| SpaceCAD The V2 and the Russian Space Program |
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Whether or not it is widely known, the fact is that all of space exploration owes its existence to a series of German terror weapons from World War 2. They were the V-1 and V-2 rockets (no relation) which had been created as long-range demoralization tools to be used against Great Britain, and possibly the U.S., if development had continued. Please note that; one, the V-1 rocket was replaced by the V-2 as the standard German long-range rocket in 1944. This particular rocket was the technology basis of the Soviet and American rocket programs. In the case of the Soviets, a direct copy of the V-2, known as the R-1, was their first medium-range rocket on which to build experience. The Americans, as well, used the V-2 as a beginning concept, only they didn’t bother to re-name it. These early direct copies of German V-2’s helped pave the way for rockets capable of launching small satellites.The Soviet Union was the first to achieve this goal with the launching of Sputnik 1 in 1957 by the first of the "A" series of launch vehicles (i.e., the A-1). The Americans followed suit the next year with the Explorer 1, carried into orbit by a Jupiter-C launcher, Jupiter being the name of the family of launchers. One thing that should be briefly mentioned is the fact that it took many years of horrendous failures for both the Americans and, presumably the Soviets, to get to the point where they could regularly launch satellites, probes, and eventually people into space. Specifically, I’m referring to the many films/videos that are now available of American experimental rockets and launch vehicles exploding in every way conceivable.On the subject of manned missions into space, |
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The Soviet Union was the first to achieve this goal with the launching of Sputnik 1 in 1957 by the first of the "A" series of launch vehicles (i.e., the A-1). The Americans followed suit the next year with the Explorer 1, carried into orbit by a Jupiter-C launcher, Jupiter being the name of the family of launchers. One thing that should be briefly mentioned is the fact that it took many years of horrendous failures for both the Americans and, presumably the Soviets, to get to the point where they could regularly launch satellites, probes, and eventually people into space. Specifically, I’m referring to the many films/videos that are now available of American experimental rockets and launch vehicles exploding in every way conceivable.On the subject of manned missions into space, again the Soviet Union was the first to do so, when in 1961 they sent cosmonaut Yury Gagarin into orbit in the Vostok 1, the world’s first manned spacecraft. A second blow to the Americans occurred in 1963, when Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman sent into space. The Americans caught up somewhat 3 weeks after Gagarin’s orbit with the launching of the first of the Mercury series of manned spacecraft, this particular one being dubbed the Freedom 7. It wasn’t until 1983 that the Americans put Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut, into space aboard the space shuttle Challenger.Much has already been said about manned missions into outer space, but unmanned vehicles such as planetary probes and Earth-based satellites are just as important. In 1960, the Soviet Union launched a pair of planetary probes at Mars, hoping to gather information such as photographs and atmospheric readings. Neither of the probes were successful in this, so the Soviets tried again with the first of the Venera series of planetary probes destined for the planet Venus. In the case of the first of the Venera series, Venera 1, the failure of the on-board telemetry system sealed its fate. In 1962, the Soviet Union launched a slew of planetary probes, but only one, Mars 1, made it to its target planet, but suffered a radio failure and didn’t transmit any data. The Americans launched their first probe in the same year the Soviets did. Under the name of Pioneer 5, it was the first probe to transmit data back to Earth of any kind, specifically cosmic-ray and magnetic field intensities. Another first in planetary exploration was the Mariner 2 craft when, in 1962, it passed to within roughly 34,000km of Venus. The Mariner 4 craft, launched in that same year, came within roughly 10,000km of the planet’s surface and took the first photographs of the planet from there. |
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Not all of the planetary exploration programs done by either the Soviets or the Americans can be listed here, so a brief overview looks something like this: the Soviet Venera program had many successes in exploring Venus, while their Mars program was racked with failures and discontinued in the early 1970s. The Americans scored great achievements with the two Viking probes that landed on Mars in 1975, providing all sorts of atmospheric read-outs, soil samples examined within the probe itself, and eye-level photographs of the planet’s surface. Finally, there was the Voyager 2 spacecraft, which was the first planetary probe to go beyond Jupiter. The only planet that hasn’t been investigated at all is Pluto, the outermost of the planets in our solar system. A relatively recent addition to the space programs of both the Americans and Soviets (now Russians) is the space station. As usual, the Soviets were the first nation to put this new concept into practice with the 19,000lb Salyut 1 in 1971. This first attempt was unsuccessful due to a miscalculation with regard to the station’s orbit; the orbit was too low in relation to the Earth’s surface and disintegrated in the atmosphere six months after launch. The first successful space station was the American Skylab, which weighed 7 ½ times as much as its Soviet counterpart. It was a success in the sense that it helped conduct experiments that told much about the effects of prolonged residence in space. They studied the physical and mental effects of long-term weightlessness, gathered information on living on a diet made up entirely of space food, and countless other factors. The Soviets meanwhile had successfully launched Salyut 3 through 7 from 1974 to 1982. Salyut 6 and 7 were major improvements over their predecessors with more strategically placed docking ports, a revised refueling system and improved living quarters for crew members. |
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The pinnacle of Soviet space exploration was
the Mir space station, the core module being
launched in 1986, and in that same year took part
in the first transfer of a cosmonaut from one
space station (Mir) to another (still orbiting
and active Salyut 7). The station had originally
been designed to be a modular station that could
have up to five add-on modules installed, and
achieved its maximum size in 1996 with the final
module installed that year. Since then the
station had innumerable problems with reliability
and equipment failures, although much experience
was gained by the next generation of American
astronauts when it came to dealing with space
station emergencies (i.e., fires, blackouts,
computer failures). In conclusion, the space
race essentially died out with the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991 and was made official
when in March 2001 the Mir space station crashed
into the Pacific Ocean. And so the United States,
along with whatever cooperating countries with
sufficient industrial bases or with space
programs of their own, will be a major component
in constructing the International space station.
Although from the history of cuts to NASA’s
budget, the future is looking |
