Post by PhantomWolf on Oct 1, 2005 10:58:56 GMT -4
Correction: I said Air Force has a limit of 65 miles, it’s less, its 50 miles.
The first US man in Space was not Allan Shepard. It was a pilot flying the X-15 into space and re-entering. But, this did not make the same headlines and sensation as the capsules on top of the rockets did.
The X-15 didn’t pass the 50 mile limit until after Shepard’s flight. Its maximum altitude at that time was only 32 miles.
Lets go back to our race with the Russians. So Russia sent the first man into space, then we sent a manned X-15 into space, then we sent Sheppard and then Glenn into earth orbit. This was called the Mercury project.
As noted above, the X-15 didn’t hit the 50 mile mark till after Shepard’s fight which was only three weeks after Gagarin’s flight. After Glenn’s flight there were 3 more missions. Gus Grissom in Liberty Bell 7, was between Shepard’s and Glenn’s flight as well. The Mercury Project consisted of 6 flights in total, not two. Aurora 7 (Scott Carpenter), Sigma 7 (Walter M. Schirra, Jr.) and Faith 7 (Gordon Cooper) ll flew after Glenn in Friendship 7.
The next public phase was the Gemini project. Blasting 2 men in a capsule atop a rocket and getting them to orbit. At the same time we and the Russians were sending many satellites into space for spying and weather and telecommunications.
Hogwash. In 1962 when Kennedy did his Rice University speech, the USA already had 40 satellites in orbit. The Soviets had 5! The USA had also sent out the Mariner Space Probe.
Russia was also sending 2 man crews, and Russia was again the first to claim they made a space-walk while in orbit around the earth.
And nearly killed him doing it due to having to decompress his suit to get back into the orbiter’s airlock. This was because unlike the transistors in the Gemini capsule, the Voskhod used vacuum values and could be evacuated to let the cosmonaut out of the capsule.
After this the US claimed we had made a space walk.
This occurred a matter of days later on Gemini 4 by Ed White. The next US space walk was to be with Gemini 5, the next Soviet wasn’t for 4 years!
The space suits were under water suits and on TV when they showed live videos of it they moved slowly.
Perhaps someone will correct me, but I wasn’t aware that they televised the Gemini space walks.
When their flights were completed the men were put in these capsules and flown up way high using spy planes
The Gemini capsules were not capable of being carried by either US spy plane of the time, the U2 and the SR-71
While, in Russia, the men and capsules would land on earth, often to within feet of hitting their targeted landing zones.
Tell that to the crew of who had to fend off starving bears and wolves till they were rescued. The Soviet landings were notorious for missing their targets, the US landings were pretty much spot on. They landed in the water because it was a safer way to land that doing a harder land based landing.
Why could the Russians land on land and do so with pin point accuracy, while the US had to splash down in the ocean and would be miles off target? The answer:
Doesn’t matter because the question is wrong.
The whole time the Russians were always 1 or 2 steps ahead of us. They were the first in space, the first to send up 2 men
Not the whole time, these two steps yes, they had bigger rockets to start with so they could get them up faster.
the first to do a space walk
At an extreme risk to the cosmonaut’s life.
the first to do a docking in space
Wrong, Gemini did the first dockings. The first Soviet docking wasn’t until Soyuz 4 and 5 in 1968.
the first to have a manned space station
Not at the time of Apollo. The first space station was, Salyut. It was launched in 971
they held the record for having a man in space the longest
Not at the time of Apollo, that record was held by the crew of Gemini 7 at 13 days 18 hours and 35 minutes. At that point the longest Soviet time in space was Vostok 5 with only 4 days 23 hours and 8 minutes
they were the first to claim to have broken the Van Allen belts (which I will describe more further on),
Yes, in 1959 before the first man in space.
the first to send an unmanned probe to the moon
Yes in 1959. It was Lunik II
the first to send a robot to the moon and have it come back to earth.
Ummmm…. Pardon? No one has ever sent a robot to the moon and returned it. The Soviets did send a number of capsules on return paths and later on after Apollo 11 and had capsules return with samples, but none of them were a robot that returned.
Etc., etc.
This is where you ignore all the US firsts?
(Yes, Russia supposedly brought back moon dust and moon rocks "before" the US did).
No, their first sample return was in 1970.
They were the first all the way along, right up to and until the US beat them to the most important punch when we claimed to be the first to send men to the moon.
No they were first by taking risks right up until Gemini, at which point they dropped out of the space race for nearly 4 years without a successful manned flight, and one very unsuccessful one. (The cosmonaut was killed.) Add to the spectacular failure of the N-1 rocket and the Soviets were very far behind (although again by being willing to take risks, had they actually gotten the N-1 to launch, or not crashed their Luna recovery missions that was to land before Apollo 11, they might have come closer.
They were the first all the way - until the very last minute
No, they were behind by 1964.
Then, once we put men on the moon, oddly, the Russian's never - ever - sent a manned mission to the moon. Why?
Mostly because of the failure of the N-1, but the deaths of Vladimir Komarovin the crash of Soyuz 1 and then the deaths of Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev on Salyut I helped to kill it. After more rocket failures and only being able to test their lunar lander once in Eart Orbit, the Soviets finally gave up in 1974.
why didn't they spend the last few dollars and also send at least one manned mission? Imagine the world-wide prestige had they been the second to send a manned mission, especially if it had been within months of our first mission. They may not have got all the glory, but they would have clearly saved face by being a close second. Why didn't they?
With the failure of their lunar program, they turned their attention to space stations. With Salyut in 1971, Almaz in 1973 and then Mir.
The first US man in Space was not Allan Shepard. It was a pilot flying the X-15 into space and re-entering. But, this did not make the same headlines and sensation as the capsules on top of the rockets did.
The X-15 didn’t pass the 50 mile limit until after Shepard’s flight. Its maximum altitude at that time was only 32 miles.
Lets go back to our race with the Russians. So Russia sent the first man into space, then we sent a manned X-15 into space, then we sent Sheppard and then Glenn into earth orbit. This was called the Mercury project.
As noted above, the X-15 didn’t hit the 50 mile mark till after Shepard’s fight which was only three weeks after Gagarin’s flight. After Glenn’s flight there were 3 more missions. Gus Grissom in Liberty Bell 7, was between Shepard’s and Glenn’s flight as well. The Mercury Project consisted of 6 flights in total, not two. Aurora 7 (Scott Carpenter), Sigma 7 (Walter M. Schirra, Jr.) and Faith 7 (Gordon Cooper) ll flew after Glenn in Friendship 7.
The next public phase was the Gemini project. Blasting 2 men in a capsule atop a rocket and getting them to orbit. At the same time we and the Russians were sending many satellites into space for spying and weather and telecommunications.
Hogwash. In 1962 when Kennedy did his Rice University speech, the USA already had 40 satellites in orbit. The Soviets had 5! The USA had also sent out the Mariner Space Probe.
Russia was also sending 2 man crews, and Russia was again the first to claim they made a space-walk while in orbit around the earth.
And nearly killed him doing it due to having to decompress his suit to get back into the orbiter’s airlock. This was because unlike the transistors in the Gemini capsule, the Voskhod used vacuum values and could be evacuated to let the cosmonaut out of the capsule.
After this the US claimed we had made a space walk.
This occurred a matter of days later on Gemini 4 by Ed White. The next US space walk was to be with Gemini 5, the next Soviet wasn’t for 4 years!
The space suits were under water suits and on TV when they showed live videos of it they moved slowly.
Perhaps someone will correct me, but I wasn’t aware that they televised the Gemini space walks.
When their flights were completed the men were put in these capsules and flown up way high using spy planes
The Gemini capsules were not capable of being carried by either US spy plane of the time, the U2 and the SR-71
While, in Russia, the men and capsules would land on earth, often to within feet of hitting their targeted landing zones.
Tell that to the crew of who had to fend off starving bears and wolves till they were rescued. The Soviet landings were notorious for missing their targets, the US landings were pretty much spot on. They landed in the water because it was a safer way to land that doing a harder land based landing.
Why could the Russians land on land and do so with pin point accuracy, while the US had to splash down in the ocean and would be miles off target? The answer:
Doesn’t matter because the question is wrong.
The whole time the Russians were always 1 or 2 steps ahead of us. They were the first in space, the first to send up 2 men
Not the whole time, these two steps yes, they had bigger rockets to start with so they could get them up faster.
the first to do a space walk
At an extreme risk to the cosmonaut’s life.
the first to do a docking in space
Wrong, Gemini did the first dockings. The first Soviet docking wasn’t until Soyuz 4 and 5 in 1968.
the first to have a manned space station
Not at the time of Apollo. The first space station was, Salyut. It was launched in 971
they held the record for having a man in space the longest
Not at the time of Apollo, that record was held by the crew of Gemini 7 at 13 days 18 hours and 35 minutes. At that point the longest Soviet time in space was Vostok 5 with only 4 days 23 hours and 8 minutes
they were the first to claim to have broken the Van Allen belts (which I will describe more further on),
Yes, in 1959 before the first man in space.
the first to send an unmanned probe to the moon
Yes in 1959. It was Lunik II
the first to send a robot to the moon and have it come back to earth.
Ummmm…. Pardon? No one has ever sent a robot to the moon and returned it. The Soviets did send a number of capsules on return paths and later on after Apollo 11 and had capsules return with samples, but none of them were a robot that returned.
Etc., etc.
This is where you ignore all the US firsts?
(Yes, Russia supposedly brought back moon dust and moon rocks "before" the US did).
No, their first sample return was in 1970.
They were the first all the way along, right up to and until the US beat them to the most important punch when we claimed to be the first to send men to the moon.
No they were first by taking risks right up until Gemini, at which point they dropped out of the space race for nearly 4 years without a successful manned flight, and one very unsuccessful one. (The cosmonaut was killed.) Add to the spectacular failure of the N-1 rocket and the Soviets were very far behind (although again by being willing to take risks, had they actually gotten the N-1 to launch, or not crashed their Luna recovery missions that was to land before Apollo 11, they might have come closer.
They were the first all the way - until the very last minute
No, they were behind by 1964.
Then, once we put men on the moon, oddly, the Russian's never - ever - sent a manned mission to the moon. Why?
Mostly because of the failure of the N-1, but the deaths of Vladimir Komarovin the crash of Soyuz 1 and then the deaths of Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov and Viktor Patsayev on Salyut I helped to kill it. After more rocket failures and only being able to test their lunar lander once in Eart Orbit, the Soviets finally gave up in 1974.
why didn't they spend the last few dollars and also send at least one manned mission? Imagine the world-wide prestige had they been the second to send a manned mission, especially if it had been within months of our first mission. They may not have got all the glory, but they would have clearly saved face by being a close second. Why didn't they?
With the failure of their lunar program, they turned their attention to space stations. With Salyut in 1971, Almaz in 1973 and then Mir.