Space exploration is the dream that has occupied the thoughts of many people for hundreds of years. Even in those distant, distant times, when a person could see stars and planets, relying only on his vision, he dreamed of finding out what endless black abysses of the dark sky were hiding above his head. Dreams began to come true relatively recently.
Almost all the leading space powers immediately began a kind of “arms race” here too: scientists tried to get ahead of their colleagues by putting them out and testing various devices for space exploration before. However, there was still a gap: the Apollo Union program was to show the friendship of the USSR and the USA, as well as their desire to pave the way for humanity to the stars with joint efforts.
General information
The abbreviated name of this program is EPAS. Flying is also known as the “Handshake in Space”. In general, the Apollo Soyuz was a bold experimental flight of the Soyuz 19 and the American Apollo. The expedition participants had to overcome many difficulties, the most significant of which was the completely different design of the docking nodes. But on the “agenda” was precisely the docking!
In fact, quite normal contacts between scientists from the USSR and the USA began even during the launch of the first artificial Earth satellites. An agreement on a common, peaceful exploration of outer space was signed in 1962. At the same time, researchers got the opportunity to share the results of programs and some developments in the space industry.
First Researchers Meetings
On the part of the USSR and the USA, the initiators of the joint work were: the president of the Academy of Sciences (AN), the famous M.V. Keldysh, as well as the director of the National Aerospace Agency (known as NASA in the world) Dr. Payne.
The first meeting of delegations from the United States and the USSR took place in late autumn 1970. The American mission was led by Dr. R. Gilrut, director of the Johnson Managed Space Flight Center. On the Soviet side, was headed by Academician B. N. Petrov, Chairman of the Council for the International Study of Outer Space (Intercosmos program). Immediately, joint working groups were formed, the main task of which was to discuss the possibility of compatibility of structural units of Soviet and American spacecraft.
The following year, already in Houston, a new meeting was organized, led by the well-known to us B.N. Petrov and R. Gilrut. The teams examined the basic requirements for the design features of manned vehicles, and a number of issues were fully agreed upon regarding the standardization of life support systems. It was then that the possibility of a joint flight with subsequent docking by the crews began to be discussed.
As you can see, the Soyuz-Apollon program, the year of implementation of which was a triumph of world cosmonautics, required the revision of a huge number of technical and political rules and regulations.
Conclusions on the feasibility of joint manned flights
In 1972, the Soviet and American sides again arranged a meeting at which all the work done over the past period was generalized and systematized. The final decision on the appropriateness of a joint manned flight was positive; for the implementation of the program, ships already familiar to us were chosen. And so the Apollo Union project was born.
The beginning of the program
It was May 1972. A historic agreement was signed between our country and America, providing for a joint peaceful exploration of outer space. In addition, the parties finally decided on the technical side of the issue of Apollo-Soyuz flight. This time, the delegations were headed: on the Soviet side was Academician K. D. Bushuev, Americans were represented by Dr. G. Lanny.
During the meeting, they decided on those goals, the achievement of which will be devoted to all further work:
- Testing the compatibility of control systems in the approximation of ships in space.
- Testing in “field” conditions of automatic and manual docking systems.
- Testing and tuning equipment intended for the transition of astronauts from ship to ship.
- Finally, the accumulation of invaluable experience in the field of joint manned space flights. When Soyuz-19 docked with the Apollo ship, experts received so much valuable information that they were actively used throughout the entire American lunar program.
Other areas of work
Specialists, among other things, wanted to check the possibility of orientation in space of already docked ships, as well as to test the stability of communication systems on different machines. Finally, it was crucial to test the compatibility of Soviet and American flight control systems.
Here's how the main events developed at that time:
- At the end of May 1975, a final meeting was held to discuss some issues of an organizational nature. A final document on full readiness for the flight was signed. It was signed: Academician V. A. Kotelnikov from the Soviet side, the document was endorsed by the Americans among J. Low. The launch date was set for July 15, 1975.
- Exactly at 15 hours and 20 minutes, the Soviet Soyuz-19 will successfully start from the Baikonur Cosmodrome .
- With the help of the Saturn-1B launch vehicle, Apollo launches. Time - 22 hours 50 minutes. The starting place is Cape Canaveral.
- Two days later, after completion of all preparatory work, at 19 hours 12 minutes, Soyuz-19 docked. In 1975, a new era of space exploration opened.
- Exactly two rounds of the Soyuz along the Earth’s orbit, a new Soyuz-Apollon docking was made, after which they flew two more turns in this position. After some time, the devices finally dispersed, completely completing the research program.
In general, the flight time amounted to:
- The Soviet Union 19 spent 5 days, 22 hours and 31 minutes in orbit.
- Apollo spent 9 days, 1 hour and 28 minutes in flight.
- In docked position, the ships spent exactly 46 hours and 36 minutes.
Crew
And now it is time to recall by name the crew members of the American and Soviet ships, who, having overcome a huge amount of difficulties, were able to fully implement all the stages of such an important space program.
The American crew was represented by:
- Thomas Stafford. The commander of the American crew. Experienced astronaut, fourth flight.
- Vance Brand. Piloted command module, the first flight.
- Donald Slayton It was he who was responsible for the responsible docking operation, this was also his first flight.
The composition of the Soviet crew included the following astronauts:
- Alexei Leonov was a commander.
- Valery Kubasov was an onboard engineer.
Both Soviet cosmonauts have already been in orbit once, so the Soyuz-Apollo flight was their second.
What experiments were carried out during the joint flight?
- An experiment was conducted involving the study of a solar eclipse: Apollo turned off the light, while the Soyuz studied and described the effects that arose.
- Ultraviolet absorption was studied, during which the crews measured the content of atomic oxygen and nitrogen in the orbit of the planet.
- In addition, several experiments were conducted, during which the researchers checked how weightlessness, the absence of a magnetic field and other conditions of space affect the flow of biological rhythms.
- For microbiologists, the program of studying the mutual exchange and transfer of microorganisms under zero gravity between two ships (through the docking station) is also of great interest.
- Finally, the Soyuz-Apollo flight made it possible to study the processes occurring in metallic and semiconductor materials under such specific conditions. It should be noted that K.P. Gurov, who was notorious among metallurgists, became the “father” of this kind of study, who proposed to carry out these works.
Some technical details
It should be noted that on the American ship pure oxygen was used as a breathing mixture, while the domestic ship had an atmosphere identical in composition to that on Earth. Thus, a direct transition from ship to ship was impossible. Especially to resolve this problem, a special transition compartment was launched along with the American ship.
It should be noted that the Americans subsequently used this time to create their lunar module. During the transition, the pressure in Apollo was slightly increased, but in Soyuz, on the contrary, it was reduced, while at the same time raising the oxygen content in the respiratory mixture to 40%. As a result, people got the opportunity to be in the transition module (before entering a strange ship) not eight hours, but only 30 minutes.
By the way, if you are interested in this story, visit the Cosmonautics Museum in Moscow. There a huge stand is dedicated to this topic.
The general history of manned space flights
Our article does not accidentally touch on the topic of the history of manned space flights. The entire program described above would have been impossible in principle, if not for preliminary development in this area, experience in which had been accumulated over decades. Who “paved the way”, thanks to whom manned space flights became possible?
As you know, on April 12, 1961, an event occurred that had truly world-wide significance. On that day, Yuri Gagarin carried out the first manned flight in the history of the world on the Vostok ship.
The second country to do this was the United States. Their spacecraft Mercury-Redstone-3, piloted by Alan Shepard, was launched into orbit just a month later, on May 5, 1961. In February, Cape Canaveral launched the Mercury Atlas 6, on board of which was John Glenn.
First records and achievements
Two years after Gagarin, the first woman flew into space. It was Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova. She flew alone on the Vostok-6 ship. The launch was made on June 16, 1963. In America, the first representative of the fairer sex to be in orbit was Sally Ryde. She was a member of the mixed crew, which flew in 1983.
As early as March 18, 1965, another record was broken: Alexei Leonov entered space. The first woman to be in outer space was Svetlana Savitskaya, who did this in 1984. Note that at present women are included in all the ISS crews, without exception, since all the necessary information was collected on the physiology of the female body in space conditions, and therefore, nothing threatens the health of the astronauts.
The longest flights
Up to this day, the 437-day stay in orbit of cosmonaut Valery Polyakov is considered the longest single space flight . He stayed aboard the Mir from January 1994 to March 1995. The record for the total set of days spent in orbit, again belongs to the Russian cosmonaut - Sergey Krikalev.
If we talk about group flight, then for about 364 days astronauts and astronauts flew from September 1989 to August 1999. So it was proved that a person, theoretically, can withstand the flight to Mars. Researchers are now more concerned about the psychological compatibility of the crew.
Information on the history of reusable space flights
To date, the United States is the only country that has more or less successful experience in operating reusable space shuttles of the Space Shuttle series. The first flight of the spacecraft of this series, Columbia, occurred exactly two decades after the flight of Gagarin, on April 12, 1981. The USSR launched the Buran in 1988 for the first and only time. That flight is also unique in that it took place in a fully automatic mode, although manual piloting was possible.
The exposition, which shows the whole history of the “Soviet shuttle”, is demonstrated by the Cosmonautics Museum in Moscow. We advise you to visit it, as there are so many interesting things!
The highest orbit, at the highest point of the passage, reached the mark of 1374 kilometers, was reached by the American crew on the ship "Gemini-11". It happened back in 1966. In addition, the shuttles were often used to repair and maintain the Hubble telescope when they performed fairly complex manned flights at an altitude of about 600 kilometers. Most often, flights orbit the spacecraft at an altitude of about 200-300 kilometers.
Note that immediately after the shuttle shutdown, the ISS orbit was gradually raised to an altitude of 400 kilometers. This is due to the fact that the shuttles could make effective maneuvering at an altitude of only 300 kilometers, but for the station itself those heights were not very suitable because of the high density of the surrounding space (by cosmic standards, of course).
Have flights been made outside the orbit of the earth?
Only Americans flew beyond the limits of the Earth’s orbit when they performed the tasks of the Apollo program. In 1968, a spaceship circled the moon. Note that from July 16, 1969, the Americans carried out their lunar program, during which the "lunar landing" was performed. At the end of 1972, the program was curtailed, which caused indignation not only American but also Soviet scientists who empathized with their colleagues.
Note that in the USSR there were many similar programs. Despite the almost complete completeness of many of them, “good” for their implementation was never received.
Other "space" countries
China has become the third space power. This happened on October 15, 2003, when the ship "Shenzhou-5" went into the open. In general, the space program of China dates back to the 70s of the last century, but all planned flights were never completed then.
At the end of the 90s, Europeans and Japanese made their steps in this direction. But their projects for the creation of reusable manned ships were curtailed after several years of development, since the Soviet-Russian Soyuz spacecraft turned out to be simpler, more reliable and cheaper, which led to the economic inexpediency of the work.
Space tourism and "private space"
Since 1978, astronauts from dozens of countries of the world have flown on ships and stations of the USSR / Russian Federation and the USA. In addition, the so-called “space tourism” is gaining momentum recently, when an ordinary (unusual in financial capabilities) person can visit the ISS. In the recent past, China has also announced the development of similar programs.
But the Ansari X-Prize program, which started in 1996, caused a real stir. According to its conditions, it was required that a private company (without state support) be able to lift (twice) a ship with a crew of three people (twice) to a height of 100 kilometers. The prize was more than solid - $ 10 million. More than two dozen companies and even individuals immediately began to develop their projects.
Thus began a new history of astronautics, in which any person could theoretically become the "discoverer" of space.
The first successes of "private traders"
Since the devices they developed did not need to go into truly outer space, the cost was hundreds of times less. The first private ship, SpaceShipOne, launched in early summer 2004. Created by Scaled Composites.
Five minutes of conspiracy theory
It should be noted that many projects (almost all, in general) were not based on some development of private "nuggets", but on work on the FAU-2 and the Soviet "Buran", all documentation on which after the 90s " suddenly ”suddenly became available to the foreign public. Some adherents of bold theories claim that the USSR carried out (unsuccessfully) the first manned launches back in 1957-1959.
There is also unconfirmed evidence that the Nazis were developing intercontinental missile projects for American attacks in the 40s. Rumor has it that during the tests, some pilots were still able to reach a height of 100 kilometers, which makes them (if they were at all) the first astronauts.
"World" era
Until now, the history of astronautics stores information on the Soviet-Russian station Mir, which was a truly unique object. Its construction was fully completed only on April 26, 1996. Then the fifth, last module was attached to the station, which made it possible to carry out complex studies of the seas, oceans, and forests of the Earth.
In orbit "Mir" was 14.5 years, which is several times higher than the planned life. During all this time, more than 11 tons of scientific equipment were delivered to it, scientists conducted tens of thousands of unique experiments, some of which predetermined the development of world science for all subsequent decades. In addition, astronauts and astronauts on board the station made 75 spacewalks, the total duration of which is 15 days.
ISS History
The construction of the International Space Station was attended by 16 countries. The largest contribution to its creation was made by Russian, European (Germany and France), as well as American specialists. This facility is designed for 15 years of operation with the possibility of extending this period.
The first long-term expedition to the ISS started at the end of October 2000. Participants of 42 long missions have already managed to visit it. It should be noted that as part of the 13th expedition, the world's first Brazilian astronaut Marcos Pontes arrived at the station. He successfully completed all the work intended for him, after which he returned to Earth as part of the 12th mission.
This is how the history of space flights was made. There were many discoveries and victories, some gave their lives so that humanity could one day still be able to call space their home. One can only hope that our civilization will continue to research in this area, and sometime we will wait for the colonization of nearby planets.