The Russain Right Stuff

Just getting around to converting some old VHS to DVD. Quality is
suffering a tad but its nice to be able to see these again. Found a
bunch of the original TDC "Wings" (P47 B36 B57 F111 F4etc) B29 Frozen
in Time. My fave is "the Russian Right Stuff" WGBH Nova broadcast 3
shows back in 1991 (thats 18 years and the tape was still veiwable).
With the Fall of the empire just around the corner the Soviets were
pretty open, although still kept some stuff close to the vest. What
was intriguing was a clip showing a test faring seperation for the
Voskhod 1 flight. Fairing seperates than squibs blow off the mockup
of the airlock. got me wondering, In case of a launch abort what
were the crews options, no ejection seats, no tower (Was the last
stage powerful enough to boost them away during the launch phase?) Or
what the options like the second Voskhod, none. (PS, eat your heart
out guys its off to Pima Air museum this weekend
wooooooooooowoooooooooo............Doc

Dr.Colon Oscopy wrote:
Fairing seperates than squibs blow off the mockup
of the airlock. got me wondering, In case of a launch abort what
were the crews options, no ejection seats, no tower (Was the last
stage powerful enough to boost them away during the launch phase?) Or
what the options like the second Voskhod, none. (PS, eat your heart
out guys its off to Pima Air museum this weekend

The options were that you get your ashes buried in the Kremlin wall
before or after winning a medal. ;-)
I once saw a painting of a Vostok separating from its upper stage by
using its retro-rocket, but I don't know if that was some sort of error
by the artist. AFAIK, until Voskhod separated from its upper stage, you
were along for the ride, no matter where it ended up.

Pat

Dr.Colon Oscopy wrote:
So the faring tests must have been for one or two reasons 1. Unlikely
slow burn event on the pad prior to launch to give them some chance.

Zero chance if it blew on the pad - unlike Vostok, their would have been
no way whatsoever to get out of it; even Vostok's rocket-powered
ejection seat was pretty iffy in that case.

2 To make sure the squibs worked :-O.........Doc

They did a lot of fairing jettison tests on all of their spacecraft to
make sure the two halves peeled off correctly at jettisoning.
One thing that did apparently concern them was how the big asymmetrical
bulge on the side of Voskhod II fairing was going to affect the
booster's trajectory during ascent, as many years back someone found
photos of a Voskhod booster with black-and-white tracking markings on it
and posted them to the newsgroup... this was something virtually unknown
in any Soviet manned booster.
The full-scale mock-up tests of the giant clamshell fairing on the N-1
jettisoning is really something to see, as a thing around the size of a
S-IVB with attached LM fairing and CSM atop it splits in half and falls
to the ground.
I don't even want to think how much that thing weighed.

Pat

Pat