ISS-104-Soyuz records

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. |

On Sun, 17 Sep 2006 06:43:27 GMT, (Henry Spencer)
wrote:

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

....Based on their history of using Cosmos as a "catch-all" for
anything they shot up that they wanted to conbefuddle the world into
thinking it's something that it's not, giving the Lunar-variant Soyuz
a "Zond" designator would be be in line with their usual
disinformation policies at the time.'Twould not surprise me in the
slightest that if they'd managed to pull off a manned mission, they'd
have given it a completely different program name altogether.

....On a side note, Henry - did you get that e-mail I sent back to you
yet?

OM
--
]=====================================[
] OMBlog - http://www.io.com/~o_m/omworld [
] Let's face it: Sometimes you *need* [
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]=====================================[

Thanks for the post. Lots of great information.

--
Danny Dot wrote:



Look at my site and see how NASA treats a creative mind!!!
The summary is "Not Very Well" :-)
www.mobbinggonemad.org


"Henry Spencer" wrote in message
...
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. |