire. Several technicians were dispatched
to the launch pad to correct the problem, under the command of an
engineer/officer whose last name was Nedelin. Somehow, the
second stage engine fired, causing a massive explosion while the men
were still on the launch pad. It is estimated that more than 100 of
the Soviet Union's best rocket engineers and technicians (including
Nidelin) perished on that day. Ironically, there was one survivor;
he ducked into a fireproof box on the launch pad to smoke a cigarette
and was shielded from the blast. The loss of so many engineers and
technicians was a serious setback to the Soviet Space program; this
may have been one of the reasons why the Soviets did not reach the
Moon before NASA did.
[ From yantosca@bu.edu, sourced from "AIR & SPACE / Smithsonian"]
(10a) The best account to date is in Rabochna Ya Tribuna, Dec. 6, 1990, p.4
"Top Secret: Explosion at Baykonur Cosmodrome: Only after 30 years are
we learning the truth about the death of Marshal Nedelin and a large
group of rocket speciallists", FBIS-UPS-91-002 from NTIS.
The author says numbers are still not known but range from 165
to 200 deaths. Happened Oct. 24 1960, Nedelin was the head of the
Strategic Rocket Forces (all ICBMs, launch crews, etc..). More than
one person survived, the rumor of the one survivor is that it was
Cheif Designer S Korolev, but this is unlikely. But it was not
his rocket design and he should have had no reason to be there. The
cause is speculated to be the failure of circuit isolation during
electrical testing actually sent the signal for the 2nd stage of the
SS-7 to fire after repairs were made. The reference above has a good
account of the fire by a man who was blown 30 meters by the blast
and survived. Flim of the fire is available.
*NOTE: We'd like to thank the poster of this submission for his quick
response for our request for more information.
(11) This is actually several combined into one, as they are from the
same source. They are fact, but the exact source is unknown at
the moment. Further SSME details have become available, and are
located as items 149 - 160. Anyone with information as to the
source of confirmation or denial of the following items, please
direct email to the moderator.
(a) 2 SSME's could generate as much power as that used by a NIMITZ class
aircraft carrier.
(b) The Fuel and Oxygen pumps of 3 SSME's combined could generate as much
power as that used by the battleship IOWA plus 12 ETHAN class
submarines.
(c) The combustion in 3 SSMEs combined, to make one shuttle flight
system, releases more energy than the combined nuclear
power plants of 9 non-US countries. (but which ones?)
(d) The turbo-pumps on the SSME rotate at 37,000 rpm. Formula One
engines can rotate at up to 15,000 rpm. A standard 1990's
vintage motor vehicle is very lucky to rev to 10,000rpm.
[PLEASE SEE ITEMS 149-160 FOR FURTHER SSME ITEMS]
(12) The LOX turbopumps on the F-1 engines of the Saturn V booster delivered
24,811 gallons of LOX per minute. They could have filled a swimming
pool 25 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 6 feet deep in about 27 seconds.
(In metric, the pumping rate is about 94,000 liters per minute, and the
example swimming pool is 7 meters long, 3 meters wide, and 2 meters
deep. The 27 seconds stays the same.)
[ Source: "Apollo: The Race To The Moon", Charles Murray and Catherine
Bly Cox, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1989, ISBN 0-671-61101-1,
submitted by gbt@zia.cray.com ]
(13) (This one is specific to 1993) Although june 21, the summer solstace
in the Northern hemisphere is the longest period of daylight, July 1
was the longest day of the year worldwide! That is because at
Z 00.00 (midnight world standard time) a leap second was added making
July 1 24h00m01s long.....the longest day of the year!
[ jbear@telerama.pgh.pa.us ]
(14) Astronaut charm school included teaching the boys what socks to wear
with which pants and shoes.
[mark.blevis@qmail.dgrc.doc.ca]
(15) After the first spacewalk, the Voshkod capsule carrying Alexei Leonov
and Pavel Belyayev went off course and came down in the middle of a
forest in Siberia. The two cosmonauts spent the night waiting for
rescue in the snow, huddled around a fire in their spacesuits,
listening nervously to wolves howling in the woods around them.
[Reference: Several sources, notable James Oberg's `Red Star in Orbit'
From alien@acheron.amigans.gen.nz]
(16) "A typical Perseid meteoroid that produces a visible meteor of
magnitude 2.5 has a mass of around *2.5 milligrams* and a velocity of
order *60 kilometres per second*. Such a meteoroid would inflict
severe damage - a crater of 5 cm diameter has been estimated - if it
struck an artificial satellite."
[RANDALLJC@UK.AC.PORTSMOUTH.CSOVAX]
(17) The Apollo 13 moon mission was launched precisely on schedule, 13:13
Houston time, April 11, 1970. On April 13th, en-route to the moon,
an oxygen tank in the service module exploded. The crew got home
safely thanks to the consumables and propulsion of the LM, and the
ingenuity of ground controllers in improvising LM lifeboat procedures.
The S-IVB stage which boosted the mission into translunar trajectory
was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on June 13, 1969--Friday.
[Apollo Expeditions to the Moon, NASA SP-350, Chapter 13; Stages to
Saturn, NASA SP-4206. From kelvin@autodesk.com]
(18) For a Motor Vehicle Engine to have the same power-to-weight ratio
as one Space Shuttle Main Engine, then it would only have to be the
size of your clenched fist. [SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(19) The Liquid Hydrogen Turbo-Pumps on a Space Shuttle Main Engine weigh
as much as a standard V8 Motor Vehicle engine, but output some 310
times the power. (See also item 150) [SHUTTEL, Nigel MacKnight.]
(20) The Apollo 12 moon mission in 1969, following closely on the heels of
the Apollo 11 mission, was struck by a bolt of lightning just after
it left the launch pad.
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(20a) Atlas-Centaur AC-67, launched on March 26, 1987, was hit by
lightning and started to deviate from its planned course some
49-seconds after lift-off. Range Safety officials destroyed the
vehicle.
[Space Flight News, May 1987]
{If anyone has record of any-other lightning strike, then let
us know because it belongs here!}
(21) The VAB, where Space Shuttle components are assembled today, and
Saturn V components were assembled in the 60's and 70's,
occupies a ground area of 8 acres and boasts an internal
volume of 3,624,000 cubic metres (129,428,000 cubic feet!)
The structure was designed to withstand winds of 200km/h
(125 mph) and has a foundation that rests on more than 4200
steel pilings 40 cm (16 in) in diameter that each go to a
depth of 49 metres (160 ft) through bedrock. The building
has its own internal weather!
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(22) There was an aluminium shed near launch pad 39A. It was roughly
50 yards away from the perimeter. It was a prefab
building and it wasn't determined whether it would stand up
to the first launch of the shuttle or not. After the first
launch of Columbia, the shed was reduced to a few pieces
of debris scattered across the ground.
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(23) Noticeboard of Safety requirements inside the VAB:-
REMOVE PERSONAL ITEMS FROM THE UPPER POCKETS. WEAR BADGES
INSIDE SHIRT OR CARRY IN PANTS POCKET. REMOVE WATCHES AND
RINGS OR TAPE SAME. EYEGLASSES MUST BE TETHERED. ACCESS
RESTRICTED WITHIN THREE FEET OF VEHICLE-CONTACT ACCESS
CONTROL MONITOR. FOOD AND BEVERAGES PROHIBITED. FLAMMABLE
LIQUIDS MUST BE APPROVED. NO HARD HATS ALLOWED.
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(24) I worked at the Johnson Space Center, and during a material testing
procedure on Space Suit Assemblies I got to play with a heat-soaked
shuttle tile cube. It was a one-inch cube, and it was soaking in an
oven at about 1400F. We took it out of the oven with tongs and then
you could hold it by the edges, preferably the corners. You did not
want to touch the face of it - by minimizing the surface that you were
in contact with you could minimize the heat transfer.
It glows (visibly) just a little, but it sure shows up on
infrared Kokak slide film :-)
[From jgladu@bcm.tmc.edu]
(25) The Software programmes controlling the Shuttle's on-board computers
are the most sophisticated programmes ever developed for a
spacecraft, and contain over 500,000 IBM-written instructions. This is
twenty five times more than the programmes developed for the Saturn
launch vehicle which guided Apollo astronauts from launch, through
orbital insertion and into lunar trajectory.
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(26) John F. Kennedy Space Center, or KSC as it is more usually referred to,
is situated on Merritt Island. The operational areas are located
adjacent to Mosquito Lagoon. Visitors soon find out that the
lagoon did not receive its name frivolously, and that a reliable
brand of mosquito repellant can be worth its weight in gold!
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(27) And then there are the Alligators at KSC. Many of the 'gators have
become quite tame, and some have developed the habit of clambering
out of the pond in front of KSC's large canteen facility to 'beg'
for scraps of food from the office workers who eat their lunch
outside on the lawn.
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(27a) This is a big problem at KSC (Not "The Cape" as many call it...)
because alligators are REALLY stupid. They can't tell the difference
between a sandwich or your hand...In fact to them there IS no
difference. We are warned over & over in the "KSC bulletin" not to
feed them. Since KSC is a nature preserve, it is illegal to feed
the 'gators. If caught, you can be disciplined. When the alligators
lose their fear of humans, they are caught and moved to a remote part
of the preserve. If they come back the alligators are killed. Period.
[From HOLLIS@TITAN.KSC.NASA.GOV]
(28) The oxygen tank of the External Tank of the Space Shuttle
Transportation System occupies a small section at the front of the
tank, whilst the Hydrogen Tank occupies the rest below it. The
Hydrogen Tank is 2.5 times larger than the Oxygen tank, but weighs
only one-third as much when filled to capacity. This difference
comes about because liquid oxygen is some sixteen times more dense
than liquid hydrogen.
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(29) The Crawler-Transporter, which carries the Space Shuttle, and
previously the Saturn series of launch vehicles from the VAB to
one of either launch pads 39A or 39B, is as wide as a 12 lane
highway.
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(30) There are eight sets of tracks on each Crawler Transporter - two in
each corner - and each set of tracks is comprised of fifty seven
segments weighing one-ton apiece. That totals up to over 450 tons
in track segments alone!
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(31) The Crawler Transporter isn't exactly good where fuel economy is
concerned. Travelling at the rate of a mere 1 mile per hour, it
guzzles fuel at the rate of of one gallon every twenty feet! Instead
of Miles per Gallon, it is measured in Gallons per Mile!
[SHUTTLE, Nigel MacKnight.]
(32) On July 20, 1969, Houston Mission Control put through the longest-
distance telephone call in history. It connected Richard Nixon to
the two astronauts, Armstrong and Aldrin, on the surface of the
moon.
[The Young Scientists Book of Spaceflight. Rigby Usborne]
(33) The Apollo Spacecraft, which carried astronauts to and from the Moon,
had nearly two million working parts. A large Motor Vehicle has less
than 3,000.
[The Young Scientists Book of Spaceflight. Rigby Usborne]
(34) Initially scheduled to be called "Constitution", the first Space
Shuttle orbiter, OV-101, was renamed "Enterprise" in deference to
"Star Trek" television series fans.
[Rockwell International Space Shuttle - Dennis R Jenkins]
(35) There is another unknown orbiter in the Space Shuttle fleet. Tagged
OV-098, the craft itself was named "Pathfinder". Its original role
was as a rough dimension-and-weight mock-up for practising de-orbit
operations on the run-way, and also to practise lifting and handling
the orbiter at various facilities (Shuttle Carrier Mate De-Mate,
VAB and OPF). The vehicle was heavily modified to eventually look
like the other orbiters for the "Great Space Shuttle Exposition"
scheduled for June 1983 to August 1984. The craft was returned to
MSFC and is on display today, with Filament wound boosters and
the tank used in the main propulsion tests (MPTA-ET) at the
Space and Rocket Center near Hunstville.
[Rockwell International Space Shuttle - Dennis R Jenkins]
(36) The Soviet Voskhod spacecraft, in follow-on to Vostok flights, was
essentially just a one-manned Vostok spacecraft. All three cosmonauts
launched in the spacecraft were without spacecsuits. Officially this
was reported to be because the Soviets were confident with the
spacecraft, but a quick calculation reveals that there would not
have been enough room for the three men if these spacesuits had been
included!
[The Soviet Manned Space Programme - Salamander Books]
(36a) The real trivia here I believe is the fact Korolevs engineers did
not want to make the modification believing it a bad idea, then
Korolev offered to fly one of the engineers on the first flight
and they accepted the mission, Feoktistov was the lucky engineer.
This was really part of Korolevs plans to get speciallists into
space to learn and stop all flights from being all military
pilots. Journalists were also selected for Voskhod missions.
[dennisn@comm.mot.com (Dennis Newkirk)]
(36b) This was repeated with Soyuz, stuffing three people without pressure
suits into a spacecraft designed for two with suits, resulting in the
deaths of the Soyuz-11 crew when the spacecraft vented its atmosphere
during reentry. After that all crews have worn pressure suits even
when (from Soyuz-12 to T-5) this reduced the crew size from three to
two.
[Mark Grant <mark@isltd.insignia.com>]
(37) The Soyuz spacecraft was initially designed by the Soviets for their
attempt at getting to the Moon before the Americans. But the orbital
Module of the Soyuz spacecraft was missing one vital component -
a transfer tunnel in the docking adapter. If it ever became necessary
to transfer crew or equipment to a Lunar orbiter or Lander, then
cosmonauts would have had to climb into suits and go into the
vacuum of space! The docking tunnel was added for later space-station
operations.
[The Soviet Manned Space Programme - Salamander Books]
(37a) The lunar module docking drouge was just a metal honeycomb type
crushable receptical for the LOK (lunar Soyuz) probe which just plunged
into the material and hung on. It was only used once per mission anyway.
[dennisn@comm.mot.com (Dennis Newkirk)]
(38) The EDO (Extended Duration Orbiter) toilet is indeed different from a
standard shuttle toilet. The standard shuttle toilet has a bowl that
is used to contain fecal wastes. The waste material is freeze dried
when it enters the bowl. The current toilet is able to support flights
of up to 13 to 14 days. Modifications to the toilet are expected to
increase this to about 16 days. The EDO toilet (This is the one making
all the headlines about cost overruns) has just had the qualification
unit complete its second flight. The 23 million dollars only produced
a qualification unit. NASA has not purchased any actual flight units
yet. The EDO toilet is different in that in place of the bowl there
is a canister that is used to collect fecal wastes. Each canister can
support 23 to 27 uses depending on what else the crew throws down there.
When the canister fills up, it is replaces with a fresh canister. The
drawbacks to this toilet are that the canisters require a lot of
storage space that is not required by the standard toilet. The
standard toilet has been in use since STS-1, while the EDO toilet
is undergoing testing on OV-105 only. The standard toilet must be
removed from the vehicle after each flight and returned to JSC for
cleaning and processing. The EDO toilet can remain in the vehicle
and thus saves processing time.
[From oliver@vf.jsc.nasa.gov. This item came about in the discussion
pertaining to the legitimacy of #5]
(39) Some western speculators, back when the Soviets were still in the race
to beat the US to the moon, were wondering what the Soviets would use
as a lunar lander, as they could not (until recently) find evidence
of a separate lunar lander vehicle. They came up with the concept
that an enhanced Soyuz, complete with landing legs, would be used
to land vertically on the surface of the moon, and even used the
re-positioning of the main hatch to verify this! This would mean
that a cosmonaut would have had to descend a ladder some 2 stories
high to get to the Lunar Surface!
[The Soviet Manned Space Programme - Salamander Books]
(40) In the early 80's, the soviets were flying small 'cosmos' experimental
vehicles which confounded international observers. Cosmos 1374,
launched in June of 1982, was recovered in the Indian Ocean. The
soviets issued a standard Cosmos-type announcement, failing to
include an orbital period, yet stating that the mission was a success.
The next similar flight, cosmos 1445, came nine months later. The
retrieval of this one, simlarly with 1374, was observed by the
Royal Australian Air Force, but in this case photographs were
released to the rest of the world, revealing that the soviets had
been testing a a small winged orbiter, with demensions of 3.4m
length, 1.4m fuselage diameter and a wingspan of 2.6m.
There are two more interesting notes. Firstly, Cosmos 1374, unlike
1445, did not have any identifying national markings, indicating
that the RAAF was an undexpected visitor to the retrieval area.
Secondly, the reovery ship (the Yamal) and apparently many members of
the the Soviet recovery team, were the same for both spacecraft
retrievals. There is one man with an identical head of Afro-styled
hair who appears in both photographic series of the retrieval
sequences, despite the two missions happening 285 days apart!
[The Soviet Manned Space Programme - Salamander Books. Peter
Pesavento, Correspondence to the BIS Spaceflight magazine, Sept 1991.]
(41) The soviets had a large Saturn V type booster in development for the
soviet manned assault on the Moon. This launcher was designated by
many names, namely by G-1 or G-1e in the west in early years, but
now as the SL-15 or N-1 booster). By mid 1966, US reconnaissance
satellites spotted test facilities under construction at Tyuratam. By
1968 static test models had been built and between March and April a
full sized version was moved from its fabrication area to the launch
pad and back.
[The Rocket - David Baker - New Cavendish Books.]
(42) The attempts to launch the G-1/N-1/SL-15 soviet booster are:-
(a) February 21, 1969: The booster exploded 70 seconds after lift-off,
when a fire developed in the tail section of the rocket. The
booster was labelled 3L, and had an L-1 Zond Spacecraft.
(b) July 3, 1969: A liquid oxygen pump failed causing an explosion
that wrecked the launch site. Designated 5L, this booster is
assumed to have had the same payload and launch aim as the
first, namely to enter an orbit to the moon and attempt a
lunar flyby.
(c) July 21, (Or June 27?) 1971: The rocket fell back on the launch
pad causing more extensive damage.This launcher, designated 6L,
had a mock-up of the lunar module, lunar lander and escape
system.
(d) November 23, 1972: A fire developed in the engine compartment
close to the end of the 1st stage burn and the booster exploded
after 107 seconds of flight. Designated 7L, it had a proper
lunar orbit module and escape system and a mock-up lunar
landing module. It was planned this would be an Apollo 8
style, but unmanned, lunar flyby.
[BIS Spaceflight, June 1991 and June 1992]
(43) The one remaining G-1/N-1/SL-15 heavy lift booster (the fifth in the
series that were built), which did not get a chance to fly due to
the cancellation of the program, was partially converted
into a bandstand for a town close to the launch site.
[BIS Spaceflight, June 1991]
(43a) The 8L booster was nearing a 1974 launch date. Another booster
was also being readied, parts for more were on hand. All assembly
was done at Baykonur. There was growing confidence these boosters
would perform better since significant modifications were made
from the 4th launch onward.
[dennisn@comm.mot.com (Dennis Newkirk)]
(44) There were several things to mention about Helens Sharman's flight to
the MIR space station on May 18, 1991.:-
(a) Great Britain was the 22nd nation to fly a citizen into space
(b) Helen Sharman was the joint 248th person in space
(c) She was the 15th woman into space
(d) For the first time a nation's first space traveller was a woman.
(e) She was the first non-soviet, non-american woman into space.
(f) One record that was just missed: because the American Space
Shuttle Columbia was delayed from its scheduled launch
date of May 22, the chance to set a new record or 4 women
in space simultaneously was lost. (This was sts-40, which
finally took off on June 5th.)
[BIS Spaceflight, July 1991 - Please see item 233]
(45) Gagarin's flight began under a cover of secrecy. Nobody except the
heads of Korolev's design bureau and the KGB knew of the place of
landing. The inhabitants of Saratov could not even have suspected
how close they were to the historic landing site.
But the secrecy wasn't complete. Skilled workers were required
to deal with measuring and other devices to dismantle them. These
workers were taken by KGB agents from one of the nearby plants. They
were told by the director of the plant that they were close to the
landing site of Vostok.
One of the workers had a camera and was able to take a clear
photograph of Vostok that wasn't released until 1991!
[BIS Spaceflight, August 1991. And they show the photo!]
(46) The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle, developed to train US astronauts
on how to control the Lunar Lander for flights to the moon, was
a strange contraption built with a turbofan engine facing down
vertically in the centre to provide vertical thrust with a weight
distribution and throttle reaction time similar to that of the
real Lunar Lander. It was based around the early VTOL 'Flying
Bedsteads' developed to study the potential of Vertical Take-Off
and Landing for jet aircraft.
[Ed Henegveld, BIS Spaceflight, December 1992]
(47) Neil Armstrong had a close brush with death in a 'flying bedstead'
LLRV on May 6th, 1968, when the craft went out of control and he
was forced to eject. He landed by parachute and walked away without
injury!
[Ed Henegveld, BIS Spaceflight, December 1992]
(48) Yuri Gagarin, on the maiden launch of a man into space, landed in a
field some 26km south-west of the town of Engels in the Saratov
Region. In his orange flight-suit he approached a woman and a little
girl with a calf. The cosmonaut was asked if he came from space.
And of course he replied "As a matter of fact, I have!"
[Neville Kidger - BIS Spaceflight, April 1991]
(49) Compared with the desired profile, the edge of the mirror surface
of the primary mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope is too low by
0.002mm. This results in an error where the Light from the edges
of the mirror come to a focus about 38mm beyond where the innermost
rays converge.
[BIS Spaceflight, April 1991]
(50)The US Army Redstone missile has had a long and ditinguished service
record.
(a) A modified redstone, redesignated Jupiter C or Juno 1, sent into
space the United States first satellite - Explorer 1 - on
January 31, 1958.
(b) It was used for the first manned American spaceflights of Shepard
and Grissom in 1961.
(c)It was the first rocket to detonate an atomic weapon (Project
Hardtrack in 1958) above the Earth's surface.
(d) It was the launcher used in Project SPARTA, a joint
US/UK/Australia programme of re-entry research. The last of the
10 Redstones shipped to Australia for the project was used to
launch WRESAT, Australia's first satellite.
[Keith Scala, Michael Crowe, BIS Spaceflight, August 1991.]
(51) The first real watch to be worn in space (Yuri Gagarin had a timepiece
which was not a true Chronograph) was in July 1962, when Scott
Carpenter flew the Aurora 7 Mercury capsule.
[Alan A Nelson - BIS Spaceflight, April 1992]
(52) The Omega Speedmaster Professional, later to become standard issue
to all Gemini, Apollo and Skylab Astronauts, was first flown by
Wally Schirra aboard Sigma 7 in October 1962. This watch was later
known as the "Moon Watch" as it was the first watch worn on the Moon.
[Alan A Nelson - BIS Spaceflight, April 1992]
(53) The television series 'The Six Million Dollar Man' showed a terrible
aircraft accident at the beginning of each episode, supposedly
indicating how 'Steve Austin' was injured. The actual sequence was
of a real accident on May 10, 1967, when NASA test pilot Bruce
Peterson was fortunate to escape with his life in an experimental
aircraft known as the M2-F2 lifting body. This small craft was
part of a development to test the aerodynamics of small wingless
craft that could generate aerodynamic lift through the simple
shape of its body. They came thundering down at incredible speeds,
and attribute much of the information that is required today for
the one-attempt-only langings made by the Space Shuttle.
[Space Flight News, May 1986. (No longer Published.)]
(54) The Apollo 10 crew of Tom Stafford, John Young and Gene Cernan put
themselves in the record books by achieving the highest speed ever
attained by man - 24,790mph.
[Space Flight News, July 1986. (No longer Published.)]
(55) The Lunar Rover, as used on Apollo missions 15, 16 and 17, had a
lifetime of 78 hours, and could cover up to 92kms. It could carry
up to 400kg (Earth weight) - more than TWICE its own weight. (An
average family car can usually only carry half its own weight). Fully
loaded it could climb a 25 degree slope, and on the flat it could
reach a top speed of 16km/hr. It would be an almost precise 1/6th
slow-motion replay of a car going 86km/h on Earth!
[Space Travellers Handbook, Michael Freeman, Sovereign Books.]
(56) A 'logical lock' was in use on the Vostok spacecraft to lock out any
actions that Yuri Gagarin might make in a panic. At that time, nobody
knew how a human would react to space, so the logical lock idea was
created. Yuri Gagarin had a small envelope in which the logical lock
code was written, and in order to use the controls he would have to
prove that he was capable of doing the simple task of reading the
combination and punching 3 of nine buttons.
[Space Flight News, November 1986. (No longer Published.)]
(57) There is a slide wire 'flying fox' type system at both launch
pads 39a and 39b that the astronauts can use in the event of
en emergency at the launch pad.
[Space Flight News, February 1987]
(58) At the base of the slide wire system used for emergency astronaut
escapes at pads 39a and 39b, is a modified military M113 tank
used to evacuate the atronauts and support personnel from the
vicinty of the launch pad in a protective environment. In
actual fact there are 3 tanks. One near the base of the
slide wire, one at the blast demarkation line some 4,485ft
from the launch pad, and another three miles away in the
hands another fire/rescure team.
[Space Flight News, February 1987]
(59) The military has a long history of starting and then dropping astronaut
and other manned programs - such as the Manned Orbiting Laboratory,
the Dyna-Soar, etc.
The latest one was the Manned Spaceflight Engineer program -
and it did succeed in getting two Air Force payload specialists onto
the Space Shuttle. Gary Payton (STS-51C) and Bill Pailes (STS-51J)
flew before the Challenger accident.
After Challenger the whole program was reconsidered and
the military decided to concentrate on unmanned launch vehicles. The
MSE program was disbanded and the people reassigned.
The person who had probably the best chance of flying next was
Kathy Roberts - but the Air Force dropped the program before she flew.
[from CHARLES D. PHILLIPS]
(60) The Johnson Space Center in Houston has two control rooms where
technicians can monitor the Shuttle's onboard systems. The original
control and display consoles in these rooms (dating back to the mid
1960's and the Gemini program) are still in use today. In the near
future these consoles will be replaced with modern computer
workstations.
[ Tour Guide, Johnson Space Center, Houston TX
from yantosca@bu-ast.bu.edu (Robert Yantosca)]
(61) Both of the control rooms at JSC have a viewing gallery behind a
wall of one-way glass. These viewing galleries are open to the public
on days when the Space Shuttle is NOT in orbit (for security reasons).
In fact, the galleries are closed to the public 24 hrs before launch
time. However, VIPs (the President, Senators, Congressmen, and
visiting dignitaries) occasionally are present to watch the progress
of a Shuttle mission from these galleries.
[Tour Guide, JSC from yantosca@bu-ast.bu.edu (Robert Yantosca)]
(62) The first time four spacecraft had ever been docked together came on
22nd April, 1987, when the Russians had together Soyuz-TM2, Mir,
Kvant and Progress 29.
[Space Flight News - May 1987]
(62a) There is a vastly superior record which was set on January 26, 1993.
Soyuz TM-16 docked with the MIR space station, whilst both
Soyuz TM-15 and Progress M-15 were still there. The existing
spacecraft consisted of the MIR central core, Kvant, Kvant 2
and Kristal.
[BIS Spaceflight, May 1993]
(63) On the first four flights of Columbia, there were only two crew
members, the Commander and the Pilot. Each was launched seated in a
modified version of the rocket ejection seat installed in the SR-71
'Blackbird'. This seat could safely eject them away from the Orbiter
in case the control system should malfunction and send it out of
control.
[Bob Overmyer, Space Flight News, May 1987]
(64) Originally it was thought that the shuttle ejector system could be
used to eject from the launch configuration as long as the Shuttle
system was below 100,000 feet, but it was discovered later that
once the solid rocket motors were burning, a crewmember ejecting
would descend into the rocket plume.
[Bob Overmyer, Space Flight News, May 1987]
(65) Crew safety concerns for the shuttle heightened when the results of
the ditching tests conducted at the U.S. Navy David Taylor Model
Basin become known. At the Taylor test facility, large-scale models
of the Orbiter were catapulted over a long water trough. They contacted
the water in attitudes and speeds simulating Orbiter ditching
conditions. No-one had ever ditched an airplane at the typical
landing speeds of the Shuttle and the results were disappointing.
When the model contacted the water in the flat attitude that was
achieved with a normal landing speed of 200 knots, it would skip badly
and become airborne again. The second or third contact was usually
very violent, resulting in forces that would totally destroy an
Orbiter.
When the model simulated the slower landing speeds made possible
by the delta-wing configuration, the nose-up attitude would cause the
body-flap to contact the water first, and the cockpit would pitch
down violently, slamming into the water.
One interesting test showed that if the orbiter approached with
the landing gear down, it would immediately turn into a 'submarine'
and dive straight to the bottom!
[Bob Overmyer, Space Flight News, May 1987]
(66) On STS-5, there were 5 astronauts on board, but the two ejection seats
remained in place unarmed. It had been originally proposed that the
escape sequence would continue as follows:-
The astronaut seated in the centre seat on the flight-deck would
leave his seat and descend to the mid-deck if an emergency arose. The
three in the mid-deck would then don parachutes, wait for the Commander
and Pilot to eject, and then climb through the two holes in the roof.
This was rejected quickly, as it was found that the control
wires would be severed in the roof after the ejection, and the orbiter
would definitely go out of control. Besides this, those that crawled
out would be brought around and slammed into the OMS pods on the
rear of the orbiter!
[Bob Overmyer, Space Flight News, May 1987]
(67) Using a small setup of around 25-pounds worth of Radio equipment,
a teacher and a group of students at Kettering Grammar School,
England, were regularly keeping track of the Soviet 'eight day
wonders' - recoverable satellites in the cosmos series. In 1966,
differences in some of the orbits led to the discovery of a new
Soviet launch site that had previously been a closely guarded secret
of the USSR and the Pentagon. This site was christened in the west
as 'Plesetsk'. Nearly 20 years passed before the Soviet Union
publicly announced the existance of the site, and the Kettering
group were proud to hear that they maintained the same name.
[Space Flight News, May 1987]
(68) The kettering group, a small team of students and their teacher at
Kettering Grammar School, England, were keeping track of the Soviet
Soyuz-11 manned spaceflight. They received the signals of the
depressurization of the Soyuz module, and were keeping track of
the cosmonaut's heartbeats up until they lost contact. The capsule
would have landed within 30 minutes of this loss of signal, but
unfortunately all three cosmonauts were found dead. If they had
been wearing their space-suits at the time, they might have
survived.
[Space Flight News, May 1987]
(69) In the weightlessness of space, the antennae of the big Hughes Intelsat
6 spacecraft would be able to unfurl on their own, but during
Earthly tests the two larger antennae needed some help to defy
gravity. Engineers at Hughes Aircraft Company in El Segundo,
California, turned to Helium-filled ballons to perform the task!
[Space Flight News, June 1987]
(70) The current soviet spacesuit, used on-board the MIR space station,
requires the cosmonaut to swing the back-pak around and step into it
from the back!
[Space Flight News, July 1987]
(71) Believe it or not, the final analysis showed that, although 'Columbia'
basically had about 30,000 separate tiles on its exterior, they
installed - in the period from May '79 until it finally flew in
April '81 - a grand total of over 90,000 tiles!
[Bob Overmyer, Space Flight News, July 1987]
(72) On STS-5, even though the commander and pilot ejector seats were
disarmed, those two astronauts had to wear the SR-71 harness-type
waistcoat in order to remain compatible with the seat!
[Bob Overmyer, Space Flight News, July 1987]
(73) STS-5 was also the first time astronauts wore the now familiar
pale-blue suits used before the Challenger accident. (This was
used in place of the SR-71 type flight-suits used on the first
4 flights.)
[Bob Overmyer, Space Flight News, June 1987]
(74) The shears used by astronaut Joe Kerwin to sever the strap of debris
retaining the jammed solar wing on the Skylab Space station, were of a
type more usually employed for snipping barbed wire. Manufactured in
Missouri, they were purchased by NASA for the princely sum of $75!
[Space Flight News, August 1987]
(75) Whilst the Shuttle was still in development, Fred Haise amd Jack Lousma
were scheduled to pilot STS-3 which was to have boosted Skylab back
into orbit. Alas, Skylab to down in Western Australia in 1979, 2 years
before the 1st flight of Columbia.
[Bob Overmyer, Space Flight News, October 1987]
(76) The Soviets have a long-standing custom of only calling their people
'Cosmonauts' after they have travelled in space. This conflicts with
the US version, where astronauts are so named as soon as they have
been accepted into NASA employment after passing the selection tests.
[Space Flight News, August 1987]
(77) Pete Conrad became the first tattooed man in space on the Gemini 5
mission. He had a blue anchor and stars tattooed on his right arm.
[Space Flight News, October 1987]
(78) To train Shuttle pilots prior to making their flight, in the area of
landing, NASA uses a modified Gulfstream 2 executive jet. The cockpit
has been divided into two - with Shuttle controls on the left, and
all the Gulfstream controls on the right.
[Space Flight news, December 1987]
(79) The flight dynamics of the Shuttle were calculated before the Shuttle
actually flew, and the Gulfstream 2 trainer was modified accordingly.
The calculations were quite accurate, and very few changes have been
made since the Shuttle has entered service.
[Space Flight news, December 1987]
(80) The following is a long list of trivia tid-bits which comes from the
December 1987 issue of Space Flight News. It was published as a quiz,
and the answers were found in the same issue. Only those questions
worthy of being items of trivia are included.
(a) This is a list of 'should not have but did' of what some astronauts/
cosmonauts took into space.
(i) The crew of Vostok 2 used a box of matches they carried in
their flight to light a fire after they had overshot the landing
zone.
(ii) Tom Stafford took a small set of handbells along for the
Gemini 6 mission, which took place just before Christmas.
(iii) The crew of Apollo 15 broke NASA regulations, and were later
severely reprimanded, for carrying a batch of first-day covers
to the surface of the moon in their personal lockers.
(iv) Gus Grissom ate a corned beef sandwich on the Gemini 3
mission. It was given to him by his crewmate, John Young, who had
sneaked it on board. (The sandwich was given to John Young by Wally
Schirra.) Grissom later vomited, ruining a dietary experiment NASA had
set for him.
[Wally Schirra addition, from Allan Bourdius <ab3o+@andrew.cmu.edu>]
(b) Bits 'n Pieces.
(i) A helmet visor was cracked on the Gemini 3 mission, when Gus
Grissom's helmet struck the instrument panel as he was thrown forward
during the automatic parachute descent sequence prior to splash-
down in the Atlantic Ocean.
(ii) A camera was left in Earth Orbit during the Gemini 10
mission.
(iii) A feather was dropped on the Apollo 15 mission. This was
done alongside a hammer to prove that one of Galileo's most
significant laws was indeed correct. The feather and hammer hit the
surface of the Moon at the same time.
(iv) Apollo 16 astronaut John Young tripped over one of the leads
attached to ALSEP, rendering it useless and falling to the surface.
(v) Valentina Tereshkova bruised her nose on the landing of
Vostok 6 in June 1963.
(c) Planetary Bits
(i) Luna 3, the Soviet Probe, returned the first pictures of
the Moon's previously unseen farside in October 1959.
(ii) Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to enter orbit around
the Moon in April 1966.
(iii) Venera 4 became the first successful soviet mission to
Venus by delivering a small capsule in October 1967.
However, it was crushed before it reached the surface. Venera-7
in 1970 was the first mission to successfully land.
[Venera 7 item added by jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)]
(iv) Venera 9 returned the first pictures of Venus' surface in
October 1975.
(v)Mariner 10, from the US, is the only spacecraft ti have
reached Mercury. It made 3 flybys of the planet.
(vi) Pioneer 10 was the first operating spacecraft to cross the
asteroid belt en route to Jupiter.
(81) On the first separation test of Enterprise and the Boeing 747 in the
Approach and Landing Test program of 1977, the Shuttle separated
from the 747 that the first photograph - initially intended to
be taken when the orbiter was a few feet away from the orbiter - was
taken when the orbiter was over 70 feet away from its carrier.
[Bob Overmyer, Space Flight News, March 1988]
(82) The original circular hatch to be used for entering and exiting the
Lunar Module on the surface of the Moon was squared-off when
astronaut Roger Chaffee observed that it was difficult to clamber
through a round hatch with a square backpack on - particularly
going backwards.
[David Shayler, Space Flight News, April 1988]
(83) Descent and Ascent stages of the Lunar Module were passed through a
bizarre procedure to ensure that loose parts or tools weren't left
lying around inside it. This involved mounting the device on a large
support structure and rotating it slowly to free loose items and
let them drop to the floor.
[David Shayler, Space Flight News, April 1988]
(84) Once locked into their landing position, the legs on the descent
stage of the Lunar Module could not be retracted again.
The same is also true of the landing gear on the space shuttle.
[David Shayler, Space Flight News, April 1988]
[Shuttle addition from Allan Bourdius <ab3o+@andrew.cmu.edu>]
(85) The landing probes on the feet of the Lunar Module were fitted to all
but the forward gear. The probe was removed from this leg after
astronauts McDivitt and Schweickart tested the Lunar Module
LM/3 Spider in Earth orbit for the first time in March 1969. It was
thought that the probe might curl up and prove to be a hazard to
the astronauts as they stepped on and off the final rung of the
ladder that led them to the surface from the exit hatch of the Module.
[David Shayler, Space Flight News, April 1988]
(86) The ladder mentioned above was made of a material that was so light-
weight that it could only support the weight of a man in the 1/6th
gravity of the Moon. On Earth the ladder would break.
[David Shayler, Space Flight News, April 1988]
(87) Because the Lunar Module did not have an air-lock, the Module had to be
depressurized and repressurized before and after every excursion. For
this reason and as a general safety precaution, the hatch was left
slightly ajar as the astronauts were roaming around the surface.
Imagine being locked out of your vehicle so far away from home!
[David Shayler, Space Flight News, April 1988]
(88) On Feb. 21, 1969 in the final hours of the countdown of the first
launch of the massive N1 booster, Cheif Designer Mishin went to the
launch pad while propellants were still being loaded, and cristened
the rocket traditionally be breaking a bottle of champaign against
the cold hull of the rocket.
[IZOBRETATEL I RATSIONALIZATOR, No. 8, Aug, 1990, pp 20-21, "The
History of Technology: How We Conceeded the Moon: A Look by One of
the Participants of the N-1 Drama at the Reasons Behind it", by Vad.
Pikul. FBIS-USP-91-002. Submitted by dennisn@ecs.comm.mot.com]
(89) Lazarev and Makarov, the crew of Soyuz 18-1, who were forced to abort
the launch after half the explosive bolts holding the first and second
stages of the booster together failed to blow. After a 14g reentry
from 90 miles up their capsule hit a mountain near the Chinese border
and rolled down, leaving another crew to spend a day huddled round a
fire waiting for rescue.
[Source: Janes Manned Spaceflight Log,
from Mark Grant <mark@isltd.insignia.com>]
(90) Although during the day it is only possible to watch a shuttle launch
with the naked eye until just past SRB seperation, a night launch
with clear skies can be followed until the main engines cut out.
[ Source: STS-35, which we could see until it disappeared behind a
cloud when 1200 miles downrange. Mark Grant <mark@isltd.insignia.com>]
(91) The early days of space flight at Missile Firing Laboratory were a
mixture of experienced engineers and scientists with seemingly crude
and brute force methods to launch missiles.
"With the launch of Redstone #1 in August 1953, the Missile
Firing Laboratory inaugurated the testing of balistic missiles. In
those days, launch procedures were unsophisticated. Albert Zeiler,
one of the Peenemunde veterans, had to decide within a split second
whether to shut off the engine immediately after ignition, basing his
decision upon the color of the flames. An off-color indicated an
improper mix of the propellants. A couple of minor delays had
occurred earlier, but on the morning of 20 August 1953 the flame
color met Zeiler's approval, and the Redstone rose."
["Moonport, A History of Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations",
Charles D. Benson, NASA History Series, NASA SP-4204, pages 7-8, 1978.
Submitted by gregb@tunfaire.den.mmc.com]
(92) The Russian Foton class Cosmos vehicle, used today for remote-sensing
and Earth photography applications, is the same Vostok capsule
that launched Yuri Gagarin into space back in 1961!
[Space Flight News, June 1988]
(93) Pad 39B, one of the two Shuttle Launch complexes, has been used very
few times. In fact, the only times it has been used previous to
Shuttle flights are:-
(1) Apollo 10 in May 1969,
(2) Skylab 2 in May 1973
(3) Skylab 3 in July 1973,
(4) Skylab 4 in November 1973
(5) The Apollo/Soyuz flight in July 1975.
[Space Flight News, August 1988]
LC39B has been used for 19 of the 31 missions since Challenger up
to STS-57, so these days it is the busiest pad. There have now been
25 launches from LC39B and 48 launches from LC39A.
[Updated 31/7/93. From jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)]
(94) Pad 39B was first used on a Shuttle Launch in 1986 by the ill-fated
51-L Challenger flight. This contributed nothing, by the way, to
the accident itself.
[Space Flight News, August 1988]
(95) Astronaut Charlie Bolden, veteran of the 61-C/Atlantis missions in
January 1986, became the first man to ride the slide-wire escape
system on Pad 39B on July 8, 1988, reaching a maximum speed of
roughly 55mph.
[Space Flight News, September 1988]
(Some people have already expressed doubts of this. Can anyone come
up with evidence of earlier use? )
(96) Chinese SKW recoverable satellites have an interesting feature in
their structure. To withstand the heat of re-entry, the Shuttle
uses special tiles, and Soyuz uses a special ablative material that
melts away as it gets hot. The Chinese, on the other hand, use Wood.
[Space Flight News, October 1988]
(We've heard that this wood is OAK. Does anyone have any information
on this?)
(97) The only two countries which refused to telecast Neil Armstrong's
moonwalk were the USSR and China.
[Space Flight News, March 1989]
(98) LENGTH WARNING - This one's quite large.....
"One evening, during the launch pad checkout of the stacked
Apollo spacecraft and Saturn 5 launch vehicle for Apollo 17, one of
the support crew astronauts had to enter the Lunar Module to
conduct some checking and testing. The Lunar Module was nestled
under the protective shield of the Apollo Command & Service Module
and the streamlined launch vehicle nose-fairings.
Normally, all workers on the Saturn stack had to empty their
pockets at the control points before getting close to the vehicle.
Astronauts had permission to wear their standard flying suits
in the Lunar Module and Command Module, as long as they kept their
pockets zippered closed.
On this particular day, however, the astronaut in question
had some coins in his breast pocket, which had been left unzipped by
mistake. As he traversed the catwalk to the Lunar Module, he leaned
over and coins spilled out. They could be heard bouncing off the
structure as they fell through the Instrument Unit ring and lodged
somewhere against the top of the S4B third stage that would propel
them from low-Earth orbit to the Moon.
I calculate that the coins stayed there until after the
Trans Lunar Injection 'burn', when the S4B put them on the same
trajectory to the Moon as the CSM/Lunar Module combination."
Some day in the distant future, people are going to walk on
the Moon again, and they may just find a few US coins lying
in the dust!
[Bob Overmyer, Space Flight News, June 1989 ]
(99) With a total Height of over 75 feet, the 747/Orbiter combination has
been described by some journalists as 'The World's Largest Biplane!'.
Suprisingly, the Russian Antonov/Buran combination is even larger
still.
[Space Flight News, June 1989 ]
(100) The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft must never be flown with the Shuttle
aboard if the ambient temperature is less then 15 degrees Farenheit.
This is because, on the type of long-duration flights the SCA
typically makes when ferrying the orbiter, there is a risk of fluids
within the Orbiter freezing and causing some serious problems.
[Space Flight News, June 1989 ]
(101) The shuttle has two possible positions or 'attitudes' available when
onboard the SCA 747. The initial attitude was a 'nose up' attitude,
and this was used primarily for the Approach and Landing Tests of the
late 1970's. Presently, the Shuttle spends most of its time in the
second available position, where it is more or less parallel to
the SCA's upper fuselage.
[Space Flight News, June 1989]
(102) The Shuttle's tyres are designed to withstand temperature extremes
of minus 65-degrees Farenheit to plus 200-degrees Farenheit, and
are inflated, with the craft standing static on the runway, to a
pressure of 327psi, with an over-inflation margin of 40psi.
(103) Apollo 1 was scheduled to actually fly in late 1966. As development
of the block-1 spacecraft progressed, it became apparent that the
Command Module earmarked for the Apollo 1 missions would not be ready
in time for a tentatively-scheduled joint flight involving the
tenth and final manned Gemini mission, Gemini 12, in late 1966.
The tragic Apollo 1 fire occurred on January 27, 1967.
[Space Flight News, November 1989]
(104) It is unfortunate that NASA did not learn earlier about the fire
hazard problems associated with a pure-oxygen atmosphere in the
Block 1 Apollo Comand Module design. Flash fires had previously
broken out in two boilerplate cabin mock-ups in September and
November of 1963.
[Space Flight News, November 1989]
(104a) Also, Soviet cosmonaut Valentin Bondarenko was killed in a pure
oxygen flash fire in a training simulator in March 1961. This was
only revealed in the late 1980s.
[This was revealed in a series of articles in Isvestiya in April 1991
marking the 30th anniversary of Gagarin's flight. The story is
available in Mike Cassutt's new book Who's Who In Space.
(Macmillan: 1993, $55) which I would recommend if I could
find the ISBN number.)
From jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)]
(105) Post-accident investigations revealed that Ed-White spent his dying
moments trying to open the hatch of the Apollo 1 spacecraft. The
hatch was criticised as one of the major factors contributing to the
death of the three astronauts in 1967. It is not widely appreciated
that a revised hatch design was already under development at the time
of the Apollo 1 tragedy.
[Space Flight News, December 1989]
(106) When Gus Grissom and John Young came to name their Gemini 3
spacecraft, they chose the title 'Molly Brown' after a character
in a play that was running on Broadway at that time: The Unsinkable
Molly Brown. NASA officialdom baulked at such an apparently flippant
title and refused the astronauts permission to adopt it. Nevertheless
Grissom and Young devised an appropriate patch to wear on their
spacesuits: it depicted their Gemini capsule floating in the Ocean,
with the name Molly Brown emblazoned above it.
All of this should have been maintained in 'low profile' mode,
with the official callsign being "Gemini 3". However, the CAPCOM
(Capsule Communicator) at launch, astronaut Gordon Cooper, blew
Grissom and Young's cover by exclaiming, as the rocket cleared the
tower 'You're on your way, Molly Brown!'.
[Chris Faulkner, Space Flight News, January 1990]
(107) On average, the Apollo astronauts spent a total of about 22,000
hours in simulator sessions, 5,000 hours in briefings, and 3,000
hours conducting hardware tests.
If one includes in this figure time engaged in related
training, the eleven Apollo-series missions absorbed a staggering
84,000 hours of astronaut training and briefing time.
[Space Flight News, January 1990]
(108) On Apollo 11, the crew were worried that Neil Armstrong's leg might
snag the abort handle, ending the mission in the Atlantic ocean just
minutes after it had started!
[Space Flight News, January 1990]
(109) Dick Gordon, on Apollo 12, was so convinced that lightning storms
would delay the launch 24 hours, that he managed to drift off to
sleep during the countdown.
[Space Flight News, January 1990]
(110) At the end of Apollo 12, the hardest ocean landing was recorded - 15G!
This jarred a 16mm camera from its mounting, hitting Al Bean's head.
[Space Flight News, January 1990]
(111) Many of the tests that the Mercury astronaut candidates took are now
considered to have been unnecessary. Things like 'Write twenty
sentences beginning with the words 'I am...', or stare at a blank
piece of paper and describe what you see. Scott Carpenter, it is
reputed, when stuck for his twentieth sentence, wrote in anticipation
'I am prospective Mercury Astronaut.' stating afterwards that this
simple statement tipped the balance towards his selection.
[Space Flight News, January 1990]
(112) The Mercury capsule had in effect some seven miles of wire used for
its control system, but had a total internal volume roughly equal to
that of a telephone booth.
[Space Flight News, January 1990]
(113) The Pad Rescue Team came closest to performing an emergency rescue
during a launch attempt for the maiden voyage of Discovery - mission
41-D - on June 26, 1984. At T-4 seconds, the SSME main engines were
abruptly shut down. With hydrogen running free in the vicinty of the
now hot engines, everyone held their breath. Then a fire was detected
along the trailing edges of the orbiter's elevons, and the orbiter
itself began to burn.
The crew sat tight as the water-deluge systems were activated.
A few tense moments rolled by with the Rescue Team sitting suited
and waiting for a 'Go' from mission control. The fire went out, the
vehicle made safe and the crew extracted after just 35 minutes.
[Space Flight News, June 1990]
(114) Of the Apollo astronauts, nearly all of them are alive. Sadly, Jack
Swigert was the first Circumlunar (Apollo 13, non orbital),
Ron Evans the first Lunar Orbiting, and Jim Irwin the first the
first Moon Walking, Apollo astronauts to die.
[ Original item was vastly incorrect. Thanks to many people for
pointing this one out, and thanks particularly to
jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell) for giving the
correct information. ]
(115) A special machine was assigned to cut some 8,500 miles of grooves
into the Shuttle runway at Kennedy Space Centre. These grooves
provide a means to remove the water from the runway, and provide
for extra grip in the wet. (But when does the shuttle ever land
whilst it's raining?). The section of the runway where the
orbiter touches down was smoothed in 1988 to reduce tyre wear and
wear to the brake mechanism at the point of contact.
[Space Flight News, February 1988]
(116) The Soviet R-7 (A-series, SL-1/2/3/4/6/7 or SS-6) booster was first
used in 1957 to launch Sputnik 1 and it is still in active service.
The first stage consists of a central core and four strap-ons. It
was/is used to launch:
(a) Sputnik 1-3 (A version, no second stage)
(b) early Lunas, Vostok etc. (A-1 second stage added)
(c) Voshod, Soyus, Progress etc. (A-2 second stage)
(d) early Veneras, Mars 1, Molniya, Luna 4-14 etc
(A-2e second stage)
[Hart: The Encyclopedia of Soviet Spacecraft, 1987
Submitted by Paul.Keinanen@Telebox.tele.fi]
(117) Other than the launch escape tower, the entire Mercury-Atlas vehicle
that put John Glenn into orbit will fit inside the payload bay of the
shuttle (or at least it works with 1/144 scale plastic kits 8-)). I
don't have any mass information handy on the Atlas, so I'm not sure
whether a fully fuelled Mercury-Atlas would be under the shuttles
payload mass limits though.
[Mark Grant <mark@isltd.insignia.com>]
The lift-off mass for Mercury-Atlas was 118 tons and the nominal
payload capacity for low inclination shuttle launces was initially
29.5 tons. However, the Mercury-Redstone lift-off mass was about
30 tons including the escape system.
[Gatland:The Pocket Encyclopedia of Spaceflight in Color, 1967
from Paul.Keinanen@Telebox.tele.fi]
(118)A small research rocket "Aerobee" was being tested at sea in Jan 1950.
In the North Pacific and Gulf of Alaska. The Areobee was a small
liquid fuel rocket with a solid fuel booster stage. One of these at
sea (on a ship) tests "misbehaved in a suprising manor. Apparently
as a result of a leaking valve, the rocket suddenly took off 10
minutes ahead of schedule and climbed slowly and quietly by itself,
leaving the booster, unignited, in the launching tower. ... The
defective valve apparently never did fully open; calculations made as
a result of this event indicated that an Aerobee fired without
booster should go about twice as high as one that did. Of course no
Aerobee has ever been fired without a booster on purpose."
[Page 286, _Rockets, Missles, and Space Travel_ by Willy Ley, (c)1957
Viking Press. Library of Congress # 57-11123.
Submitted by wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey)]
(119) Virgil 'Gus' Grissom was sadly one of the first of the original
7 Mercury astronauts to die. He perished tragically in the Apollo 1
fire of 1967.
[ From Allan Bourdius <ab3o+@andrew.cmu.edu>]
(120) In 1958 the Great Red Aurora, which could be seen as far South as
Mexico, blacked out the whole of North-eastern Canada by overloading
the power lines.
[Beyond 2000, Book One, Intercontinental Publishing Corp. Ltd ]
(121) The Aurora Borealis, the 'Northern Dawn', is so powerful that each
year it discharges enough energy to run the whole of the United
States for 8 to 9 years.
[Beyond 2000, Book One, Intercontinental Publishing Corp. Ltd ]
(122) The 100th EVA in history (both US and Soviet, Earth Orbit and Lunar)
occurred on September 15, 1992, when Anatoli Solovyov and Sergei
Avdeyev completed their fourth EVA to install a 700kg VDU on the
Sofora Girder located on the external skin of the Kvant module.
[BIS Spaceflight, November 1992]
(123) In the process of installing the VDU on the Sofora girder, the two
cosmonauts removed what was probably the last Soviet flag still
flying, located at the top of the girder. They reported that the
flag, which had been in place since 1991, looked 'tattered'.
[BIS Spaceflight, November 1992]
(124) The androgenous docking system, called APAS, located on the Kristall
technology module, was designed to be used by reusable spacecraft
such as Buran and the US Space Shuttle. This port was first used by
Soyuz TM-16 in January 1993.
[BIS Spaceflight, May 1993]
(125) Mike Collins has written some terrific books about the spaceflight
experience. He lost the camera in Gemini 10 (and felt terrible
about it! My favourite quote of his (from Carrying the Fire):
(someone asked him what goes through his mind at 'blastoff') his
reply: "Well,you think about the fact that you are at the top of
6 million parts, all made by the lowest bidder!"
[From quagga@trystero.com aka Cheryl]
(126) The tip of the escape tower on the Saturn V/Apollo was topped by an item
called a Q-Ball made by a company called Nortronics. That's all I know
for certain. I surmise it may have been an optical retroreflector to
get an accurate position measurement at initial lift-off, but it could
have been something more exotic. Any answers would be appreciated.
[From rriemer@nas.edu]
I believe it is like an aircraft pitot tube and measures the
value of 'Q', the dynamic air pressure. (Ever heard of MAX-Q? It is
the period of ascent during which the shuttle must throttle back due
to the thickness of the air and the speed of the orbiter.)
[From jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)]
We still don't have any solid references on this one. We would
appreciate any further information on this topic.
(127) John Young is the only astronaut to have flown 6 missions.
[One of our local NSS chapter members pointed this out, and I was
wondering if it was true. Can anyone help here?]
Update July 1993:
Young is still the record-holder with 6.
Vladimir Dzhanibekov has flown 5 now. (Soyuz 27, 39, T-6, T-12, T-13).
Active astronauts with 4 flights are Gennadiy Strekalov (NPO
Energiya), Aleksandr Serebrov (NPO Energiya/Flight Engineer, Mir
Complex), Robert Gibson (NASA Chief Astronaut), Steve Nagel (NASA
Astronaut Commander), Jerry Ross (NASA Mission Specialist), Norman
Thagard (NASA Mission Specialist), Ron Grabe (NASA Astronaut Commander),
and Story Musgrave (NASA Mission Specialist).
Musgrave will make 5 this year or early next on the HST repair mission;
Thagard is heavily tipped with a chance for the US mission to Mir in
a couple of years.
[Updated by jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)]
(128) There was a much cheaper way of launching satellites, according to
McGill University experimenters in 1963. Developing an idea
proposed by Jules Verne, the McGill team used a rebored 50-foot-long
cannon from the battleship USS Washington to loft missiles to an
altitude of 65 miles.
By employing this technique to launch a Martlet rocket, the
McGill experimenters reckoned they could put a 50-pound payload
into orbit for less than the dollar equivalent of 18,000 pounds.
[Item from GUESSWORK that could have True or False. Below is answer.]
True, except that it turns out to be really hard to design a
useful payload that will survive the G-loads. I'm not sure if he was
at McGill, but the person who was involved in the project (HARP) was
a guy called Bull who was later involved in the Iraqi supergun and
ballistic missile projects and was recently killed. "Project HARP"
never put projectiles into ORBIT, just sent them to high ALTITUDES.
[Answered by jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)]
(128a) Jules Verne was not the first guy to propose shooting cannonballs
into space! There's a famous illustration in Newton's *Principia
Mathematica* showing a cannon launching satellites...
[Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey <HIGGINS@FNALV.FNAL.GOV>]
(129) A bit of trivia about Jim Lovell: He is the only US astronaut to go
twice to the moon and not land. (Apollo 8 and Apollo 13.) I guess
after Apollo13 he figured it just wasn't in the cards.
(130) The Manned orbiting Laboratory, simply a cylindrical lab attached to
a Gemini spacecraft, was to provide for 30-day missions to orbit
like the early soviet Salyut space stations. The MOL got so far as
having a mock-up launched atop a Titan IIIC rocket on November 3, 1966.
[The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology. Kenneth Gatland.]
(131) The Gemini Spacecraft, mounted on the Manned Orbiting Laboratory as
if the latter were just the upper stage of the launcher, posed some
interesting problems as to how the crew were to transfer from the
Gemini spacecraft down to the cylindrical laboratory. There were
several techniques proposed to do those, namely:-
(1) cutting a hole through the heatshield for the astronauts to pass
hrough
(2) rotating Gemini so as the side hatch was attached directly,
(3) Using an inflatable transfer tunnel or
(4) Extravehicular Activity. (EVA - spacewalk.)
The one chosen was that of cutting a hold through the heat shield,
such that the mock-up that flew in 1966 with a hatch in the heat
shield - successfully recovered in the Atlantic Ocean.
[The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology. Kenneth Gatland.]
(132) Charles Bassett and Elliott See, prime crew for Gemini 9, were
both killed in an aircraft accident on 28th February, 1966. Their
aircraft actually bounced off the building the Gemini spacecraft was
in, smashed into a carpark and exploded.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(133) Models of the Vostok space capsule, which took the world's first
man into space, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961, was tested previously as
Sputniks 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10 and was successful 3 of these times.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
Sputnik was a Western name for the early Soviet unpiloted space
satellites, known at that time in the USSR generically as
Iskusstvenniy Sputnik Zemli (Artificial Earth Satellite). The
spacecraft known in the West as Sputniks 4, 5, 6, 9 and 10 were
announced at the time in the USSR as Korabl'-Sputnik 1, 2, 3, 4
and 5. Their internal names were Vostok type 1K nos. 3, 5, 6 and
(the last two) Vostok type 3KA nos. 1 and 2. [Source: Vladimir
Agapov, Moscow]. There were two other Korabl'-Sputnik launches which
failed to reach orbit, so the success rate was 3 out of 7.
[jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)]
(134) The first orbital flight of the Mercury spacecraft, Friendship 7, was
flown by John Glenn. Unkown to Glenn, a serious problem seemed to
be developing on the ground when controllers noticed that sensors
indicated that his heat shield was loose. Mercury spacecraft had
a neat air-bag which inflated just before splash down, popping off
the heat shield in the process. Controllers to Glenn to keep his
retro-pack on during descent. The pack was held in place by straps,
and these were thought to be able to hang onto the heat shield
during re-entry!
Luckily, the effort seemed to work. Although he saw major
chunks of molten metal during re-entry he splashed-down safely.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(135) Lying in Mercury capsule Faith 7 in May 1963, astronaut Gordon
Cooper seemed the most relaxed of all the launch team. He even fell
asleep during the countdown.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(136) Pavel Belayev, of the Voskhod 2 mission in March of 1965, succumbed
to a long and serious stomach illness on January 10, 1970, becoming
the first spaceman to die of natural causes.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(137) Gordon Cooper was the first man to enter orbit twice, with a flight
on Mercury-Atlas 9 (The first Mercury-Atlas flight was no 6, with
John Glenn), and Gemini 5.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(137a) The first man in space was Gus Grissom, as he flew on
MR-4/Liberty Bell Seven in 1961 (suborbital) and on Gemini 3 in
1965. Joe Walker made suborbital spaceflights on the X-15 in 1961
and 1963, becoming the first in space twice in Jul 1963 and three
times in Aug 1963. Joe Engle made his second suborbital X-15
spaceflight a couple of weeks before Gemini V.
[The X-15 flights qualify if space is considered to start at 80 km,
although even if you adopt the FAA boundary of 100 km Walker's two
1963 flights qualify and make him beat Grissom].
[jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)]
(138) Neil Armstrong and David Scott had a close brush with death in
Gemini 8, when a short circuit in the Gemini control system resulted
in one thruster firing continuously. The spacecraft, at one stage,
was rotating at some 360 degrees per second. With the flying
bedstead incident and the 10-seconds of fuel left on Apollo 11, can
Neil Armstrong be considered a lucky man?
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(139) Lovell and Aldrin made the first observation of a solar eclipse from
space on Gemini 12, the last of the Gemini flights.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(140) As the docking of Soyuz 4 and 5 was achieved on January 16, 1969,
the Soyuz 5 crew shouted "You raped me!". They were subsequently
reprimanded for their choice of words.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(141) 3 cosmonauts were launched on Soyuz 5, and just 1 on Soyuz 4. On
landing, Soyuz 4 contained 3 and Soyuz 5 contained 4.
{At launch Soyuz 4 = Vladmir Shatalov, Soyuz 5 = Boris Volynov,
Alexei Yeliseyev and Yevgeni Khrunov.)
Yelisyev and Khronuv were yhe first men to return to Earth in a
craft other than the one in which they were launched.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(142)Geoffrey Perry and his team of schoolboys at Kettering Grammar school,
using their small amateur radio setup, were able to tell the rest of
the world the precise point of the end of Soyuz 13 a good hour
before the Soviet statement. This was at a time when the Soviets
were trying to be completely open.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(143) The first night-landing of a spacecraft came with the semi-emergency
landing of Soyuz 15 in 1974.
(I think this is so. Can anyone verify this?)
(144) Length Warning....
The joint Apollo-Soyuz mission was a success, but disaster struck
the American crew as they descended towards the recovery ship USS
New Orleans. Communications difficulties distracted Brand and he
forgot to operate the two Earth landing system switches which would
deploy the parachutes and deactivate the thursters. When the drogue
parachite did not come out, Brand manually commanded it to deploy, but
the swinging of the psacecraft caused the still-armed thrusters to
fire to correct the oscillations. Stafford noticed this and shut them
down, but by then the thrusters' nitrogen tetroxide propellant was
boiling off and entering the cabin via a pressure-relief valve. A
significant amount of the highly poisonous gas was drawn into the
capsule and the astronauts started to cough and choke. The command
module then hit the water 'like a ton of brocks' as Stafford
described it, and turned upside down. Stafford grabbed the oxygen
masks from a locker but by the time he reached Brand the command
module pilot was unconscious.
None of the astronauts was killed but the fast-acting gas had
turned their lungs white and blistered, and during their recuperation
a shadow was found on one of Slaytons Lungs. Fearing cancer, the
surgeons decided to operate but found that it was a benign tumor. Had
the shadow been found before the flight, Deke Slayton's grounding
would most probably have held over and prevented him from making any
flight at all.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(145) Deke Slayton was the only original Mercury seven astronauts not to
make a Mercury flight.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(146) The back-up spacecraft for the Apollo-Soyuz flight (Apollo 18 and
Soyuz 19) was used on the Soyuz 22 flight, with the androgynous
docking equipment replaced by a photography canister.
[Manned Spaceflight Log, Tim Furniss.]
(147) It was the British who developed the 'minimum' satellite launchers of
the 1950's. They found that a tank with hemispherical ends, but
otherwise with no structural members, when pressurised could act
as a load-bearing structure. A series of developments and
cancellations in the US finally resulted in the development of the
Atlas, with similar developments in the USSR. The astronauts
launched on the Atlas in the Mercury project commented that the
Atlas felt like a big wobbly baloon just prior to separation
from the booster in orbit.
[The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology. Kenneth Gatland.]
(148) The Gemini spacecraft needed an object to aim for in practising
rendezvous techniques necessary for the Apollo missions. They used
special Agena Docking Adaptor launched by an Atlas. The Adaptor
was essentially a modified Agena stage. The adaptor to be used
on Gemini 9 was different to the others, and unfortunately failed
to release it's nose shroud correctly, resulting in the renowned
'Angry Alligator' pictures of the two half sections of the nose
cose apart but unwilling to move any further.
[The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Space Technology. Kenneth Gatland.]
(148a) The GATV (Gemini Agena Target Vehicle) was an Agena D with a TDA
(Target Docking Adapter) on the front. But the GATV for Gemini 9
fell in the ocean on launch. It was replaced by a backup called the
ATDA (Augmented Target Docking Adapter) which was NOT a modified
Agena - it was just the TDA with a cylindrical back end to mate
it straight to the Atlas.
[jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)]
The next few items, from 149 to 160, come from the Space Shuttle
Main Engine Incredible Facts sheet put out by Rockwell
International Rocketdyne Division. This was kindly forwarded
to us by
(149) Fifty times a second, the SSME electronic controller evaluates itself
and the engine and then adjusts the engine valves to obtain peak
performance during the Shuttle Orbiter's launch and ascent.
(150) Although not much larger than an automobile engine, the SSME high-
pressure fuel turbopump generates 100 horsepower for each pound of
its weight, while an automobile generates about one-half horsepower
for each pound of its weight.
(151) Each of the 122 high-pressure fuel pump turbine blades, about the
size of a half-dollar, generates 700 horsepower while spinning
at 37,000 rpm.
(152) Rocketdyne's Space Shuttle Main Engines operate at greater temperature
extremes than any mechanical system in common use today. The fuel,
liquid hydrogen, is -423 degrees Farenheit, the second coldest liquid
on Earth, and when burned with liquid Oxygen, the temperature in the
engine's combustion chamber reaches +6000 degrees Farenheit - higher
than the boiling point of iron.
(153) The SSME high-pressure fuel turbopump main-shaft rotates at 37,000rpm
compared to about 3,000rpm for an automobile engine operating at
60mph. (roughly 110km/h)
(154) The maximum equivalent horsepower developed by the three SSME's, is
just over 37 million horsepower.
(155) If water, instead of fuel, were pumped by the three Rocketdyne Space
Shuttle Main Engines, an average family-sized swimming pool could
be drained in 25 seconds.
(156) One Rocketdyne Space Shuttle Main Engine generates enough thrust to
maintain the flight of 2.5 Boeing 747 airliners.
(157) Discharge pressure of an SSME high-pressure fuel turbo-pump could
send a column of liquid Hydrogen 180,000 feet into the air.
(158) The energy released by three of Rocketdyne's Space Shuttle Main
Engines is equivalent to the output of 23 Hoover Dams.
(159) During launch and ascent, the three SSME's empty the half-million
gallon exteranl tank in about 8.5 minutes.
(160) Even though Rocketdyne's Space Shuttle Main Engine weighs one-seventh
as much as a locomotive engine, it's high pressure fuel pump alone
delivers as much horsepower as 28 locomotives, while its high-
pressure oxidizer delivers the equivalent horsepower for 11 more.
(161) The ACTS - Adavanced Communication Technology Satellite, launched on
STS-51, will provide the largest transponder throughput ever -
1.0 gigibits per second (GBPS)
[STS-51 Payload Handbook]
(162) The space-suits worn by the original 7 Mercury astronauts were
individually tailored to each astronaut. In Schirra's words they
required "More alterations than a bridal gown."
[Life in Space, ISBN 0-8094-4900-5]
(163) The 27-year-old test pilot, Yuri Gagarin, of the Soviet Air Force,
was jumped from senior lieutenant to Major just before his
memorable Vostok flight.
[Life in Space, ISBN 0-8094-4900-5]
(164) Even though Gemini was by far a larger and more sophisticated
version of Mercury, A simplified sequencing system - and especially
the elimination of the scape tower - reduced the number of relays
from 220 in Mercury to 60 in Gemini.
[Life in Space, ISBN 0-8094-4900-5]
(165) Oddly, while everything but metal was badly burned during the tragic
Apollo 1 fire, a portion of the flight plan survived with only a few
pages singed.
[Life in Space, ISBN 0-8094-4900-5. Page 139, you can see the paper.]
(166) Each of the F-1 engines, used in the first stage of the Saturn V
Apollo moon launcher, was about as big as a two-and-a-hald-ton truck,
and used three tons of propellants a second.
[Life in Space, ISBN 0-8094-4900-5]
(167) The Saturn V absorbed the know-how and energies of 325,000 people
in 12,000 firms. As tall as a 36-story building, it had 11 engines.
The five engines that powered the first stage alone were designed to
develop 160 million horsepower, the capacity of 86 Hoover Dams.
[Life in Space, ISBN 0-8094-4900-5]
(168) The journalists recording the historic launch of Apollo 11 had to wait
some 15 seconds for the noise of the Saturn V ignition to reach them.
By that time, the rocket had already risen silently into the air.
[Life in Space, ISBN 0-8094-4900-5]
(169) When Soyuz 19 was launched in July of 1975, for the Apollo Soyuz
Test Project, the Soyuz was launched from the same pad that had
launched Sputnik some 18 years before.
[Life in Space, ISBN 0-8094-4900-5]
(170) NASA investigated at some stage the possibility of flying Columbia
unmanned so that they could remove the back-log of payloads waiting
to reach orbit. NASA had 13 old-specification SRBs in storgae at
the time. Unfortunately, this approach proved unfeasible.
[Space Flight News, September 1988.]
(171) The Mobile Service Structure (MST) at Cape Canaveral LC-40 is believed
to be the world's largest moving building. The 23 story (206 feet)
structure weighs 11.4 million pounds and can move at 50 feet/minute.
LC-40 is used to launch Titan-IV vehicles.
[gregb <gregb@tunfaire.den.mmc.com>]
(172) Sometimes even rocket technicians can overlook the obvious.
Case in point: Alan Shepard's Mercury-Redstone suborbital flight.
Because the expected duration of the flight was 15 minutes, none of
the engineers thought that Shepard would have to "relieve his
bladder" during that time. However, Shepard was strapped into the
Mercury capsule some 3 hours or so before liftoff. After a couple
of hours sitting on his back, Shepard felt the urge to go in a bad
way and asked for "permission to relieve his bladder." After some
debate, the engineers and medical team decided that it was OK for him
to pee in his spacesuit. And this is what he did.
I also suspect that NASA didn't want any negative publicity by
cancelling the launch. The newspapers would have had a field day:
(e.g. "Shepard has to pee, launch cancelled")
Starting with Gus Grissom's flight, strap on urine receptacles
were provided to the Mercury astronauts.
[Tom Wolfe, "The Right Stuff" -
from yantosca@bu-ast.bu.edu (Robert Yantosca)]
(173) Since September 1989, Mir has been occupied by cosmonauts continuously
without a break. This date would have been February 1987 except for
a break between Apr 27 and Sep 5 when Mir was left unattended for
awhile. In the future, we may look back and say that Sep 5, 1989,
was the last day that ALL of mankind was residing on Earth!
[Idea from Joe Dellinger <joe@montebello.soest.hawaii.edu> Dates and
Information from jcm@urania.harvard.edu (Jonathan McDowell)]
(174) The current shuttle flight computers are Quad redundant with a fifth
computer as a backup. They are AP-101S machines and were designed in
the mid 80's. Relatives of this computer also fly on the B-1, F-8,
AC-130 and B-52.
[Wingert@vnet.IBM.COM (Bret Wingert)]
(175) "every passing year brings the Solar System forty-three thousand
miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules-- and still there
are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing
as progress." RANSOM K. FERN
[From burt@techbook.com (Burt Keeble)]
(176) Here's another bit of trivia for you: Neil Armstrong and (I think)
David Scott were in rather a pickle during their Gemini 8 mission
when a thruster continued firing after instructed to stop, putting
the spacecraft in a spin. I believe the mission was then curtailed
because of the lack of adequate thruster propellant for on-orbit
maneuvering and re-entry positioning. Evidently American television
audiences complained at the news reports interrupting the show they
were watching with news of this real-life space drama.
The show? Star Trek.
[From quagga@trystero.com]
(177) The top age set for the intake of the new group of astronauts for
the selection of the original Mercury Seven astronauts was set
at 40. The maximum height was set at 5ft, 11in and the weight
limit was 180lb.
[We Seven - by the Astronauts Themselves, Simon and Schuster,
New York, 1962.]
(178) The first check of Military Test Pilot records revealed that 508
test pilots met the basic astronaut requirements. With suggestions
from commanding officers, this was reduced to 110. Further, with
the help of trainers and instructors, who'd brought these men up
to flight status, this was further reduced to 69. These people were
all invited to apply, but only 32 volunteered. These all went on
to undergo physical examinations and were reduced to 14. The selection
of the final 7 came at 2PM, April 9, 1959.
[We Seven - by the Astronauts Themselves, Simon and Schuster,
New York, 1962.]
(179) John Glenn was the only Mercury astronaut with Red Hair, all the
others had brown hair.
[We Seven - by the Astronauts Themselves, Simon and Schuster,
New York, 1962.]
(180) Alan Shepard was the tallest Mercury Astronaut at 5ft 11in, and
Gus Grissom the shortest at 5ft 7in.
[We Seven - by the Astronauts Themselves, Simon and Schuster,
New York, 1962.]
(181) Gordon Cooper was the Youngest Mercury astronaut at 32 years of
age at selection, and John Glenn the oldest at 37.
[We Seven - by the Astronauts Themselves, Simon and Schuster,
New York, 1962.]
(182) Alan Shepard was particular fond of Jos(233) Jim(233)nez, the
brainchild of
comedian Bill Dana. Al found Jim(233)nez brand of humour such a handy
device for relaxing the troops when tension was building up before a
flight that he once arranged for a tape of some of Jos(233)'s dialogue
to be played in the Mercury control centre during a practice run.
[We Seven - by the Astronauts Themselves, Simon and Schuster,
New York, 1962.]
(183) Alan Shepard was so fond of his white Corvette sports car that he
would often drive the 800miles from his home town to Cape Canaveral
rather than fly.
[We Seven - by the Astronauts Themselves, Simon and Schuster,
New York, 1962.]
(184) The inside of the Apollo Command Module, on lift-off of the Mighty
Saturn V on Apollo 11, was quiet enough to listen to the radio!
[LIFTOFF - By Michael Collins.]
(185) The guidance experts had to aim the Apollo spacecraft some 40 degrees
of arc ahead of where the Moon was positioned at the time of launch.
[LIFTOFF - By Michael Collins.]
(186) A small controversy erupted from the Apollo 8 and 10 flight crews
who went to the moon but never actually landed. Apollo 8 reported
that the Moon was gray, while Apollo 10 claimed it was Brown.
[LIFTOFF - By Michael Collins.]
(187) The area picked out for the landing of Apollo 11 was expected to
be smooth - but instead it was littered with boulders the size of
Volkswagons.
[LIFTOFF - By Michael Collins.]
(188) The albedo of the Earth is some 4 times greater than that of the Moon.
[LIFTOFF - By Michael Collins.]
(189) Mike Collins bet Neil Armstrong a beer that they would land in the
Ocean a splash upside-down once they hit the water. The astronauts
were required to throw a breaker that released the parachutes, but
at the moment of splash down their hands are jerked away, and the
craft slowly turned over.
[LIFTOFF - By Michael Collins.]
(190) The first message received by the Test Pilots as to their impending
call for Astronaut service went as follows:-
"You will soon receive orders to OP-05 in Wasshington in
connection with a special project. Please do not discuss the matter
with anyone or speculate on the purpose of the orders, as any prior
identification of yourself with the project might prejudice that
project.
[We Seven - by the Astronauts Themselves, Simon and Schuster,
New York, 1962.]
(191) One of the early launches of the Space Shuttle (I don't recall the
number) was "scrubbed" because one of the five onboard computers
didn't come up "in sync" with the others. The interesting thing is
that a couple of days later one of the largest solar storms ever
observed occurred (with the resulting aurora borealis being visible
as far south as Dallas, Texas). If it weren't for the computer
"glitch" that prevented the launch, the Shuttle would have had to
make an emergency landing due to the radiation levels from the storm.
[From jones%azterra@sj.ate.slb.com (Clark Jones)]
{Awaiting the finer details for this one. )
(192) Walter Schirra helped start out the Sidewinder missile program at the
Navy Ordnance Station at China Lake, California. He actually got to
fire the first sidewinder missile at a drone target to see what
would happen. Flying an F3D night fighter, right after he let the
Sidewinder loose it went a little haywire and started a loop which
would chase his plane rather than the drone. So he made a fast
loop, trying to stay behind it. It succeeded, but his flight
engineer had a bad case of the 'clanks', which is pilot talk for
the 'shakes.'
[Walter M. Schirra, We Seven, 1962]
(193) The first two Mercury spacecraft carried with them some extra
equipment to help the rescue crews find them in the ocean - a chaff
dispenser and an underwater bomb.
[Donald K. Slayton, We Seven, 1962]
(194) One of the concerns of the Mercury astronauts was to know exactly
what all the noises were as they were preparing from launch. They
could hear absolutely everything, from moving the gantries outside
to hearing the pipes creek as the fuel is loaded, the launcher
shimmies as the engines are gimballed, and the rush of water on the
pad just before ignition.
[Donald K. Slayton, We Seven, 1962]
(195) 30 seconds after the boosters of the Atlas launcher are dropped, the
launcher for the Mercury flights, the Atlas was programmed to
go into a 14 degree pitch back towards the Earth.
[Donald K. Slayton, We Seven, 1962]
(196) It was also apparent that on some occasions when the boosters dropped
away from the Atlas launch vehicle that the Mercury capsule would
be enveloped in flames for a second or tow. Something the astronauts
needed to know so that they would not panic if this happened to
them...
[Donald K. Slayton, We Seven, 1962][
(197) John Glenn, whose capsule was picked up by a destroyer while he was
still inside, tried to crawl out through the top hatch of the
Mercury capsule but found it easier to blow the hatch and come out
that way. He did this on the deck of the destroyer and in the
process badly bruised his knuckles - one of the prime pieces of
evidence that backed up Gus Grissoms story on the mysterious
hatch-blow that resulted in the loss of Gus's capsule.
[Donald K. Slayton, We Seven, 1962]
(198) Scott Carpenter, remembering that Gus Grissom lost his capsule when
his side hatch blew, and that John glenn got hot staying inside his
capsule, elected to go out through the top hatch and take his life
raft with him. With perhaps the thinnest hips of the group, he
found it fairly easy.
[Donald K. Slayton, We Seven, 1962]
(199) A survival knife was specifically contracted for the Mercury
astronauts. They each had their own, but another was taped to the
hatch on some of the flights. It was one of the strongets knives
ever made, being hand forged and hand tempered from high grade
Swedish steel that was so sturdy that it could be used like a
chisel to cut through bolts.
[Goodon Coo[er Jr, We Seven, 1962]
(200) Al Shepards Mercury Capsule was the only capsule not to have a
window through which he could admire the images of his home planet..
[Goodon Coo[er Jr, We Seven, 1962]
(201) Since the body tissue of pigs is very similar to that of humans,
they strapped a live pig in a special contour couch - made the
same way as the special moulded couches for the astronauts, to
prove that the moulded couch would enable the astronauts to withstand
higher impact G-loads when hitting the water than if they had a
normal, cushioned couch.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(202) One of the simplest tools that the Mercury astronauts took with them
on their flights was a little rod known as a 'Swizzle Stick'. It
was used basically as an extension of their fingers if they had to
pressurise their suits and couldn't reahc one of the switches...
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(203) The highest G-load experienced by a human was when a Navy Lieutenant
by the name of Carter Collins tested his own speciallu moulded
Mercury couch, taking a load of 20.4G's for six seconds. The doctors
who examined him revealed that some tiny blood vessels under the
surface of the skin had ruptured, but that this was not a serious
injury and did Collins no serious harm.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(Can anyone check on the 'Highest load' statement, I mean that was
30 years ago!]
(204) The gloves for the Mercury astronaut space suits were woven in a
special way. Nearly all the fingers were woven curved, so that the
astronauts to grasp things even when the suit was pressurised,
except the middle finger on the left hand, which was woven straight
so that the astronauts could still get at the little recessed buttons
on the control panel.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(205) The Mercury astronauts discovered that the helmets that they wore
fitted best when they had a five-day-old haircut. John Glen
refined this a bit and had his hair trimmed every three days before
his flight.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(206) Deke Slayton's spacesuit was the only one made different due to one
small complaint. They changed one of the zippers to one side, and
split it into two separate zippers becasue it pressed right against
Deke's ADam's apple and was afraid that it might be rather painful
for him on the flight.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(207) The atsronauts had a name for the two different types of G-forces
they experienced whilst training on their large centrifuge. When
thrust back into their sieat, they called it Eyeballs in, and when
thrust out of their seat, with a negative G-force, they called
it, appropriately, eyeballs out.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(208) The main way the pilots could generate a zero-gravity environment
was to go in a high parabolic flight. The way in which they kept the
zero-gravity stable was to ignore the instruments and watch a little
bright orange golf-ball on the end of a short nylon tether. They had
to try and keep the golf-ball right in front of their face...
[Scott Carpenter, We Seven, 1962.]
(209) The Space Suit for the Mercury astronauts had a special neck-seal
that they would use only if they were planning to dive into the
ocean once they had returned. The seal prevented water from entering
the suit through the helmet-ring and cause the astronaut to sink.
[Alan Shepard, We Seven, 1962.]
(210) The most dramatic failure of the Mercury program came in the testing
stages when a Redstone and mock-up capsule were ready for launch. At
"zero", the Redstone engines started and shut down straight away. In
a fraction of a second the escape tower mounted on top of the capsule
took off in a rush of flame, a parachute came out of the canister
where the tower had stood, and another parachute came out again in
quick succession.
It had turned out that the Mercury capsule had coped with the
Redstone failure precisely, as the escape tower took off because of
the lack of G-forces, and the parachute came out due to the
altimeter detecting that it was below the poitn where it should
have been activated on descent...
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(211) The Mercury capsule, in the episode in item 210 above, began emitting
the radio tracking signal like it should, and the two Navy P2V
tracking planes 120miles away detected the beacon and started to
home in on the launch pad.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(212) Ham, the Monkey that tested the Mercury capsule out for the
astronauts, himself did not have an uneventful flight. First of
all, an oxygen valve had jiggled loose during launch, nd kept the
interior of the capsuel form pressuriZing. Fortunately the chamber
that enclosed HAM worked fine and it kept him sealed up and safe
during the flight. Also, the Redstone booster gave him an extra
1000 mph of speed. The escape tower detected th9is and gave him a
further 800mph. As a result the capsule went 130miles further
down range than it was supposed to.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(213) On the Morning of Alan Shepard's launch, the doctors noted that the
nail on the 4th toe of his left foot was coming loose because
someone had accidentally stepped on him, and he was peeling
slightly from a recent sunburn.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(214) John Glenn left a little note for Alan Shepard in the Mercury capsule
for when Alan would enter to make his flight. It said "No handball
Playing in this area."
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(215) The lanyard they used on the hatches of the Mercury capsule to
detonate the explosive bolts was only 42 inches long. But the
explosive charges were enough to through the capsule hatch a
distance of 20 feet. The solution was to use some soft iron coils
which linked the hatch to the capsule sill.
[Virgil Grissom, We Seven, 1962.]
(216) The capsule clock for the 2nd Merucry spacecraft suborbital flight
actually rusted out, requiring a replacement quite rapidly even
though there were practiaclly no clocks anywhere to be found.
[Virgil Grissom, We Seven, 1962.]
(217) A crack was painted on the side of the Liberty Bell 7, the capsule
for Gus Grissom's flight. many people joked that it was the crack
the caused the capsule to sink after the flight...
[Virgil Grissom, We Seven, 1962.]
(218) During reentry the capsule would slow from 17,500 mph to 270 mph and
reach a temperature of 9.500 degrees Farenheit - close to the
temperature of the sun.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(219) The speed of the Mercury capsule meant that the astronauts would
experience sunrise and sunset some 18 times quicker than we do
on the surface.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(220) It was of no concern to John Glenn that his capsule was designated
as number 13...
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(221) The flotation collar, installed on the outside of the Mercury
capsule by frogmen after splash-down, was first used on the
third mercury flight, the first orbital flight, of John glenn.
[Malcolm Scott Carpenter, We Seven, 1962.]
(222) The Mercury controllers initially insisted that should the astronauts
lose voice contact with the ground that they shoud immediately
abort the flight. The astronauts argued this point when they proved
that they could communicate with the ground almost as effectively
using morse code.
[Malcom Scott Carpenter, We Seven, 1962.]
(223) It was initially disconcerting for John Glenn, siiting 74 feet above
ground on the Atlas booster. It would sway slightly in a heavy gust
of wind. In fact, he stated he was able to set the whole structure
rocking himself, just be moving back and forth in the couch.
{John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(224) One Mercury test flight resulted in the Atlas booster exploding
during the period of maximum aerodynamic pressure, but the Mercury
escape tower system worked just fine and the capsule came down in
such fine condition that the engineers were able to use it again
on another test flight.
Is this the first instance of reusability?
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(225) A special instrmument was developed for the Mercury flights called
an EXTINCTIONSPECTROPHOTOPOLERISCOPEOCCULOGRAVOGYROKYNETOMETER, but
was called 'Voas meter' for short after Dr Robert Voas who developed
it.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(226) Just 24 seconds before John Glenn made a transmission saying that he
felt sections of his retro-packet breaking away during re-entry,
Al Shepard had started to recommend to Glenn that he jettison the
retro-pack as soon as the G's build up to 1 or 1.5. Glenn did not
receive the message, however. The communication black-out had
already set in.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(227) The men aboard the Noa were so pleased that it was their ship that
and not the aircraft carrier that had picked John Glenn and his
capsule out of the water that they amde him a honorary member of the
crew and presented him with a fifteen-dollar chack as the February
winner of the 'Sailor of the Month" contest. He then endorsed the
check over to the ship's welfare fund.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(228) After the Mercury flight, John Glenn was asked to walk on a straight
rail laid on the floor in order to check his balance. Colonel Chuck
Yeager, the famous test pilot who first broke the sound barrier,
suggested later that this test only proved that John Glenn had been
brought up near some railroad tracks.
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(229) One of the forms that John Glenn was required to fill out after the
flight asked the question "Was there any unusual activity during
this period?" to which Glenn answere "No, just a normal day in space."
[John Glenn, We Seven, 1962.]
(230) Poker Flat is the only university-owned sounding rocket range in the
world. The 5,200-acre facility is located about 35 miles from UAF's
main campus in Fairbanks. The range launched its first rocket in 1969.
[From NSMCA@acad3.alaska.edu]
(231) When the DCX made it's inaugural hop on (date ?) in 1993, it's
touchdown was only 6 inches away from the predicted target.
[sci.space, August 1993]
(232) While watching the cameras for the launch, we were watching the
Beanie cap (the cap on the top of the ET (External Tank). When it
lifted in term count, it revealed a salamander underneath it. Upon
seeing the sun, it scurried into the ET GO2 vents (at the very top
of the ET), and a couple of minutes later the shuttle lifted off. I
am sure it was quite a ride until the atmosphere ran out...
[From HOLLIS@TITAN.KSC.NASA.GOV]
(233) In 1991 Dr. Helen Sharman became Britain's first person in space,
spending eight days on board Russia's MIR space station, conducting
a range of experiments and other work.
Selected from over 13,000 applicants, after listening and
responding to a radio advertisement, Helen spent 18 months in
training for the Juno mission. A Chemical Engineer by profession,
Helen Sharman is considered a role model by anybody who strives
for achievement, values, training, relies on teamwork, and
believes that the sky is the limit !
[From charles.radley@pcohio.com (Charles Radley)]
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* *
* SPACE RUMOURS - Interesting Rumours - True or Popular - that have *
* surfaced from anywhere around the globe concerning *
* space topics. *
* *
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(1) Grissom had a reputation for speaking Army Creole. Lines like
"F***ing A, Well Told, Bubba". It was a factor in the vote for
Sheperd being the first man up. The other astronauts were kind of
concerned about Grissoms First words.
(2) Weightless intercourse - "Sex in Space" - is said to have been
accomplished in both the US and Soviet/Russian Space programs. This
has been said to have happened not once but as much as 7 times!
[The Three Dolphin Club, G Harry Stine, Analog Science Fiction/
Science Fact.]
(3) In terms of complexity, it is interesting to gain a comparison of the
Shuttle and Apollo systems. It has been estimated that the whole
Service Module is only the equivalent of each one of the Orbital
Maneouvering Systems on the rear of each orbiter.
(4) In 1969, when Donald Buchanan - KSC's chief of engineering - travelled
to London to accept the Diamond Jubilee trophy of the Royal
Automobile Club for "The Outstanding Contribution on the field of
Automotive Transport", he carried with him a small scale model of
the crawler vehicle (He was accepting the award because of the Crawler
Trans-porter). On seeing the model in Buchanan's suitcase, the
customs officier on duty at the airport - obviously unaware of the
real-life crawler - earnestly enquired if he was a travelling
salesman selling farm machinery!
(5) Von Braun was one of the most far-sighted men in human history. The
rocket he designed for the V-2 worked perfectly, he told a friend
when the first V-2's hit London, except that they landed on the
wrong planet!
[Life in Space, ISBN 0-8094-4900-5]
(6) Gemini 3's lift-off was reportedly so smooth that neither of the
astronauts felt anything - the starting of the mission clock
on the instrument panel alerted them.
[Life in Space, ISBN 0-8094-4900-5]
(7) One of the CapCom's during the recovery of (I think) Apollo 15 said
(roughly): "we can bring these things down in Clear Lake if we want".
[aws@iti.org (Allen W. Sherzer)]
(8) I think it was an interview with Sally Ride when someone asked her
about the underclothes that she wears in space. She said that she did
not bother wearing a bra in space!
[From wepaim@itwol.bhp.com.au (Mark Paine)]
(9) There is also another story of the original white ET's. Apparently the
white (for some reason only white and not the current brown / orange
ones) attracted woodpeckers. They LOVED the tank, and they loved
pecking on it. Probably not a bright idea, but since they are birds...
[From HOLLIS@TITAN.KSC.NASA.GOV]
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* *
* PURE GUESSWORK - Items that are awaiting verification for *
* placement into either rumour or fact trivia. *
* *
* *
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(1) It seems that after STS-1 got in orbit, one of the astronauts was eager
to try out the (older, also expensive) toilet. I think it was Crippen.
Apparently all John Young heard was this "Whoosh AHHHHHH!!!!!".
There is a fan in it to suck down the contents. Apparently the
fan was verified to be working correctly (i.e. it spun up) but nobody
ever checked to see if it sucked or blew...
[From HOLLIS@TITAN.KSC.NASA.GOV]
(2) When trying to find a way to keep the water out of the parachute
compartment after splashdown, scientists ended up using a product
from a drug store. I saw this on a space travel special. The story
goes something like one of the project scientists sons was up with a
cold. So, the scientist mixed up a cold remedy gel (added water to a
powder) for his son late one night. This gave him the idea. When
itemizing the inventory for the project budget, they used the drug
store product code and used a backwards spelling of the product name.
Of course, they adapted it a bit for the spacecraft, but the same
principle of this gel was used.
[mark.blevis@qmail.dgrc.doc.ca]
(3) Supposedly, one shuttle launch was delayed due to a rare bird nesting
in the launch pad gantry. Does anyone know if this is true and if so
which launch ? (According to the guide on a KSC coach tour -
probably not the most reliable of sources 8-})
[Mark Grant <mark@isltd.insignia.com>]
The next three were from a TRUE or FALSE quizz in Space Flight News April
1989 issue. The answers weren't published (as far as I can find) so
I am including the items here so that someone else can tell us which
are true and which are false.
(4) The Demise of Blue Streak and ELDO put paid to plans laid in 1968 to
launch leeches - 'the world's most ideal space travellers' - on an
extended flight.
"Give them a bloody meal before they go, and they'll need
nothing for a year-and-a-half!" was how one scientist characterized
the suitability of leeches for space travel. Posing no feeding or
waste disposal problems, leeches might even breed en-route -
providing researchers with a useful insight into the genetic side-
effects induced by exposure to radiation in space.
(5) In some respects, Neil Armstrong was fortunate to become the first
Moonwalker. In 1963, his place in the history books was under seige
from a chimpanzee named Howard!
After just one year of study at the US Space School, Howard
had broken the world's land speed record in a rocket propelled
sled, and had been banned from playing noughts-and-crosses with
visitors because he usually won!
The chances are that if a monkey had been selected to fly to
the Moon instead of a man, it would have been Howard.
(6) Under the direction of NASA's Ames Research Center in California, a
study was conducted into the viability of employing a 'vacuum cleaner'
type device in Low-Earth orbit to collect some of the particles of
Moonrock (tectites) that are dislodged from the lunar surface by
annual meteorite showers and sometimes find their way to the
Earth's surface.
Collected in orbit and returned to Earth by parachute, samples
gathered in this way would be free from the contamination caused by
passage through the Earth's atmosphere.
(7) In reference ot item 64 in the trivia list, Is the reason given true?
1978-1986 the rumor was that if ejected at 100 Kft then you would drift
up to 200 Kft before falling back. During the fall, the aero heating
would become so intense that helmet melting would be likely. I'd love
to know real reason the 100Kft limit was enacted.
[from rlove@raptor.rmnug.org]
(8) One of my favorite stories (though you should probably check out the
veracity of it) is in regards to the Apollo program. Several of the
early launches were on Little Joe II rockets, which were solid fuel
boosters, and were designed mainly to test the escape tower system.
The Little Joe II rocket was described by one NASA official as being
"the most reliable booster we've ever built". On the last such flight,
the fuel charge in the Little Joe II shattered several seconds before
the scheduled test of the escape tower, creating a true emergency for
the escape tower to handle (the escape tower worked perfectly). The
Little Joe II launches, by the way, took place at White Sands Missle
range.
[jones%azterra@sj.ate.slb.com (Clark Jones)]
(9) Is there any truth to the rumor that Dick Nixon ordered all plans for
the Saturn V destroyed so that they wouldn't fall into the hands of
the Soviets?
[jones%azterra@sj.ate.slb.com (Clark Jones)]
(10) At one time, the Gemini space craft was going to land on land rather
than on water, with a rather bizzare inflatible "hang-glider" instead
of parachutes. (I remember having a NASA publication when I was a
kid that had drawings of this configuration. It even showed the
storage compartment for the inflatible wing running between the two
hatches.)
[jones%azterra@sj.ate.slb.com (Clark Jones)]
(Can anyone come up with some sources for backing up/refuting the last
three items?)
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* *
* Trivia List Submission Policies and Guidelines *
* *
*****************************************************************************
*****************************************************************************
The policies dictating what should be included in this file are
subject to change at any notice, but will hopefully remain solid around the
following short guidelines:-
(1) Comparisons of Space Hardware to common concepts or everyday
objects. (eg the list of interesting facts on the strength
and capabilities of the Space Shuttle Main Engines)
(2) Similar to No.1, comparisons of modern hardware to older hardware
(eg how a Mercury capsule could fit inside the engine shroud
of the F-1 engines on the Saturn V)
(3) Plans of what different space agencies were once planning but
have since cancelled.
(4) Stories of lost opportunities from funding cuts.
(5) Personal accounts of what 'Human Space Travellers' (Cosmonauts,
Astronauts, Euronauts etc) have said or done that are
suprising, astounding or otherwise interesting in some way.
(6) Miscellaneous pieces of trivia with a sufficiently high interest
quotient. (ie, something likely to lift the eyebrows of
perhaps just a few people and warrant a real 'Oh WOW, I
didn't know that!'.
(7) Rumours of a justifiable nature. This will need a separate
section to be included in the list (To be set aside from
trivia FACTS).
Policy on excessive rumours and untruths:-
As it is planned for this list to be updated regularly, additions to
this file will hopefully come at a regular rate. Posting to newsgroups
sci.space, sci.space.shuttle, sci.astro and perhaps the new space group of
the ham.radio collection of groups will hopefully arouse enough regular
interest to keep this list growing.
Additions will then undergo minor scrutiny before inclusion in the
list. If the moderator or any other person on the net have any reason to
believe that a certain item of trivia may be false, then the item will be
included in an 'Un-justified' group in this list. The owner of the
information may then be asked to include some sort of evidence of information
- whether it be references to works of other people, or working-out from
scratch - then this will be investigated to determine whether the item has
been doctored in any way.
We hope to have our facts as found on record in at least one place
around the globe, and our rumours as heard by at least a number of people.
*****************************************************************************
* Submissions: *
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For these reasons, we have a rough guideline for the format of
submissions to this list, namely:-
(1) In the subject header for the message, please include somewhere
'Submission for Trivia List'. You may include a brief title or whatever
if you can squash it in. No need for a summary unless you are just
accustomed to doing them.
(2) FACTS: Please include some source information for your
information. This sort of thing usually depends on the circumstance. Cost
comparisons etc would prefer sources for values, Size comparisons would
prefer measurements and where they were quoted from etc. If the trivia
isn't yours, then let us know from where it came.
(3) RUMOURS: It is hard to justify this one, but let us know if
it is complete hear-say or if it is based on some report issued by
whatever agency on the efficiency of whatever you think appropriate. Just
give us some background - if you could.
It's not like we'll be critical or anything - beggars can't be
choosers - but it would help in the final organisation of everything if
these simple guides were included.
We'd like to include that, if the work gets hard, we'll issue a
semi-formal-submission-format so that we can semi-automate the process.
*****************************************************************************
* UPDATE LOG: *
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28/6/93 - Started the list for the first time, created the initial policy
guidelines and posted the request for more trivia information
to newsgroups sci.space, sci.space.shuttle, sci.astro and
rec.radio.amateur.space. (It may prove necessary to remove
this last group from the list if any of their group mentions
that it is an inappropriate item for their group. The initial
posting is to perhaps include some interesting trivia from
their own personal experience, so for the moment it is to be
included. )
Only items so far included are those from the Trivia Section of the
'Newcastle Space Fronter Society Update' - a privately
distributed newsletter of the Newcastle chapter of the
National Space Society of Australia, the Australian Network
of Chapters of the National Space Society. (That's a lot to
get down into one paragraph!)
17/7/93 - Changed the layout of the List by basically inverting the
submission information - from top to bottom to make it
better to read. Also, have received suggestions of posting
only an updated list, but rather I think I'll include a list
of changes in the first few lines, and people can still
read through the rest if they've never seen it before.
Included new ones from Shuttle by Nigel MacKnight, and
also from the BIS Spaceflight Magazine.
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Luke Plaizier - Entomological Toxophilist Extraordinaire
Editor - Newcastle Space Frontier Society UPDATE
Moderator - SPACE TRIVIA LIST
lukpla@scorch.apana.org.au
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