SuomiKaataa2

Mercury, Gemini, Apollo programs vs. Vostok,  Voskhod, Soyuz programs, first part of the Space Race in article  The Space Race, part 1 , Short summary of lunar program . The Space Race 1957-1975 The most interesting time occurred during the Space Race between 1957 and 1975. The periods can be divided into approximately three US/Soviet pairs: Mercury ( Mercury project )/Vostok , Gemini ( Gemini project )/Voskhod, and Apollo ( Apollo program )/Soyuz. (see also Apollo-soyuz test project , Yuri Gagarin , Soviet lunar program ). Vostok program was Soviet human space project to put humans into low Earth orbit. It took 6 missions to space in between 1961 and 1963. I will come back to the project separately. Vostok 1 first man in space: Yuri Gagarin 12 April 1961 ( Yuri Gagarin ) Vostok 2 first manned mission lasting full day: Gherman Titov 6 August 1961 Vostok 3 first simultaneous flights of two spacecraft: Andriyan  Nikolayev 11 August 1962 Vostok 4 ...

The Space race means competition between the Soviet Union and Unites States for the dominance in the space during the Cold war. The race began as a result of tension between the nations following the Second World War. We can say that the real Space race began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to US announcing about launching the satellite in the near future. But to be really correct we have to go in history slightly back. During the Second World war Nazi Germans built operational ballistic missiles able of sub orbital flight. Von Braun was technical director of that ballistic missile program. They built Aggregate-4 (A4) rocket, which was the first craft reaching the outer space during the test flight in 1942. By 1942 they started to built the rocket as Vergeltungswaffe 2, commonly known as V2. After the war V2 became the model of the American and Soviet rockets. For short summary of Lunar programs see the a rticle  Short summary of lunar program .  Sp...

The three astronauts of historical mission Apollo 8 Jim Lovell was Command Module Pilot and later Commander of also memorable mission Apollo 13. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio on March 25, 1928. He is of Czech descent after his mother. His father died in a car accident when he was only 12. As a child he was interested in rocketry. He attended the University of Wisconsin Madison for two years. He applied to NAVY in the fall 1948 and served as a pilot. He attended Annapolis for four years and graduated as an Ensign and B.S. degree in 1952.  He served in the Korean war before becoming NAVY test pilot. He became a NASA astronaut in 1962. During his 4 flights he spent in the space almost 30 days. He was record holder in days spending in the space between 1966 and 1973. Gemini 7 (December 4, 1965 - December 18, 1965) Gemini 12 (November 11, 1966 - November 15, 1966) Apollo 8 (December 21, 1968 - December 27, 1968) Apollo 13 (April 11, 1970 - April 17, 1970) In popular m...

Apollo 8 was the second manned mission in the U.S. Apollo program, and the first manned mission to leave Earth's orbit, reaching the Earth's Moon and return safely to the Earth. The crew members were the first ever to leave the low Earth orbit. They also for the first time saw Earth as the whole planet. The most popular picture of Earth comes from this mission, see below. Commander of the flight was Frank F. Borman , Comand Module Pilot was James A. "Jim" Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot was William A. Anders . Another adventure for Jim Lovell :-). The backup crew was generally rotation of future Apollo 11, except the order (commander N.A. Armstrong and Comand Module Pilot E.E. "Buzz" Aldrin) and Lunar Module Pilot Fred W. Haise, who was put on the back up of Apollo 11. Crew members from the left to the right: Lovell, Anders, Borman. Originally the aim of the mission was Lunar Module/Command Module test flight in the elliptical medium Eart...

Yuri Gagarin's orbital space flight: I have never read more conspiracy theories than about him and his flight. Gagarin in Helsinki 1961 He was born on March 9, 1934 and has died in the air accident on March 27, 1968 . He was the first human being to travel into the Earth's orbit on Vostok 1 spacecraft making single orbit on April 12, 1961. Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space less than a month later, which made the space race so tight. It would be also good to mention that the Gagarin's flight helped NASA to shape the decision of putting a human being on the Moon. Sometimes being second is the best motivation to get better next time!  Gagarin was chosen together with other 19 pilots for the Soviet space program. He was selected for the training group known as the Sochi Six. For the first launch were chosen Gagarin and Gherman Titov. Vostok 3KA cockpit was quite small and both of them were relatively short, Gagarin measured only 1.5...

Vladimir Remek was born on September 1948 in Czechoslovakia. He is currently a Czech politician and diplomat and former military pilot. He became the first cosmonaut aboard Soviet Soyuz 28 from a country different than Soviet Union or United States on March 2-10, 1978.  Remek joined the Intercosmos program in 1976. His backup was Oldřich Pelčák. The Soviet cosmonaut was A. Gubarev. They have docked with space station Salyut 6. Cosmonauts accomplished scientific experiments and spent over 7 days in space.  There was a joke which was reflecting a bit the atmosphere behind it: "Why didn't Soviets send up two Czechoslovak cosmonauts? Because they would have landed in West Germany." Remek was joking himself that his Soviet colleague would slap his hand off the controls if he would touch anything without the permission. French astronaut Jean-Loup Chretien experienced the same in 1988.

I wanted to write about Apollo 1, but I am not able .. I was thinking that the best for me to leave this blank ... Left to right: White, Grissom, Chaffee

Despite the fact that Apollo 13 is my favourite mission, it is not so easy to write about it. I want that this would be very special article. Apollo 13 was called successful failure by J. Lovell, Commander of the mission. It reflects all I like about it: an amazing response on unexpected situation in the space. But let's start from the beginning. Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in Apollo space program and it was supposed to be the third mission to land on the Moon. The rocket was launched on April 11, 1970, Pad 39-A, rocket Saturn V. The mission was commanded by James A. Lovell with John L. Swigert as Command Module Pilot and Fred W. Haise as Lunar Module Pilot. Originally Command Module Pilot was supposed to be Ken Mattingly, who was unfortunately grounded due to exposure to German measles. The plan for the Apollo 13 mission was to explore Fra Mauro formation, which was accomplished by the next mission Apollo 14. The mission started according to plans, howeve...

Let's talk about the Lunar vehicles . Lunar roving vehicle or simply lunar rover was generally designed to move on the Lunar surface. Some rovers were design to move astronauts on the surface such as rover in Apollo program, other were designed as a moving robots, such as Soviet Lunokhod or Chinese Yutu. Lunokhod 1 was the first rover on the lunar surface landing on November 1970 (Luna 17, lifted by the rocket Proton-K) after the first unsuccessful mission Lunokhod 1A (0) in 1969. Rover was working for 11 month. Lunokhod was remote controlled robot. The rover worked during the lunar day, stopping for charging the batteries via the solar panels. Rover hibernated during the lunar night. The internal components were heated by radioisotope heater unit to keep operational temperature. The rover consisted of TV cameras, spectrometer, X-ray telescope, radiation detector, and extendable devices to get the lunar soil. The weight of the rover was 840 kg and was 135 cm high. Apollo...

Skylab was the U.S. space station orbiting the Earth between 1973 and 1979. It was launched unmanned by Saturn V rocket, which was its last mission. Skylab consisted of a workshop, a solar observatory, and systems for crew and scientific experiments. There were all together 3 missions, delivering 3 astronauts to the station, carried in Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) launched by the Saturn IB rocket which was smaller than Saturn V rocket. For the final two missions to Skylab was prepared backup CSM/Saturn IB but never used. What is really interesting, that the station was actually damaged during the launch by the micrometeoroid. It took away one of the main solar panel arrays away and jammed other solar panels that they couldn't be deploy. This deprived station of most of its electrical power. Also the protection from the solar heating was removed. The first crew was able to repair and save the station which made the mission outstanding by achieving for the first time such ...

Apollo Soyuz Test Project or Soyuz Apollo Project, as you wish, or where you come from, or what you are used to it, was the first joint U.S. Soviet space flight in July 1975.  ASTP On June 7, 1971 Soviet Union launched the first piloted orbital station Salyut 1. Meanwhile the U.S. launched Apollo 14.  By April 1974 both sides signed an Agreement Concerned Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for Peaceful Purposes, and committed to launch Apollo–Soyuz Test Project in 1975. The joint crew consisted of 3 Apollo astronauts and 2 Soyuz cosmonauts: Commander was Thomas P. Stafford  Command module Pilot was Vance D. Brand  Docking Module Pilot was Donald K. "Deke" Slayton Backup crew was Alan Bean, Ronald E. Evans, Jack R. Lousma Commander was Alexey Leonov Flight Engineer Valeri Kubasov Backup crew was Anatoly Filipchenko, Nikolay Rukavishnikov The project aimed docking of Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) with Soyuz 7K-TM. ...

Let's try to put it together the first amazing Moon race (let's say up to 1976), before I will continue to browse other fascinating topics. The really first note we have got in the article History of the solar wind , but the actual real success was the first flyby achieved by Soviet  Luna 1.  Soviet lunar program consisted of Luna and Zond projects. They were unmanned programs mostly to orbit or impact the Moon. Luna 9 achieved the first soft landing on the Moon.  The early missions of  Pioneer program was the first American unmanned mission directed to the Moon. That missions were followed by Ranger program impacting the Moon. The next project was  Surveyor program , which was the first project to achieve soft landings and were important for Apollo program to map the surface for landings. The first man in space on the orbital flight was the Soviet cosmonaut Jurij Gagarin (on April 21, 1961) . And the first one day long space flight was achieved by So...

Project Gemini was the second American human spaceflight program, following Mercury program. Gemini started in 1961 and ended by 1966. The crew consisted of two astronauts. Generally the main aim of the projects was to develop the space techniques to help to land the astronauts on the Moon. NASA While the Apollo program was chartered on May 25, 1961 it became clear that Mercury program should be followed by another program to develop spaceflight capability to support Apollo program. The program was named Gemini, coming from Latin name for twins, which was reflecting that space flight was designed for 2 astronauts onboard. Among main objectives of the mission belong to show endurance of humans during longer time of the space flight required for the Moon landing between 8 and 14 days, to perform space walks and tasks there, and to demonstrate docking with another vehicle in space. Each flight had a primary crew and backup crew. The backup crew came to primary crew three flights...