Manned Space Programs

> Manned Space Programs

Within a year of the successes of the first small artificial satellites in 1957 and 1958, both the United States and the USSR were developing programmes to place people in Earth orbit. But first they sent carefully monitored dogs and primates into orbit to study the effects of weightlessness on living creatures.

Contents:

1. Vostok and Mercury Programs

2. Voskhod and Gemini Programs

3. Soyuz and Apollo

Vostok and Mercury Programs

The USSR was first into space with a man, cosmonaut Yury A. Gagarin, who made one orbit of the Earth in Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961. During his flight time of 1 hour, 48 minutes, he reached a maximum height of 327 km (203 mi) above the Earth. He landed safely in Siberia. In the next two years five more Vostok flights were made. The pilot of Vostok 6 was Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to fly in space. Launched on June 16, 1963, she orbited the Earth 48 times.

Preparing Vostok for Launch

A Vostok capsule such as this took the Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin into space for his historic flight in April 1961. Gagarin became the first person in space, and the first to orbit the Earth. Here technicians mount a Vostok capsule in the nose cone of the rocket that will send it into space.

Meanwhile, a similar US programme, called Mercury, was taking shape. On May 5, 1961, Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr., of the US Navy, became the first American in space. His Mercury spacecraft, named Freedom 7, flew a ballistic trajectory and made a 15-minute sub-orbital flight. A similar flight followed on July 21, flown by Captain Virgil I. Grissom of the US Air Force. On February 20, 1962, Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn, Jr. of the US Marine Corps became the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, in a flight of three orbits. (In 1998, Glenn made another flight, on the shuttle mission STS-95, becoming, at the age of 77, the oldest person ever to go into space.) Three additional Mercury flights were made in 1962 and 1963 by Lieutenant Colonel M. Scott Carpenter of the navy, Commander Walter M. Schirra, Jr., also of the navy, and Major Leroy Gordon Cooper, Jr., of the air force.

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Voskhod and Gemini Programs

The Voskhod was an adaptation of the Vostok spacecraft, modified to accommodate two or three cosmonauts. On October 12, 1964, cosmonauts Vladimir M. Komarov, Boris B. Yegorov, and Konstantin P. Feoktistov made a 15-orbit flight in Voskhod 1. This was the only piloted flight that year and brought the total cumulative man-hours of Soviet cosmonauts in space to 455. The American astronauts then had a total of 54 man-hours in space. On March 18, 1965, cosmonauts Pavel I. Belyayev and Aleksei A. Leonov were launched in Voskhod 2. During this 17-orbit flight, Leonov performed the first walk in space, or extravehicular activity (EVA), leaving the spacecraft and drifting out on an umbilical tether.

Voskhod Capsule

The Soviet Union’s Voskhod programme included the first spacewalk and the first three-person mission. The Voskhod 2 capsule had room for two cosmonauts and included an inflatable fabric airlock. The airlock allowed one of the cosmonauts to leave the spacecraft in a spacesuit.

The US Gemini programme was designed to develop the technology required to go to the Moon. In May 1961, US President John F. Kennedy had instituted the Apollo programme, designed to land a man on the Moon and return him safely to the Earth “before the decade is out”. This national commitment resulted in an intensive, large-scale, piloted flight programme. The Gemini spacecraft carried two astronauts and was designed to operate for extended periods of time and to develop rendezvous and docking techniques with another orbiting spacecraft. Ten manned Gemini flights were made in 1965-1966.

During the Gemini 4 flight, Major Edward H. White II of the air force became the first US astronaut to perform an EVA. Using a pressurized-gas, jet-manoeuvring device, he spent 21 minutes in space. While Gemini 6 and 7 were in orbit together in December 1965, they rendezvoused within a few feet of each other. After orbiting for 20 hours with Schirra and Major Thomas P. Stafford of the air force, Gemini 6 landed. Gemini 7, with Lieutenant Colonel Frank Borman of the air force and Commander James A. Lovell, Jr., of the navy, went on to spend a total of 334 hours in orbit. This flight of nearly 14 days provided medical data on the effects of long-duration space flight on human beings that was necessary to assure the success of the 10-day Apollo lunar mission. Furthermore, it demonstrated the reliability of systems such as hydrogen-oxygen fuel-cells. On the Gemini 10, 11, and 12 flights, rendezvous and docking were accomplished repeatedly with a target vehicle that had previously been placed in orbit.

Gemini Spacecraft

Ten piloted Gemini spacecraft were launched between March 1965 and November 1966. Unlike earlier American spacecraft, Gemini capsules were designed to carry two astronauts. Before returning to Earth, the crew jettisoned the resource compartment and the de-orbiting system. The re-entry module floated to a watery splashdown on Earth using a parachute.

By the end of the last Gemini flight in November 1966, US astronauts had accumulated nearly 2,000 man-hours in space, which exceeded the Soviet cosmonauts’ total, and about 12 hours of EVA.

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Soyuz and Apollo

The year 1967 was one of tragedy for both spacefaring nations. On January 27, during a ground test of the Apollo spacecraft at Cape Kennedy, fire broke out in the three-man command module. Because of the pressurized pure-oxygen atmosphere inside the spacecraft, it engulfed and killed the three astronauts—Grissom, White, and Lieutenant Commander Roger B. Chaffee of the navy. As a result of this tragedy, the Apollo programme was delayed by more than a year while vehicle design and materials underwent a major review.

On April 23, 1967, cosmonaut Komarov was launched in the first manned flight of a new Soviet spacecraft, Soyuz. The Soyuz had room for three cosmonauts and a separate working compartment, accessible through a hatch, for experiments. Following re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere and deployment of landing parachutes, the shroud lines became twisted, and Komarov plunged to his death in the spacecraft. The Soviet space programme was set back by nearly two years.

Apollo Lunar Module

All the piloted Apollo missions included three different spacecraft—a command module, a service module, and a lunar module. The lunar module, shown here against the Moon and the rising Earth, carried astronauts from the command and service module to the surface of the Moon and back.

In October 1968, the first manned Apollo flight was launched by a Saturn 1B booster rocket. Astronauts Schirra, Major R. Walter Cunningham of the US Marine Reserve Corps, and Major Donn F. Eisele of the air force circled the Earth for 163 orbits, checking spacecraft performance, photographing the Earth, and transmitting television pictures. In December 1968, Apollo 8, a landmark flight carrying astronauts Borman, Lovell, and Major William A. Anders of the air force, orbited the Moon ten times and returned safely to Earth. The Apollo 9 flight, with Major James A. McDivitt and Colonel David R. Scott of the air force and Russell L. Schweickart, a civilian, tested undocking, rendezvous, and docking of the Apollo lunar module (LM) landing craft during a 151-orbit mission. The Apollo 10 flight, with astronauts Stafford and Lieutenant Commander John W. Young and Commander Eugene A. Cernan of the navy, made 31 orbits of the Moon in a rehearsal for the lunar landing. As planned, Stafford and Cernan transferred from the Apollo command module (CM) to the LM, separated, and descended to within 16 km (10 mi) of the lunar surface while astronaut Young piloted the CM. Subsequently, rendezvous and docking of the ascent stage of the LM were accomplished; the two astronauts then transferred to the CM, discarded the LM, fired the service module rocket to enter the return trajectory to Earth, and returned safely. Project Apollo was now ready to land astronauts on the Moon.

Meanwhile, the USSR launched unmanned Zond spacecraft around the Moon, carrying cameras and biological specimens. Colonel Georgi T. Beregovoi flew a 60-orbit mission in Soyuz 3 in October 1968. Soyuz 4 and 5 rendezvoused and docked in Earth orbit in January 1969. While the spacecraft were linked, cosmonauts Aleksei S. Yeliseyev and Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny V. Khrunov, in space suits, transferred by EVA from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4, which was piloted by Colonel Vladimir A. Shatalov. In October 1969, Soyuz 6, 7, and 8, launched a day apart, rendezvoused in orbit but did not dock. Soyuz 9, with a two-cosmonaut crew, set a flight duration record of almost 18 days in June 1970.

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