Author: Wesley T. Huntress, JR.
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441978984
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 462
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Book Description
Soviet Robots in the Solar System provides a history of the Soviet robotic lunar and planetary exploration program from its inception, with the attempted launch of a lunar impactor on September 23, 1958, to the last launch in the Russian national scientific space program in the 20th Century, Mars 96, on November 16, 1996. This title makes a unique contribution to understanding the scientific and engineering accomplishments of the Soviet Union’s robotic space exploration enterprise from its infancy to its demise with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The authors provide a comprehensive account of Soviet robotic exploration of the Solar System for both popular space enthusiasts and professionals in the field. Technical details and science results are provided and put into an historical and political perspective in a single volume for the first time. The book is divided into two parts. Part I describes the key players and the key institutions that build and operate the hardware, the rockets that provide access to space, and the spacecraft that carry out the enterprise. Part II is about putting these pieces together to enable space flight and mission campaigns. Part II is written in chronological order beginning with the first launches to the Moon. Each chapter covers a particular period when specific mission campaigns were undertaken during celestially-determined launch windows. Each chapter begins with a short overview of the flight missions that occurred during the time period and the political and historical context for the flight mission campaigns, including what the Americans were doing at the time. The bulk of each chapter is devoted to the scientific and engineering details of that flight campaign. The spacecraft and payloads are examined with as much technical detail as is available today, the progress is described, and a synopsis of the scientific result is given.
Author: Phillip Clark
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 9780517569542
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
Traces the development of the Soviet space program from Sputnik to the Mir space station, and looks at future Soviet plans for the exploration of space
Author: James T. Andrews
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 082297746X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343
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Book Description
The launch of the Sputnik satellite in October 1957 changed the course of human history. In the span of a few years, Soviets sent the first animal into space, the first man, and the first woman. These events were a direct challenge to the United States and the capitalist model that claimed ownership of scientific aspiration and achievement. The success of the space program captured the hopes and dreams of nearly every Soviet citizen and became a critical cultural vehicle in the country's emergence from Stalinism and the devastation of World War II. It also proved to be an invaluable tool in a worldwide propaganda campaign for socialism, a political system that could now seemingly accomplish anything it set its mind to. Into the Cosmos shows us the fascinating interplay of Soviet politics, science, and culture during the Khrushchev era, and how the space program became a binding force between these elements. The chapters examine the ill-fitted use of cosmonauts as propaganda props, the manipulation of gender politics after Valentina Tereshkova's flight, and the use of public interest in cosmology as a tool for promoting atheism. Other chapters explore the dichotomy of promoting the space program while maintaining extreme secrecy over its operations, space animals as media darlings, the history of Russian space culture, and the popularity of space-themed memorabilia that celebrated Soviet achievement and planted the seeds of consumerism.
Author: Brian Harvey
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1441981500
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 541
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Book Description
Brian Harvey recounts for the first time the definitive history of scientific Russian space probes and the knowledge they acquired of the Earth, its environment, the Moon, Mars and Venus. He examines what Russian Space Science has actually achieved in furthering our knowledge of the Solar System, focusing on the instrumentation and scientific objectives and outcomes, the information gained and lessons learnt. Boxes and charts are used extensively in order to convey in an easily understandable manner for the non-scientific reader the problems and issues addressed and solved by Soviet space science. The book opens with the story of early space science in Russia, which started when the first Russian rockets were fired into the high atmosphere from Kapustin Yar in the late 1940s. Instruments were carried to measure and map the atmosphere and later rockets carried dogs to test their reactions to weightlessness. In order to beat America into Earth orbit, two simpler satellites than originally planned were launched, Sputnik and Sputnik 2, which provided some initial information on atmospheric density, while the following Sputnik 3 carried twelve instruments to measure radiation belts, solar radiation, the density of the atmosphere and the Earth’s magnetic field. The author recounts how, by the 1960s, the Soviet Union had developed a program of investigation of near-Earth space using satellites within the Cosmos program, in particular the DS (Dnepropetrovsky Sputnik), small satellites developed to investigate meteoroids, radiation, the magnetic fields, the upper atmosphere, solar activity, ionosphere, charged particles, cosmic rays and geophysics. Brian Harvey then gives the scientific results from Russian lunar exploration, starting with the discovery of the solar wind by the First Cosmic Ship and the initial mapping of the lunar far side by the Automatic Interplanetary Station. He describes Luna 10, which made the first full study of the lunar environment, Luna 16 which brought soil back to Earth and the two Moon rovers which travelled 50 kms across the lunar surface taking thousands of measurements, soil analyses and photographs, as well as profiles of discrete areas. Chapters 4 and 5 describe in detail the scientific outcomes of the missions to Venus and Mars, before considering the orbiting space stations in Chapter 6. Space science formed an important part of the early manned space program, the prime focus being the human reaction to weightlessness, how long people could stay in orbit and the effects on the body, as well as radiation exposure. Chapter 7 looks at the later stage of Soviet and Russian space science, including Astron and Granat, the two observatories of the 1980s, and Bion, the space biology program which flew monkeys and other animals into orbit. The final chapter looks forward to a new period of Russian space science with the Spektr series of observatories and a range smaller science satellites under the Federal Space Plan 2006-2015.
Author: Brian Harvey
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387739769
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 331
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Book Description
This book tells the story of the Soviet and Russian lunar programme, from its origins to the present-day federal Russian space programme. Brian Harvey describes the techniques devised by the USSR for lunar landing, from the LK lunar module to the LOK lunar orbiter and versions tested in Earth’s orbit. He asks whether these systems would have worked and examines how well they were tested. He concludes that political mismanagement rather than technology prevented the Soviet Union from landing cosmonauts on the moon. The book is well timed for the return to the moon by the United States and the first missions there by China and India.
Author: Asif A. Siddiqi
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780813026275
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 527
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Book Description
Based on new Russian sources, Siddiqi's book reveals the truth about the Soviet space program to tell a technical, political, and personal history of the major Soviet initiatives. Photos & illustrations.
Author: Boris Chertok
Publisher: Military Bookshop
ISBN: 9781780398310
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
Much has been written in the West on the history of the Soviet space program, but few Westerners have read direct first-hand accounts of the men and women who were behind the many Russian accomplishments in exploring space. The memoir of academician Boris Chertok, translated from the original Russian, fills that gap. Chertok began his career as an electrician in 1930 at an aviation factory near Moscow. Thirty years later, he was deputy to the founding figure of the Soviet space program, the mysterious "Chief Designer" Sergey Korolev. Chertok's 60-year-long career and the many successes and failures of the Soviet space program constitute the core of his memoirs, Rockets and People. In these writings, spread over four volumes (volumes two through four are forthcoming), academician Chertok not only describes and remembers, but also elicits and extracts profound insights from an epic story about a society's quest to explore the cosmos. This book was edited by Asif Siddiqi, a historian of Russian space exploration, and General Tom Stafford contributed a foreword touching upon his significant work with the Russians on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. Overall, this book is an engaging read while also contributing much new material to the literature about the Soviet space program.
Author: Bart Hendrickx
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 038773984X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 541
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Book Description
This absorbing book describes the long development of the Soviet space shuttle system, its infrastructure and the space agency’s plans to follow up the first historic unmanned mission. The book includes comparisons with the American shuttle system and offers accounts of the Soviet test pilots chosen for training to fly the system, and the operational, political and engineering problems that finally sealed the fate of Buran and ultimately of NASA’s Shuttle fleet.
Author: Gary Kitmacher
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588346323
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
A rich visual history of real and fictional space stations, illustrating pop culture's influence on the development of actual space stations and vice versa Space stations represent both the summit of space technology and, possibly, the future of humanity beyond Earth. Space Stations: The Art, Science, and Reality of Working in Space takes the reader deep into the heart of past, present, and future space stations, both real ones and those dreamed up in popular culture. This lavishly illustrated book explains the development of space stations from the earliest fictional visions through historical and current programs--including Skylab, Mir, and the International Space Station--and on to the dawning possibilities of large-scale space colonization. Engrossing narrative and striking images explore not only the spacecraft themselves but also how humans experience life aboard them, addressing everything from the development of efficient meal preparation methods to experiments in space-based botany. The book examines cutting-edge developments in government and commercial space stations, including NASA's Deep Space Habitats, the Russian Orbital Technologies Commercial Space Station, and China's Tiangong program. Throughout, Space Stations also charts the fascinating depiction of space stations in popular culture, whether in the form of children's toys, comic-book spacecraft, settings in science-fiction novels, or the backdrop to TV series and Hollywood movies. Space Stations is a beautiful and captivating history of the idea and the reality of the space station from the nineteenth century to the present day.
Author: Grujica S. Ivanovich
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387739734
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 446
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Book Description
This remarkable book gives a comprehensive account of the longest manned space mission of the time. It details for the first time the people involved and the crews assigned to operate the first space station Salyut. The book portrays the selection of the crews, dramatic flights and tragedy of Soyuz 11. Biographies of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts are published for the first time in English. The book relates discussions between the key personnel, and investigates the causes of the tragedy. The book ends with memories of all those affected by the DOS program and the tragedy of Soyuz 11 and looks forward to a continuation of the historic mission of Salyut.
