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Post by Ginnie on Jun 11, 2008 16:28:14 GMT -4
Unfortunately, for that very reason my wife and kids are embarrassed by me. But they love you anyway. I get those rolled eyes too for trying to drag them out of the house to try out different things. Life of a dad I guess. It's the other way around with me. I'm so comfortable in my 'castle', I have everything here I like doing, inside the house and out. On Saturday we are going to Canada's Wonderland - a Disneyland type of place. I'm absolutely dreading it. Driving on the 401 (North America's busiest highway) to get there, then waiting in lines in the hot sun. I hate it. I'll have to find a good shady place to sit, maybe with a brew (if they sell any) and a good magazine. I do like camping though - with a tent, not trailer!
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Post by Count Zero on Jun 12, 2008 8:46:22 GMT -4
Ya need a bigger model of the Saturn...this one won't be falling thru no vents. www.cjsaviation.com/wish I had the $ to buy some of these... Wow! Beautiful - sharp w/ great detailing (the rockets are nice, too). The launch video is awesome. The scenery looks like Tucson, or perhaps Phoenix, Arizona.
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Post by gwiz on Jul 14, 2008 8:57:56 GMT -4
It's 40 years today from the date of a setback to the Russian manned lunar programme. During preparations to launch another Zond mission, the oxydiser tank in the Proton launch vehicle's fourth stage was inadvertantly overpressurised and exploded, killing three of the launch crew.
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Post by gwiz on Aug 28, 2008 5:36:51 GMT -4
40 years today from the launch of Kosmos 238, the final unmanned test of the Soyuz craft prior to the resumption of Russian manned flights. It successfully completed a four-day mission including simulated rendezvous manoeuvres.
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Post by gwiz on Sept 14, 2008 4:51:38 GMT -4
The 40th anniversary today of Zond 5, the first major success in the Russian manned lunar programme. Zond was a version of the Soyuz spacecraft adapted for circumlunar missions. Zond 5 was flown unmanned, but with a living payload including two tortoises and a selection of insects, plants and other simple lifeforms plus a number of instruments for radiation detection and a camera for pictures of the earth and moon. The flight wasn't trouble-free: attitude control problems delayed the first mid-course manoeuvre for a day and prevented Moon pictures being obtained. However, the craft flew around the moon on Sep 18th and back towards the earth. The attitude control problems prevented the planned skip-lob re-entry to a landing back in Russia, and a ballistic re-entry to a spashdown in the Indian Ocean on the 21st was performed instead. The descent capsule was recovered by Russian ships, with the on-board zoo suffering no ill effects.
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Post by gwiz on Oct 11, 2008 12:31:58 GMT -4
Today marks 40 years from the launch of the first manned Apollo flight, Apollo 7. It was a test of only the CSM flown in low earth orbit with a three-man crew commanded by Mercury and Gemini veteran Wally Schirra. The first few orbits were taken with exercises in conjunction with the S-4B launch vehicle stage, practising the manoeuvre that would have to be used to extract the LM and then carrying out a rendezvous exercise from 150 km away. The remainder of the flight was taken up with extensive testing of all the CSM systems, plus a ground-based LM radar test against the orbiting CSM radar transponder. The flight lasted 11 days, still a record for the first flight of a manned vehicle, and ended with spashdown in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Post by gwiz on Oct 26, 2008 6:41:01 GMT -4
Two weeks after Apollo 7, the Russian programme also resumed manned flights which had been suspended since the Soyuz 1 disaster. Soyuz 3 was launched with a one-man crew, Georgi Beregovoi. The first stages of an automatic rendezvous exercise with the unmanned Soyuz 2, launched the previous day, went well, but once Beregovoi took over for the final manually controlled manoeuvres things went wrong. Fuel usage was excessive and Beregovoi was unable to dock with the target. Both craft returned successfully, with Beregovoi's mission lasting four days.
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Post by gwiz on Nov 8, 2008 15:29:22 GMT -4
Not perhaps a major anniversary, but 40 years ago NASA launched their second TETR (Test and Training) satellite to exercise the Apollo tracking network. The first TETR had decayed from orbit the previous April, but the second was put into a higher orbit and lasted right through the Apollo flights.
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Post by Count Zero on Nov 9, 2008 20:57:22 GMT -4
once Beregovoi took over for the final manually controlled manoeuvres things went wrong. Fuel usage was excessive and Beregovoi was unable to dock with the target.
They later realized that Beregovoi had tried to dock upsidedown, i.e. rolled 180 degrees from the proper alignment. This may have reinforced, in the minds of the Soviet hierarchy, that automated systems were more reliable than cosmonauts. Of course, automated systems take longer to develop, which was just one more handicap in the Moon Race.
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Post by gwiz on Nov 10, 2008 15:23:18 GMT -4
Today marks the 40th anniversary of Zond 6, the second Russian circumlunar mission. Basically a repeat of Zond 5, it encountered different problems. The major fault was a hatch seal leak which depressurised the cabin and would have killed a crew. In spite of this, the re-entry successfully followed the first skip-lob guided trajectory to come in over Russian territory. However, the low cabin pressure led to arcing in the control electronics and jettison of the parachutes prior to landing. The biological payload was destroyed in the resulting crash, but some of the film survived with pictures on the moon. The less than successful conclusion of the mission was not announced at the time.
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Post by gwiz on Nov 11, 2008 15:28:05 GMT -4
A very significant date in 1968 - NASA's decision to send Apollo 8 to the Moon. The original plan for the first manned Saturn V mission was a test of the LM in low earth orbit, but delays to the LM left an anti-climactic mission with just the CSM, rather like a repeat of Apollo 7. Ideas for a lunar mission instead had been studied for some months, and then Zond 5 gave the impression that the Russians would soon be sending a man around the Moon. Rather than gift the Russians such a "first", the lunar orbital mission plan was selected for Apollo 8.
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Post by laurel on Nov 19, 2008 15:33:32 GMT -4
Today is the anniversary of the Apollo 12 landing in 1969.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Nov 20, 2008 0:29:38 GMT -4
"Whoopie! That may have been a small one for Neil but it was a big one for me!" - Pete Conrad
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Post by PhantomWolf on Nov 20, 2008 3:01:56 GMT -4
"Whoopie! That may have been a small one for Neil but it was a big one for me!" - Pete Conrad Which was said on a bet, thought the intersting thing is that Pete mistook Neil's "step" to be from the ladder to the lander pad, a common enough mistake, but in reality it was the step from the landing pad to the lunar surface so it really was a small step.
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Post by laurel on Dec 15, 2008 20:07:09 GMT -4
Today is the anniversary of the first rendezvous between two manned spacecraft, Gemini 6 and 7.
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