"Space Race": OK, Bad or Terrible?

A lamentable waste of 4 hours, in my opinion.

And I'm not referring to all the condescending commercials depicting BP as
responsible corporate citizens...

The producers paid painfully little attention to fact checking, chock full
of easily avoidable mistakes. Gee, I didn't know that Mission Control had
live TV of the LM descent phase!

National Geographic isn't very picky about what they attach their name to
any more, what a shame. How the formerly proud have fallen.

Stan Marsh wrote:
A lamentable waste of 4 hours, in my opinion.

And I'm not referring to all the condescending commercials depicting BP as
responsible corporate citizens...

The producers paid painfully little attention to fact checking, chock full
of easily avoidable mistakes. Gee, I didn't know that Mission Control had
live TV of the LM descent phase!

National Geographic isn't very picky about what they attach their name to
any more, what a shame. How the formerly proud have fallen.

A little poetic license is one thing, but the outright factual errors
were too
much for me. Some parts were interesting, but the errors made the
total result terrible, IMO.

- Ed Kyle

So, the story was 'untold' before, because it was
only now made up? Ed, can you list a few of your
favorite howlers?

"Ed Kyle" wrote
A little poetic license is one thing, but the outright factual errors were
too
much for me. Some parts were interesting, but the errors made the
total result terrible, IMO.

- Ed Kyle

Stan Marsh wrote:
The producers paid painfully little attention to fact checking, chock full
of easily avoidable mistakes. Gee, I didn't know that Mission Control had
live TV of the LM descent phase!

I gagged when they described the Saturn V as a 12.5 million pound
rocket. So,
the launcher is included in the rocket weight. Hmmmm......
I guess the show was OK for people that are not into the details.

Sam

On Mon, 5 Jun 2006 23:06:31 -0400, "Stan Marsh"
wrote:

The producers paid painfully little attention to fact checking, chock full
of easily avoidable mistakes.

Is this correct or a mistake, when they are talking about reentering
from Earth orbit. If it is too steep it will burn up or be crushed,
if it is too shallow it will skip off the atmosphere into a higher
orbit. I know that returning from the moon, that would be the case.
But in Earth orbit, if the angle is too narrow, will it skip off the
atmosphere and go into a higher orbit?
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Replace you know what by j to email

I noticed that over the video of the Explorer launch, they put up a
graphic that showed, in big letters, the launch year being 1957.

On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 15:42:46 -0400, Jud McCranie
wrote:

On Mon, 5 Jun 2006 23:06:31 -0400, "Stan Marsh"
wrote:

The producers paid painfully little attention to fact checking, chock full
of easily avoidable mistakes.

Is this correct or a mistake, when they are talking about reentering
from Earth orbit. If it is too steep it will burn up or be crushed,
if it is too shallow it will skip off the atmosphere into a higher
orbit. I know that returning from the moon, that would be the case.
But in Earth orbit, if the angle is too narrow, will it skip off the
atmosphere and go into a higher orbit?
---
Replace you know what by j to email

Jud McCranie wrote:

Is this correct or a mistake, when they are talking about reentering
from Earth orbit. If it is too steep it will burn up or be crushed,
if it is too shallow it will skip off the atmosphere into a higher
orbit. I know that returning from the moon, that would be the case.
But in Earth orbit, if the angle is too narrow, will it skip off the
atmosphere and go into a higher orbit?


If it were capable of generating lift you could change its orbit (the
Vostok reentry module was spherical and didn't generate lift) but you
can't give a spacecraft more energy by slowing it down by hitting the
atmosphere and go into a higher orbit.
BTW; the Vostoks orbited at a low enough altitude that they would
naturally fall out of orbit somewhere in around eight days after launch;
they carried ten days worth of life support (air, food, water) so that
in case something went wrong with the retro, the cosmonaut wasn't doomed.

Pat

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Replace you know what by j to email

Pat Flannery wrote:
Jud McCranie wrote:

Is this correct or a mistake, when they are talking about reentering
from Earth orbit. If it is too steep it will burn up or be crushed,
if it is too shallow it will skip off the atmosphere into a higher
orbit. I know that returning from the moon, that would be the case.
But in Earth orbit, if the angle is too narrow, will it skip off the
atmosphere and go into a higher orbit?


If it were capable of generating lift you could change its orbit (the
Vostok reentry module was spherical and didn't generate lift) but you
can't give a spacecraft more energy by slowing it down by hitting the
atmosphere and go into a higher orbit.
BTW; the Vostoks orbited at a low enough altitude that they would
naturally fall out of orbit somewhere in around eight days after launch;
they carried ten days worth of life support (air, food, water) so that
in case something went wrong with the retro, the cosmonaut wasn't doomed.

Pat


Unless the retros were fired in the wrong direction and boosted the
Vostok into a higher orbit. This happened on the first Vostok orbital
test flight, "Sputnik 4". That Vostok stayed in orbit 2-years 113-days.
Pieces of it landed in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

Rusty

Rusty wrote:

Unless the retros were fired in the wrong direction and boosted the
Vostok into a higher orbit. This happened on the first Vostok orbital
test flight, "Sputnik 4". That Vostok stayed in orbit 2-years 113-days.
Pieces of it landed in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.



I'm still trying to figure out what that piece is BTW.
Could it be the device that holds the four straps that go around the
reentry sphere to secure it to the equipment module?
That's mounted at the top of the sphere, and probably uses an explosive
bolt to cause the four straps to detach at their junction point. Since
the straps would have to take a fair amount of stress during launch due
to vibration, the attachment unit would probably be fairly strong and
heavy.
Number 12 on this drawing http://users.erols.com/richdoran/vostok2.jpg

Pat

On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 14:36:23 GMT, "Jim Oberg"
wrote:

So, the story was 'untold' before, because it was
only now made up? Ed, can you list a few of your
favorite howlers?

They didn't come out and say so, but they strongly implied Apollo 6
(not 4) was the first Saturn V flight.

Brian