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I was a small child when this history occured: I was a small child when this history occured. Fascinating, detailed book with a scant half-dozen details oddly omitted

Beyond

2021 Stephen Walker BvLib 629.45 WAL

I was a small child when this history occured. Fascinating, detailed book with a scant half-dozen details oddly omitted

1957 October 4

Sputnik

and later on

1958 January 31

Explorer 1

1965 March 23

Gemini 3, Grissom & Young

this history

1965 December 15

Gemini 6 & 7 Rendezvous

1961 January 20

Kennedy inauguration

1966 November 11

Gemini 12, Lovell & Aldrin

1961 April 12

Yuri Gagarin - Vostok 1

1967 November 9

Apollo 4 first "all up" unmanned

1961 April 17

Bay of Pigs invasion

1968 October 11

Apollo 7 first crew

1961 May 5

Mercury Alan Shepard

1968 December 21

Apollo 8 to lunar orbit

1961 May 25

Kennedy moon speech

1969 July 16

Apollo 11 to lunar landing

1961 October 27

Saturn Apollo 1 rocket test

1971 April 19

Salyut 1 space station

1962 Feb 20

John Glenn - Mercury

1973 May 14

Skylab space station

1964 April 8

Gemini 1, no crew

1964 October 12

Voskhod 1, 3 cosmonauts     no room for space suits

  • p003 1955, railway from Moscow to Tashkent, small stop at Tyuratam
  • p017 1958 end, project Mercury begun
  • p021 1959 April 9 Mercury astronaut first press conference
  • p016 1960 October 24 R-16 rocket explosion killed 74 including strategic missile chief Mitrofan Nedelin
  • p009 1960 December 24 . . . recovery of 2m diameter 2500 kg capsule with two dogs, 5th flight, barely survived
    • most dog fights failed, 1960 August third flight Belka and Strelka survived
  • p016 two further dog tests
  • p021 1961 Mercury astronauts in Langley building 60, Glenn and Shepard front runners
  • p024 Glenn(1929) 57 WW2 missions, 59 Korea missions, 3 kills, 5 DFCs 1957 fastest cross country, Name That Tune

  • p024 Shepard(1923) Navy test pilot, no combat, looped Chesapeake Bay bridge ~1952
  • p026 Carpenter(1925) hobby playing guitar
  • p004 1961 6000 km2 ellipse Baikonur Cosmodrome ready for Vostok 1
  • p004 R-7 rocket type 8K27K 28.4 meters tall 280 tonnes, 3 (RDS-37) to 5 MT (RDS-46) warhead (5300 kg?)
    • 3x more powerful than 118 tonne Atlas . . . US Mk 4 RV with 3.75MT W-38 warhead massed 1840 kg
  • p029 Tsentr Podgotovki Kosmonavtov Military Unit 26266, Shchyolkovsky district 41 km NE of Moscow
  • p030 6 cosmonauts, shorter ( < 170cm ) and in 20s, not 30s like Mercury, Vanguard 6

    • Gagarin, Bykovskiy, Nelyubov, Nikolayev, Popovich, and Titov.
  • p030 Vostok simulator in LII Gromov Flight Research Institute in Zhukovsky, 45 km SE of Moscow

  • p031 14 more in training, top secret, relatives unaware, wives knew a little
  • p038 Gagarin born 1934 in Klushino, Smolensk Oblast 190 km west of Moscow, carpenter father Aleksey, literate mother Anna

  • p039 German occupation 1941 October 2, evicted from house, lived in dugout, homeschooled. p040 Younger brother Boris hanged, survived with damage p040 liberated 1943 spring
  • p041 moved to Gzhatsk (now Gagarin) ~20 km south

  • p041 Gagarin studied foundry work at Saratov technical college

  • p041 Road to the Stars by "Yuri Gagarin" 2002 english printing

  • p042 Gagarin graduated with top marks in 31/32 subjects, chose jet pilot rather than smelting specialist.
  • p042 Titov: Gagarin 'could talk to anybody ... in every situation he would find the key to people'
  • p046 Johnson: 'control of space means control of the world'.
  • p047 Kennedy: both sides ... explore the stars ... (embedded in a long laundry list of platitudes)
  • p048 MIT's Wiesner advised Kennedy to modify or cancel Mercury, then made science advisor
  • p050 Shame and Danger: reactions to the Sputniks
  • p055 navy Vanguard's TV-3 failure on December 6, 1957
  • p057 von Braun's Juno (modified Jupiter-C) launches Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958 / Cover of Time, Feb 17
  • p058 May 1958 Sputnik 3, 3000 pound orbiting science laboratory
  • p059 US better H-bombs meant smaller rockets, though Saturn was on the drawing board
  • p065 Scott Carpenter, relatively inexperienced pilot but superb physical shape.
  • p067 philandering Gordon Cooper was (secretly) separated, but reconciled to improve his chances
  • p068 Glenn was cheerful and charming
  • p071 KC-135 vomit comet, 30 seconds of weightlessness
  • p072 1960 Nov 21, Mercury Redstone MR-1 lifted 3.8 inches, escape tower launched itself, Mercury parachutes deployed.
  • p075 1960 Dec 19, MR-1A mission completely successful

  • p076 1959: Yuri Gagarin and wife Valentina at Luostari air base

  • p079 2461 pilots considered, 352 candidates interviewed by doctors,134 tested at Moscow aviation hospital
  • p084 Gherman Titov secretly told wife Tamara (violating rules)
  • p086 First 12 of 20 inducted into Military Unit 26266 in March 1960; younger than US, healthier, inexperienced
  • p090 Korolev Chief Designer of OKB-1 long range missiles

  • p092 1938 June 27 arrested by Stalin's NKVD, confession extracted, broken jaw, prison, 1938 Kolyma Siberia gold mine
    • 1939 to sharashka to design ricket engines, released in July 1944

  • p095 1950 2xV-2 R-2, 1953 750 mi range R-5. 1957 R-7 ICBM
  • p097 Korolev left first wive Kseniya and daughter Natalya, married second wife Nina in 1949
  • p101 1960 Russians displayed R-7 upper stage in Mexico City, CIA disassembled and copied it overnight
  • p105 Gagarin removes shoes before stepping into clean Vostok; Korolev visibly impressed
  • p107 1961/01/31 MR02 Subject 65 Ham
  • p108 Psychomotor - Light flashes, ham presses lever or is zapped
  • p113 Gee-Whizz rocket sled at Holloman
  • p117 Alan Shepard on gantry watching Ham's box strapped into Mercury capsule "Spacecraft Number 5" (7 assigned to Shepard)
  • p119 blunt bottom capsule attributed to Maxime Faget (probably Eggers), "more slowly(???) and more coolly"
  • p120 Glenn joked, "You don't climb into a Mercury capsule, you put it on."
  • p120 Soviet throw-weight got them to space first, but delayed technology development
  • p121 Hatch closed with 70 bolts 140 minutes before launch
  • p123 continuous prep for three weeks, blockhouse 750 feet from pad, Mercury Flight Director Chris Kraft "Flight"
  • p129 1154 launch, Thrust controller? stuck, too fast, 4400mph -> 5857mph, Ham heart rate from 94 to 126 beats/min

  • p131 Redstone depletes fuel, shuts down half second early, triggers escape tower, 17gees to 156 mile altitude, heart rate 158 bpm
  • p131 41 miles too high, 130 miles beyond the recovery ships, 3 hours away. 14.7 gees, Ham heart rate 204 bpm
  • p133 splashdown 1212pm, 422 miles out. Capsule let in 800 pounds of water before first helicopter arrived
  • p135 von Braun withholds next Redstone until investigation made
  • p143 von Braun: all parties involved had to agree they were ready to launch

  • p144 Now we had a timid German fouling our plans from the inside
    • Flight: My Life In Mission Control, Chris Kraft autobiography, own.
  • p144 George Kistiakowsky ... if anything did go wrong ... end up as the most expensive public funeral in history.
  • p148 Feb 22, Glenn, Grissom, and Shepard introduced as first three astronauts by press officer Shorty Powers
  • p153 summer 1960, cosmonaut wives told of husband's missions
  • p156 Parachute training, up to 65 jumps in 5 weeks, ten day isolation test
  • p158 Unmanned test flight end of March as von Braun wanted, then Shepard launch last week in April
    • Webb agreed, reflecting Kennedy's concerns about haste
  • p159 Von Braun calculated 2% chance of failure
  • p161 Ivan Ivanovich mannequin test 1961 March 9 Vostok 3A capsule p169 recovered Tokmak village
  • p166 Shemya monitor station in Aleutian archipelago, close to Kamchatka

  • p167 1960 captured 83 MHz video transmission of doc test flights
  • p177 Site 10, Leninsky 10,000 inhabitants, Site 2 MIK (Montazhno-Ispytatelnyi Kompleks) assembly building
  • p179 location secret, address Number 10 Tashkent 50
  • p180 August 28 1957 U2 mission shows R-7 launch pad - May 1960 Francis Gary Powers shootdown
  • p181 October 24 1960 R-16 explosion
  • p185 March 13 1961 Valentin Bondarenko burned, fire in 40% oxygen test chamber. p188 16 hours to die, 1986 revealed ibin Izvestia

    • public info might have prevented Apollo 1 fire
  • p190 only three spacesuits, leaky emergency dingy, dehumifier , all nominal, 29fail, R-7 third stage fails
  • p193 March 24 1961 MR-BD booster development test, nominal, splashdown within 4 miles of expected target, all booster corrections satisfactory
  • p202 Ivan lands near Votinsk and Izhevsk

  • p206 Kaminin secret diary: survival equipment untested, capsule separation fail, overshot target area 660 km

  • p207 March 30 meeting, Konstantin Rudnev meeting in Moscow, approves human flight next, three press releases prepared
  • p212 1961 April 3, presidium authorizes Vostok-3A comonaut mission
  • p215 1961 April 4, Kennedy approves Bay of Pigs invasion
  • p218 Chkalovsky: 6 vanguard cosmonauts leave for launch site, Tamara knows, Valentina learns about upcoming launch
  • p227 backup manual control system, locked with three digit code p232 April 7 belated manual descent training
  • p245 Fake press release - Baikonur 280 km NW, fake wooden launch pad, also claimed cosmonaut lands in vehicle
  • p248 April 9 Titov chosen for second more challenging mission, Gagarin's personality chosen for first
  • p253 R-9 second stage malfunction
  • p257 April 10 Oleg Ivanovsky, 14 kg Vostok mass reduction by hacking out surplus
  • p267 Pad abort - eject, 12 story drop into a net, crawl into bathtub, lowered down by rescue team
    • Gherman Titov laughed to tears "It's good that we did not know this"
  • p283 April 12 Technician painted CCCP on Gagarin's white helmet
  • p284 if Soviet spaceflight announcment, Kennedy said "Give me the news in the morning"
  • p286 bus ride to pad, no mention of peeing on tire
  • p291 Gagarin's code name Kedr (Cedar). 30 bolts on hatch. Launch bunker deep underground, 100 meters away
  • p294 Ground and tracking ship radars feed Bolshevo missile computation center NII-4
  • p299 R-7 suspended on 4 arms over flame pit ... 353 second thIrd stage engine burn
  • p301 April 12 09:06 ignition, 32 combustion chambers (20 nozzles), all must simultaneously ignite or possible explosiom
  • p302 Gagarin heartrate from 64 to 157 bpm, Poyekhali! (Let's Go!)
  • p304 667 seconds to orbit
  • p306 119 sec: Staging feeling "like that of being ripped away from the rocket" 154s nose shroud jettison
  • p309 09:18 3rd stage shutdown
  • p312 NII_4 calculated 327 km apogee, planned 230 km. Wrong landing spot, too slow orbit decay if braking engine failed.
  • p314 Yuri's parents Aleksey and Anna in Gzhatsk
  • p318 1:35am EST elint to Pierre Salinger
  • p321 09:57 last call to Khabarovsk
  • p323 Gagarin promoted to Major 10:00 Radio announcer Yuri Levitan

  • p326 Tamara Titova tells neigbor Valentina Gagarina
  • p328 Yuri's mother Anna Gagarina in Gzhatsk informed by daughter Zoya, takes train to Moscow
  • p328 Father informed "Aleksey Ivanovich! ... son in space ... pilot major Gagarin" "Not my son ... a first lieutenant"
  • p329 roads impassable, Aleksey heads back home on horse
  • p329 2am EST NYTimes calls Salinger
  • p330 NBC reporter calls press officer 'Shorty' Powers, "... NASA's reaction to the Russians orbiting a cosmonaut?" "Fuck you, we're asleep here"
  • p330 morning headlines SOVIETS PUT MAN IN SPACE, SPOKESMAN SAYS U.S. ASLEEP
  • p338 Entry burn cuts off too soon, separation delayed 12 minutes until entry heat
  • p339 ablative resin-impregnated asbestos surrounding sphere, 11 to 4 cm thick > 10 gees

  • p342 10:42 40km south of Saratov, lost survival pack, 6min problem opening breathing tube
  • p345 10:53 landed in freshly plowed field
  • p363 Krushchev calls for monumental Moscow celebration April 14
  • p366 8am Kennedy wakes to newspaper headlines, later stumbles through press conference
  • p372 Teenagers scavenge liferaft, pierce orange capsule, boom!, whole farmyard covered with yellow dye
  • p396 Something more was needed. NASA deputy Hugh Dryden said Apollo might cost $40B ($345B 2021)
  • p397 April 19, Bay of Pigs was disaster. Kennedy explores Apollo, maybe $20B (actually $28B between 1960 and 1973)
  • p400 Alan Shepard suborbital flight
  • p403 1961 May 25 Kennedy Moom Speech to Congress
  • p409 1966 January 14 age 59 Korolev dies in Moscow hospital. Identity revealed, state funeral January 18, ahes interred in Kremlin wall.
  • p410 1961 August 6, Titov 17 orbits in 25 hours
  • p413 Gagarin world tour, 1961 July Buckingham palace, 1963 addresses United Nations
  • p414 1968 March 27 Gagarin dies in MIG-15 crash near Moscow, unproven rumors of foul play, state funeral March 30
  • Daughters Yelena (1959/04/17) and Galina (1961/03/07) still alive

  • Brother Boris' daughter Anna immigrated to US in 2002 and married
  • not in book: textile worker and parachutist Valentina Tereshkova Vostok 6, 16 June 1963, 48 orbits almost 3 days

Beyond (last edited 2021-06-25 03:38:08 by KeithLofstrom)