ISS-104-Soyuz records

Once Soyuz launches, the 12 people in space simo
will be one short of the record of 13 [extra credit -- when
how many times?], but I suspect it WILL be a
record for largest number of space travelers of
different national origin simo -- six. Yuh think?

Jim Oberg wrote:
Once Soyuz launches, the 12 people in space simo
will be one short of the record of 13 [extra credit -- when
how many times?], but I suspect it WILL be a
record for largest number of space travelers of
different national origin simo -- six. Yuh think?

Shh! You're just encouraging the NASA PAO to return to promotion of
stunts over actual accomplishment.

Oh, that would be STS-82/Discovery, Mir, Soyuz TM-24, Soyuz TM-25 USA,
Russia, Germany in 1997 and STS-89/Endeavour, MIR, Soyuz TM-26, Soyuz
TM-27 (USA, Russia, Kazakhstan, France) in 1998.

This time, we have crew from USA, Russia, Germany, Canada, and ....?

--
Dave Michelson

On Mon, 11 Sep 2006 13:48:51 GMT, Dave Michelson
wrote:

Shh! You're just encouraging the NASA PAO to return to promotion of
stunts over actual accomplishment.

...HAH! As if *that's* going to happen. Remember, this is the same type
of PAO mentality in charge over there that a) wouldn't allow
commanders to name their spacecraft until A9 flew, b) refused to give
the Mars Rovers names that were marketable. To be honest, I'm
surprised the idiots haven't demanded that the New Horizons
instruments haven't been given names suggested by retarded brats at
some elementary school for the "giftfully challenged".

OM
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How about Viktorenko, Kondakova, and Polyakov on Mir,
joined March 14, 1995, by Dezhurov, Strekalov, and Thagard
(Soyuz TM-21), while STS-67 (Astro-2) was in orbit
March 2-18, with Oswald, Gregory, Jernigan, Grunsfeld,
Lawrence, Parise, and Durrance?

"Dave Michelson" wrote in message
news:7PdNg.543321$IK3.371611@pd7tw1no...
Jim Oberg wrote:
Once Soyuz launches, the 12 people in space simo
will be one short of the record of 13 [extra credit -- when
how many times?], but I suspect it WILL be a
record for largest number of space travelers of
different national origin simo -- six. Yuh think?

Shh! You're just encouraging the NASA PAO to return to promotion of
stunts over actual accomplishment.

Oh, that would be STS-82/Discovery, Mir, Soyuz TM-24, Soyuz TM-25 USA,
Russia, Germany in 1997 and STS-89/Endeavour, MIR, Soyuz TM-26, Soyuz
TM-27 (USA, Russia, Kazakhstan, France) in 1998.

This time, we have crew from USA, Russia, Germany, Canada, and ....?

--
Dave Michelson

Danny Dot wrote:

"Dave Michelson" wrote in message
news:7PdNg.543321$IK3.371611@pd7tw1no...
Jim Oberg wrote:
Once Soyuz launches, the 12 people in space simo
will be one short of the record of 13 [extra credit -- when
how many times?], but I suspect it WILL be a
record for largest number of space travelers of
different national origin simo -- six. Yuh think?

Shh! You're just encouraging the NASA PAO to return to promotion of
stunts over actual accomplishment.

Oh, that would be STS-82/Discovery, Mir, Soyuz TM-24, Soyuz TM-25 USA,
Russia, Germany in 1997 and STS-89/Endeavour, MIR, Soyuz TM-26, Soyuz
TM-27 (USA, Russia, Kazakhstan, France) in 1998.


The "stunt" issue is HUGE in the early Russian space program. Most of what
they did was a stunt to beat us. And they were GREAT at this.
1. First satillite in orbit
2. First man in space
3. First woman in space
4. First more than one man (they sent 3 just to send a message)
5. First space walk

All stunts to beat us. I really respect them for this actually. There
objective was to beat us -- and they did. If their "big ass booster" had
worked I think they would have put a man on the moon before us. But their
"big ass booster" kept blowing up on ascent. The rest is history.

P.S. Apollo 8 was actually a stunt for us to send men around the moon. Not
well known is the Russians were very close to having a Soyuz send a man
around the moon (it was called Zond). At the last minute we changed Apollo
8 from Low Earth Orbit to around the moon because we knew they were close to
sending a man to the moon (around the moon) before us.

Danny Dot
www.mobbinggonemad.org

In article ,
Danny Dot wrote:
objective was to beat us -- and they did. If their "big ass booster" had
worked I think they would have put a man on the moon before us...

No, even if the N1 had worked well, they were far enough behind that their
only real chance was for Apollo to stumble and be delayed a bit. Which
was not a totally unrealistic hope, but in the end it didn't happen. See,
in particular, Siddiqi's "Challenge to Apollo" for the details (which are
much better understood now than they were 15 years ago).

P.S. Apollo 8 was actually a stunt for us to send men around the moon. Not
well known is the Russians were very close to having a Soyuz send a man
around the moon (it was called Zond).

You need to read some more-recent books, like the Siddiqi one. The US
*thought* the Soviets were very close to doing a manned Zond, but in
fact they weren't.

The Soviet criteria for manned flights were actually more rigorous than
the US ones -- they wanted to see two full successes of unmanned flights
before going manned. (Manning Apollo 8 at all, after the Apollo 6 mess,
was a very bold step indeed.) And the Zond tests were not nearly as
successful as they looked from outside; in particular, the Soviets made
much of the photographs taken by Zond 6, without mentioning that the
film was salvaged, with great difficulty and some danger, from the
smashed wreckage of the Zond capsule. Zond 7, which flew three weeks
after Apollo 11, was the first fully successful Zond... by which time,
nobody cared.

At the last minute we changed Apollo 8
from Low Earth Orbit to around the moon because we knew they were close to
sending a man to the moon (around the moon) before us.

It wasn't "last minute" -- preparation for it was underway in mid-August,
but the change was tentative and highly confidential until after Apollo 7
flew successfully in October. But yes, fears of a manned Zond figured
into that decision.
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |

Henry Spencer wrote:

No, even if the N1 had worked well, they were far enough behind that their
only real chance was for Apollo to stumble and be delayed a bit. Which
was not a totally unrealistic hope, but in the end it didn't happen. See,
in particular, Siddiqi's "Challenge to Apollo" for the details (which are
much better understood now than they were 15 years ago).


Particularly in that they intended to do twelve successful N-1 launches
(if that can be believed) before doing the manned lunar mission.

Pat

Hardly 'highly confidential', the possibility was in the news immediately.
I was hitchhiking through Eastern Europe that summer and got to Greece.
I heard it in a VOA broadcast one night in late August as I dined in
a small trattoria on the bay on Mytilene Island in the Aegean, with
the moon reflecting in the bay waters. It was a magical moment.

"Henry Spencer" wrote
It wasn't "last minute" -- preparation for it was underway in mid-August,
but the change was tentative and highly confidential until after Apollo 7
flew successfully in October. But yes, fears of a manned Zond figured
into that decision.

Danny Dot wrote:
"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...

The Soviet criteria for manned flights were actually more rigorous than
the US ones -- they wanted to see two full successes of unmanned flights
before going manned. (Manning Apollo 8 at all, after the Apollo 6 mess,
was a very bold step indeed.) And the Zond tests were not nearly as
successful as they looked from outside; in particular, the Soviets made
much of the photographs taken by Zond 6, without mentioning that the
film was salvaged, with great difficulty and some danger, from the
smashed wreckage of the Zond capsule. Zond 7, which flew three weeks
after Apollo 11, was the first fully successful Zond... by which time,
nobody cared.

The Zonds had a lot of ballistic entries that ended up in the Indian Ocean
(v.s. the planned skipped entry into Russia). The darn thing would pull
20G;s but apparently the human body can take this much for a short time. I
have seen centrifuge testing reports of the US Navy doing simulated 20 G
entries. They did this in the early 60s. The crew stayed alert and could
fly a thumbwheel throughout the profile.

Danny Dot
www.mobbinggonemad.org

In article ,
Danny Dot wrote:
...And the Zond tests were not nearly as
successful as they looked from outside...

The Zonds had a lot of ballistic entries that ended up in the Indian Ocean
(v.s. the planned skipped entry into Russia)...

Not really "a lot". Indeed, in a strict sense only one -- Zond 5, which
was directed to a ballistic reentry because various equipment problems had
made the chances of a successful skip remote, and was recovered from the
Indian Ocean.

Zond 4 had worse equipment problems, and likewise made a ballistic
reentry, but didn't land. It was coming down far off course, near the
coast of Africa, and its destruct charge was fired before parachute
deployment to make sure it wasn't recovered by the US.

Zonds 6 and 7 made perfect skip reentries with landings near Baikonur
Cosmodrome, although Zond 6's cabin had depressurized earlier, which
messed up its landing control systems badly enough that it crashed.

And Zond 8 did come down in the Indian Ocean, but that was planned, the
result of a new skip trajectory, going over the Northern Hemisphere rather
than the Southern-Hemisphere path that 6 and 7 had used. (That improved
tracking and control from the USSR, and had some other minor advantages.)

(Zonds 1-3 were early-60s planetary probes, unrelated to the circumlunar
Soyuz variant; for some reason, the Soviets reused the name.)

The darn thing would pull
20G;s but apparently the human body can take this much for a short time.

Yes, it's no fun but usually doesn't cause injury. A ballistic lunar
reentry is pretty nasty, because there's a lot of energy to be shed in a
short time in thick air. A lifting reentry is a lot less drastic, with
deceleration peaking briefly at about 7G for an Apollo-class capsule.

The reason for the Zond skip reentry wasn't lower deceleration -- other
things being equal, it's no better than Apollo's less-drastic lifting
reentry -- but greater distance covered during reentry, to put the landing
in a better place and give more control of its location(*). Apollo was
originally going to use a skip too, in its very early days when it had a
requirement for land touchdown in the continental US. Apollo dropped it
because relaxation of the landing requirements reduced the need, and while
the primary guidance system could fly a skip, neither of the backups could,
so planning and procedures were simplified by avoiding the skip.

(* It turns out that a ballistic or non-skip lifting reentry ends up
coming down at a point very nearly opposite where the Moon was in the sky
at the time the return trip starts. The details of the return trajectory
influence the ground track and the timing -- and timing determines landing
longitude, since it determines which point on Earth has rotated to that
point in space at landing time -- but give almost no control of landing
latitude. So in particular, if you want a landing at a high-latitude site
like Baikonur, you *must* use a skip. )
--
spsystems.net is temporarily off the air; | Henry Spencer
mail to henry at zoo.utoronto.ca instead. |