Early take on Mercury capsule

OM wrote:

O


I've posted the article that cover is about. It's available at:
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/...-man-in-space/



...Everyone try reading the copy out loud, using the same voice that
was used on that NASA PAO film on Shepard's first flight. It really
adds a retro nostalgic touch to the damn thing even tho by today's
standards its hokey as hell!



Oh yeah, that copy is something else, isn't it? It seems to suggest that
the vehicle will land on four extensible fins under rocket power.

Pat

OM wrote:


"It gets fiercely hot inside the cockpit. You think your space suit is
on fire. But you’ve got one more maneuver to perform. Struggling
against every breath that sears your lungs, you manage to touch off
the last battery of retrorockets. Abruptly, your craft turns nose-up
and you come down on the broad base of the cockpit for a gentle
landing."

...Nose first? Cue Pat :-)



Cue Soyuz 4 is more like it. :-)
Anyway, you can do a nose first reentry if you can get your seat to
rotate inside the capsule... either that, or had better hope your seat
restraint harness is up to spec.

Pat

Dale wrote:


...Nose first? Cue Pat :-)



I suppose that explains why he was feeling a tad bit warm.



Note the design has the retro on the nose... now if we heat the nose up,
the last battery of retros will cook off and fire, driving you faster
into the atmosphere, which may account for the odd heating.
And for God's sake...make sure you thoroughly wash and wax the thing
prior to flight! One speck of dirt and you're a dead man!
(cut to image of bird crapping on the nose of the capsule just prior to
lift-off)
"GET OUT OF THERE! GET OUT OF THERE WHILE YOU STILL HAVE A CHANCE!!!"

Pat

mike flugennock wrote:


(really, did they actually _do_ that? Sounds really
inefficient. C'mon, really? OK, maybe on those two
Redstone flights...hell, I used to know this...)


You should have seen those eight guys who had to push the buttons
simultaneously to launch a Saturn I.
By the time they got to Saturn V, they could do it with just one
button... mind you, the button was eight inches in diameter, and you hit
it with a mallet, but... ;-)

Pat

Pat Flannery writes:

OM wrote:

[...]

...Nose first? Cue Pat :-)

Cue Soyuz 4 is more like it. :-)

5, but who's keeping track?

On 21 Aug 2006 13:20:48 -0400, Chris Jones wrote:

Pat Flannery writes:

OM wrote:

...Nose first? Cue Pat :-)

Cue Soyuz 4 is more like it. :-)

5, but who's keeping track?

....Mark Wade, of course.

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

Chris Jones wrote:

Cue Soyuz 4 is more like it. :-)



5, but who's keeping track?



You're right, I forgot about the three man crew went up on Soyuz 5, and
then two transferred to Soyuz 4.
What makes this really annoying is that I've got a 1/30th scale model of
Soyuz 4 sitting in front of me at the moment.

Pat

On Fri, 18 Aug 2006, Pat Flannery wrote:
[of the rather astonishing "emergency pressure cell" pictured at
http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/05/18/heres-what-well-wear-in-space/]

EricT wrote:

I'm Gumby damn it!

It seems to be a single centrally placed sleeve that you are supposed to be
able to stick either arm into.
From the way it's positioned it looks like he has his left arm in it, but
that would imply he has his head tuned around hard to the left to look out
the faceplate, which can't be comfortable.

It's a "robot" manipulator arm and hand. It was made by the Berger Brothers
Company of New Haven, Connecticut, purveyors of Spencer Corsets.

In this case, I think, the brothers were failing to live up to their motto,
"Style is a greater Social Asset than Beauty."

When pressure suits were new, nobody had real expertise, and anybody could
get into the act. Tire companies like Goodyear and B.F. Goodrich competed
for contracts with corset companies. Even Litton, the electronics company,
built a pretty good "space suit" for engineers who desired to walk around
inside a vacuum tube and fiddle with with a circuit while it was
operating.

As you may know, successful space suits emerged from all these lines of
descent. However, I don't think the Berger Brothers in particular stayed in
the business long...

--
"After you've read through a few hundred volumes | Bill Higgins
you'll find that it's okay as a space opera." | Fermilab
--Christian 'naddy' Weisgerber | Internet:
on the 1670-book Perry Rhodan series |

On Fri, 18 Aug 2006, Pat Flannery wrote:

When Starship Troopers was first published it was "Starship Soldier" in the
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction;
Here's the cover of that edition (unfortunately small), which may have had
some direct input from Heinlein regarding the powersuit design:
http://www.wegrokit.com/mfsf1159.jpg

Got any evidence for that conjecture, Pat? I think it unlikely.

Google confirms--
http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/bibliography/fsfcovartwhen03.htm-- that the
artist was "Emsh," Ed Emshwiller, the master of Fifties SF illustration.
Knowing something about how magazines were produced in those days, I think
he probably just read the manuscript.

See http://www.noosfere.com/showcase/emsh.htm for an excellent Emsh
sampler, and particularly
http://www.noosfere.com/showcase/IMAGES/emsh31.jpg for his illustration of
*Have Space Suit, Will Travel*, which follows Heinlein's description pretty
closely. (Although his idea of a "microwave horn" seems backwards.)

--
Bill Higgins | Patrick Nielsen Hayden on science fiction:
Fermilab | "Many of the genre's classics are in essence
| carefully-tuned machines designed to attract readers
Internet: | whose primary conscious loyalty is to rationalism,
| and lead them by a series of plausible contrivances
| to a sudden crescendo of mystical awe."

Bill Higgins wrote:

On Fri, 18 Aug 2006, Pat Flannery wrote:

When Starship Troopers was first published it was "Starship Soldier"
in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction;
Here's the cover of that edition (unfortunately small), which may
have had some direct input from Heinlein regarding the powersuit
design: http://www.wegrokit.com/mfsf1159.jpg


Got any evidence for that conjecture, Pat? I think it unlikely.

It was just a guess: Heinlein obviously put a lot of time and thought
into the powersuit design, and if anyone would have had some input from
him regarding what it should look like, it would probably be the artist
for the first publication of it.
Both the powersuit and landing capsules are very detailed in design and
technically sophisticated in concept, and it would be fun to know if
they were entirely Heinlein's work or if he was talking to some boys
from DARPA in regards to them.

Pat