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First Edition

Britannica Educational PublishingMichael I. Levy: Executive EditorMarilyn L. Barton: Senior Coordinator, Production ControlSteven Bosco: Director, Editorial TechnologiesLisa S. Braucher: Senior Producer and Data EditorYvette Charboneau: Senior Copy EditorKathy Nakamura: Manager, Media AcquisitionErik Gregersen: Associate Editor, Astronomy and Space Exploration

Rosen Educational ServicesJeanne Nagle: Senior EditorNelson Sá: Art DirectorMatthew Cauli: DesignerIntroduction by Corona Brezina

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Manned spaceflight / edited by Erik Gregersen.—1st ed. p. cm.—(An explorer’s guide to the universe)Includes index.“In association with Britannica Educational Publishing, Rosen Educational Services.”ISBN 978-1-61530-039-6 (eBook)1. Astronautics—History—Juvenile literature. 2. Manned spaceflight—History—Juvenile literature. 3. Astronauts—Biography—Juvenile literature. I. Gregersen, Erik.TL793.M265 2010629.45—dc22

2009023566

On the cover: American astronaut Clay Anderson works on the International Space Station (ISS). Manned spaceflight has evolved from simple orbital expeditions to missions such as those that made construction of the ISS possible. NASA

Introduction 10

Chapter 1: Precursors in Fiction and Fact 19Pioneers 20Robert Hutchings Goddard 21Early Rocket Development 21 Germany 22 United States 23 Soviet Union 24Preparing for Spaceflight 25

Chapter 2: Spaceflight Begins 28NASA and U.S. Military Space Agencies 31The Space Race Begins 32 Vostok 33 Mercury 34 Gemini and Voskhod 36 Soyuz 36

Chapter 3: The Race to the Moon 38The Soviet Response 39Interim Developments 40The Apollo Lunar Landings and Apollo-Soyuz 41Scientific Results from Apollo 44Saturn 45

Chapter 4: The Space Shuttle Program 46The Challenger Disaster 47 Determining a Cause 48After Challenger 50Spacelab 52The Columbia Disaster and After 53

Chapter 5: Space Stations 55Salyut 56Stretching the Limits of Endurance 58Skylab 59Mir 61The International Space Station 64

CONTENTS29

30

35

Chapter 6: Future Directions 68Constellation Program 68Emerging Space Programs 72Human Exploration of Mars 73Space Tourism 74Dennis Tito 75Gregory Olsen 75Anousheh Ansari 76Charles Simonyi 77Richard Garriott 77 SpaceShipOne 78 Regulating Space Tourism 80

Chapter 7: Humans in Space 82Biomedical, Psychological, and Sociological Aspects 83Selecting People for Spaceflight 85U.S. Astronaut Training 86Cosmonaut and International Astronaut Training 90

Chapter 8: American Astronauts 91Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin 91William Anders 93Michael Anderson 93Neil Armstrong 94Alan Bean 96Guion Bluford 98Frank Borman 99Vance Brand 99David Brown 100Scott Carpenter 100Gerald Carr 101Eugene Cernan 101Roger Chaffee 102Franklin Chang-Díaz 103Kalpana Chawla 103Laurel Clark 104Eileen Collins 104Michael Collins 105Charles Conrad 106Gordon Cooper 107

97

85

42

Robert Crippen 107Walter Cunningham 108Donn Eisele 109Owen Garriott 109Edward Gibson 109John Glenn 110Richard Gordon 111Virgil Grissom 112Fred Haise 113Rick Husband 114James Irwin 114Mae Jemison 115Joseph Kerwin 116James Lovell 116Shannon Lucid 117Christa McAuliffe 118Bruce McCandless 119William McCool 121James McDivitt 121Michael Melvill 122Edgar Mitchell 123Barbara Morgan 123Story Musgrave 124Bill Nelson 125Ellen Ochoa 125Sally Ride 126Stuart Roosa 127Jerry Ross 128Walter Schirra 128Harrison Schmitt 129David Scott 130Alan Shepard 131Donald Slayton 132Thomas Stafford 132Jack Swigert 133David Walker 133Edward White 135Peggy Whitson 135Sunita Williams 136Alfred Worden 138John Young 138

110

115

120

Chapter 9: Soviet and Russian Cosmonauts 140

Pavel Belyayev 140Valery Bykovsky 141Georgy Dobrovolsky 141Konstantin Feoktistov 142Yury Gagarin 142Pyotr Klimuk 143Vladimir Komarov 144Sergey Krikalyov 144Valery Kubasov 145Aleksey Leonov 146Andriyan Nikolayev 146Viktor Patsayev 147Valery Polyakov 147Pavel Popovich 148Svetlana Savitskaya 148Anatoly Solovyov 149Gennady Strekalov 150Valentina Tereshkova 151Gherman Titov 151Aleksandr Volkov 152Sergey Volkov 153Vladislav Volkov 154Boris Yegorov 154

Chapter 10: International Astronauts and Spaceflight Participants 156

Akiyama Toyohiro 156Ivan Bella 157Roberta Bondar 157Jean-Loup Chrétien 158Pedro Duque 160Muhammed Faris 160Farkas Bertalan 161Dirk Frimout 162Christer Fuglesang 162Marc Garneau 164Jugderdemidiin Gurragcha 165Claudie Haigneré 165

145

137

150

Mirosław Hermaszewski 166Georgy Ivanov 166Sigmund Jähn 167Leonid Kadenyuk 168Franco Malerba 168Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez 169Ulf Merbold 170Abdul Ahad Mohmand 170Mohri Mamoru 171Mukai Chiaki 172Rodolfo Neri Vela 173Claude Nicollier 173Wubbo Ockels 174Marcos Pontes 175Dumitru Prunariu 176Ilan Ramon 176Vladimír Remek 177Salmān Āl Sa‘ūd 177Rakesh Sharma 178Helen Sharman 178Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor 179Mark Shuttleworth 180Pham Tuan 180Franz Viehböck 181Yang Liwei 182Yi Soyeon 182Zhai Zhigang 183

Appendix: Achievements in Space 184Chronology of Notable Astronauts 184Space Stations from 1971 187Endurance Records 191Significant Milestones in Space Exploration 193

Glossary 197For Further Reading 199Index 201

172

164

163

CHAPTER 1

Since ancient times, people around the world have studied the heavens and used their observations and explana-

tions of astronomical phenomena for both religious and practical purposes. Some dreamed of leaving Earth to explore other worlds. For example, the French satirist Cyrano de Bergerac in the 17th century wrote Histoire comique des états et empires de la lune (1656) and Histoire comique des états et empires du soleil (1662; together in English as A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Solar World , 1754), describing fi ctional journeys to the Moon and the Sun. Two centuries later, the French author Jules Verne and the English novelist and historian H.G. Wells infused their stories with descriptions of outer space and of spacefl ight that were con-sistent with the best understanding of the time. Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune (1865; From the Earth to the Moon ) and Wells’s The War of the Worlds (1898) and The First Men in the Moon (1901) used sound scientifi c principles to describe space travel and encounters with alien beings.

In order to translate these fi ctional images of space travel into reality, it was necessary to devise some practical means of countering the infl uence of Earth’s gravity. By the beginning of the 20th century, the centuries-old technology of rockets had advanced to the point at which it was reasonable to consider their use to accelerate objects to a velocity suffi cient to enter orbit around Earth or even to escape Earth’s gravity and travel away from the planet.

Precursors in Fiction and Fact

20 | Manned Spaceflight

Oberth’s ideas into practical devices. The most important of these groups histori-cally was the Verein für Raumschiffahrt (VfR; “Society for Spaceship Travel”), which had as a member the young Wernher von Braun, who played a promi-nent role in all aspects of rocketry and space exploration, first in Germany and, after World War II, in the United States.

Although his work was crucial in stimulating the development of rocketry in Germany, Oberth himself had only a limited role in that development. Alone among the rocket pioneers, Oberth lived to see his ideas become reality. He was a guest of honour at the July 16, 1969, launch of Apollo 11.

Although Tsiolkovsky, Oberth, and American professor and inventor Robert Goddard are recognized as the most influ-ential of the first-generation space pioneers, others made contributions in the early decades of the 20th century. For example, the Frenchman Robert Esnault-Pelterie began work on the theoretical aspects of spaceflight as early as 1907 and subsequently published several major books on the topic. He, like Tsiolkovsky in the Soviet Union and Oberth in Germany, was an effective publicist regarding the potential of space exploration.

In Austria, Eugen Sänger worked on rocket engines. In the late 1920s, he pro-posed developing a “rocket plane” that could reach a speed exceeding 10,000 km (more than 6,000 miles) per hour and an altitude of more than 65 km (40 miles). Interested in Sänger’s work,

PIONEERS

The first person to study in detail the use of rockets for spaceflight was the Russian schoolteacher and mathematician Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. In 1903 his article “Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices” laid out many of the principles of spaceflight. Up to his death in 1935, Tsiolkovsky continued to publish sophisticated studies on the theoretical aspects of spaceflight. He never comple-mented his writings with practical experiments in rocketry, but his work greatly influenced later space and rocket research in the Soviet Union and Europe.

Rocketry pioneer Hermann Oberth was by birth a Romanian but by national-ity a German. Reading Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon as a youth inspired him to study the requirements for inter-planetary travel. Oberth’s 1922 doctoral dissertation on rocket-powered flight was rejected by the University of Heidelberg for being too speculative, but it became the basis for his classic 1923 book Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (“The Rocket into Interplanetary Space”). The work explained the mathematical theory of rocketry, applied the theory to rocket design, and discussed the possibility of constructing space stations and of travel-ing to other planets.

In 1929 Oberth published a second influential book, Wege Zur Raumschiffahrt (Ways to Spaceflight). His works led to the creation of a number of rocket clubs in Germany as enthusiasts tried to turn

Precursors in Fiction and Fact | 21

In the United States, pioneering work in rocket science was performed by Robert Hutchings Goddard, an American professor and inventor who is generally acknowledged to be the father of modern rocketry.

Born in Worcester, Mass., on Oct. 5, 1882, Goddard was the only child of a family of modest means. From childhood on he displayed great curiosity about physical phenomena and a bent toward inventiveness. In 1898 young Goddard’s imagination was fi red by H.G. Wells’ novel War of the Worlds. Shortly thereafter, as he recounted, he actually dreamed of constructing a workable spacefl ight machine. On Oct. 19, 1899, a day that became his “Anniversary Day,” he climbed a cherry tree in his backyard and “. . . imagined how wonderful it would be to make some device which had even the possibility of ascending to Mars . . . when I descended the tree . . . existence at last seemed very purposive.”

Goddard’s fascination with spacefl ight continued into his college years at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Later, in 1908, he began a long association with Clark University, Worcester, where he earned his doctorate, taught physics, and carried out rocket experiments. He was the fi rst to prove that thrust and consequent propulsion can take place in a vacuum, needing no air to push against. He was the fi rst to explore mathematically the ratios of energy and thrust per weight of various fuels, including liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. He was also the fi rst to develop a rocket motor using liquid fuels (liquid oxygen and gasoline). In a small structure adjoining his laboratory, a liquid-propelled rocket in a static test in 1925 “operated satisfactorily and lifted its own weight,” he wrote.

On March 16, 1926, the world’s fi rst fl ight of a liquid-propelled rocket engine took place on his Aunt Effi e’s farm in Auburn, Mass., achieving a brief liftoff . In achieving liftoff of his small but sophisticated rocket engine, Goddard carried his experiments further than Tsiolkovsky and Oberth.

Goddard died of throat cancer in 1945, at the threshold of the age of jet and rocket. Years later, his work was acknowledged by the United States government when a $1 million settlement was made for the use of his patents.

Robert Hutchings Goddard

Nazi Germany in 1936 invited him to continue his investigations in that country.

EARLy ROCkET DEvELOPMENT

Rocketry went from a largely theoretical discipline to practical applications with

the advent of large-scale experimentation that occurred in the 1930s and 40s. Germany, Russia, and the United States were at the forefront of rocket develop-ment at this time. The quest to conquer space was not the only motivating factor for these countries, however. As tensions that would inexorably lead the world into war increased, nations looked to

22 | Manned Spaceflight

Test launch of a V-2 rocket. Camera Press

burgeoning rocket technology as a delivery method for advanced weaponry.

Germany

It was space exploration that motivated the members of the German VfR to build their rockets, but in the early 1930s their work came to the attention of the German military. At that time Capt. Walter R. Dornberger (later major general) was in charge of solid-fuel rocket research and development in the Ordnance Depart-ment of Germany’s 100,000-man armed forces, the Reichswehr. He recognized the military potential of liquid-fueled rockets and the ability of Braun. Dornberger arranged a research grant from the Ordnance Department for Braun, who then did research at a small development station that was set up adjacent to Dornberger’s existing solid-fuel rocket test facility at the Kummersdorf Army Proving Grounds near Berlin. Two years later Braun received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Berlin. His thesis, which, for reasons of military security, bore the nondescript title “About Combustion Tests,” contained the theo-retical investigation and developmental experiments on 300- and 660-pound-thrust (1,335 to 2,937 newtons) rocket engines.

By December 1934 Braun’s group, which then included one additional engineer and three mechanics, had suc-cessfully launched two rockets that rose vertically to more than 1.5 miles (2.4 km). But by this time there was no longer a

German rocket society; rocket tests had been forbidden by decree, and the only way open to such research was through the military forces.

To give Braun’s engineers the needed space and secrecy for their work, the German government erected a develop-ment and test centre at Peenemünde on the coast of the Baltic Sea. Dornberger was the military commander and Braun was the technical director.

There they developed, among other devices, the V-2 (meaning Vengeance Weapon 2 but originally designated the

Precursors in Fiction and Fact | 23

A-4) ballistic missile. The V-2 was 14 metres (47 feet) long, weighed 12,700– 13,200 kg (28,000–29,000 pounds) at launching, and developed about 60,000 pounds of thrust (267,000 newtons), burn-ing alcohol and liquid oxygen. The payload was about 725 kg (1,600 pounds) of high explosive, horizontal range was about 320 km (200 miles), and the peak altitude usu-ally reached was roughly 80 km (50 miles). It was first launched successfully on Oct. 3, 1942, and was fired against Paris on Sept. 6, 1944. Two days later the first of more than 1,100 V-2s was fired against Great Britain (the last on March 27, 1945). Belgium was also heavily bombarded.

Although built as a weapon of war, the V-2 later served as the predecessor of many of the rockets used in the early space programs of the United States and the Soviet Union. As World War II neared its end in early 1945, Braun, his younger brother Magnus, Dornberger, and the entire German rocket development team chose to surrender to the United States, where they believed they would likely receive support for their rocket research and space exploration plans. Later in the year, they were taken to the United States, as were their engineering plans and the parts needed to construct a number of V-2s. The German rocket team played a central role in the early development of space launchers for the United States.

In later years, Braun attempted to justify his involvement in the develop-ment of the German V-2 rocket and stated that patriotic motives outweighed what-ever qualms he had about the moral

implications of his nation’s policies under Hitler. He also emphasized the innate impartiality of scientific research, which in itself has no moral dimensions until its products are put to use by the larger society.

United States

In 1936, as Braun was developing rockets for the German military, several young American engineers led by graduate student Frank Malina began working on rocketry at the Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT). Malina’s group was supported by the eminent aerodynamicist Theodore von Kármán, GALCIT’s director, and it included Chinese engineer Qian Xuesen (Ch’ien Hsüeh-sen), who in the 1950s returned home to become one of the pioneers of rocketry in China.

In 1943 Malina and his associates began calling their group the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), a name that was formally adopted the following year. JPL soon became a centre for missile research and development for the U.S. Army. Following World War II, those weapons were adapted for use in early U.S. space experiments. After 1958, when it became part of the newly established National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), JPL adapted itself to being the leading U.S. centre for solar system exploration.

Goddard’s early tests were modestly financed over a period of several years by the Smithsonian Institution. In 1929,