Showing posts with label cosmonaut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cosmonaut. Show all posts

April 12 - Yuri's Night

  Posted on April 12, 2022

This is an update of my post published on April 12, 2011:



 


Every year on April 12 we celebrate Yuri's Night, in honor of the first human space flight by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. Another name for the celebration is World Space Party. It's basically space-themed parties, all over the world, combined with educational outreach through museums, planetariums, and schools - all designed to garner more interest for space exploration!

On April 12, 1961, the Soviet space program launched the Vostok spacecraft with Yuri inside. The spacecraft circled the Earth one time, taking about 108 minutes, and when the spacecraft reached 7 kilometers of altitude (23,000 feet!), Gagarin ejected from it and parachuted to the ground.


Vostok 1, by Alexandr Ugryumov

There were some glitches in the flight, and Gagarin ended up landing miles away from the expected landing site. A farmer and her daughter saw the strange sight of a man in an orange spacesuit and large white helmet walking towards them, dragging his parachute behind him, and (according to Gagarin) they backed away from him in fear. He said, "Don't be afraid. I am a Soviet citizen like you, who has descended from space, and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!"
Illustration by Marco Trevesian


Read more about Yuri's flight here and Yuri's Night here.


Yuri Gagarin was the first person to see Earth from space. There was no camera on the Vostok, but the modern photo above shows what he saw. Gagarin said:


"Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship, I marveled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty — not destroy it!"


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March 18 - Celebrating the First Walk in Space!

Posted on March 18, 2020


The "Space Race" between the United States and the Soviet Union ended up pushing both nations to do great things. The Soviets, of course, "won" many laps (first person to reach space, first person in orbit, first person to consume food in space, first person to make multiple orbits during a spaceflight, first group flight, first woman in space, etc., etc.). The U.S. "won" a pretty big lap (first - and so far only) people to land on the Moon, but the U.S. "won" a few other laps, as well, such as the first people to do a space rendezvous and the first space docking.

Today is the anniversary of the first human "spacewalk." The U.S.S.R. "won" this particular feat when cosmonaut Alexei Leonov exited the Voskhod 2 on this date in 1965.


Leonov had spent 18 months (a year and a half!) on weightlessness training before this mission. Of course he was tethered to the spacecraft so he couldn't float away, and even more of course he was wearing a pressurized spacesuit (otherwise he would have died in the vacuum of space). But at the end of the spacewalk (12 minutes after he left the spaceship), Leonov's suit at inflated in the vacuum of space to be too large to fit back into the airlock! Yikes! 

Leonov had to inch his way into the airlock while opening a valve and *carefully* letting some of his precious air out from the inside of the suit. It took a lot longer than he thought it would, and Leonov was both uncomfortable and worried before he finally managed to (barely) squeeze into the airlock. His crewmate Pasha was able to activate the airlock so that there was equal pressure in the airlock and the inside of the spaceship, and Leonov was finally able to get back into the spacecraft. He reported that when he was finally safe, he was "drenched with sweat, my heart racing."

A few months later, Ed White would become the first American to perform a spacewalk. He used an oxygen propelled gun to maneuver and loved being outside in his spacesuit that he stayed outside after his allotted time was up. He had to be ordered back into the spaceship, and he said, "I'm coming back in...and it's the saddest moment of my life." 


Two other things happened during that first American space walk - and they both concerned gloves!

(1) A spare glove floated away through the open airlock, becoming one of the first pieces of known space debris in Earth orbit. (It's not still there - as you might have guessed, when it slowed down enough, it dropped out of orbit and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere.)

(2) There was a mechanical problem with the hatch mechanism, so it was really hard for White's crewmate McDivitt to open and relatch. But McDivitt was able to use his glove to push a gear so that he was able to relatch the door and save both of their lives! Phew!

Back to Alexei Leonov:

Leonov was to have been the first cosmonaut to land on the Moon, but the project was cancelled - I gather because of some launch failures and because the Americans had already been there, done that. The U.S.S.R. decided to halt the lunar program and concentrate on creating a space station.

So Leonov lost a chance for another huge "first" - but he was able to distinguish himself from other cosmonauts and astronauts by being an accomplished space artist! This is one of his paintings.






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August 30 – Constitution Day in Kazakhstan

Posted on August 30, 2019

Parades! Fireworks! Concerts and ceremonies and celebrations!




Many nations celebrate their Independence Day as their most important patriotic holiday...but in Kazakhstan, the biggie is apparently Constitution Day. 

My guess is that people enjoy festivities more in the summer than in winter - and Kazakhstan's Independence Day is in December. 

It might also be that Independence Day is the anniversary of the nation's break-away from the Soviet Union in 1991, and Constitution Day is more recent, harkening back to 1995. Or it might be that Kazakhstan wasn't all that eager to break from the USSR. It was, after all, the very last of the "republics" to declare independence. And it segued from a highly controlled society to...a highly controlled society. Kazakhstan's first president ruled for almost three decades and was considered an authoritarian. He violated human rights and suppressed free speech and freedom of the press. He finally stepped down in March of this year.

I suppose that we'll soon see if the nation moves toward democracy!

Kazakhstan is the ninth largest nation (by area)
in the world. Do you know which nations
are larger?
Maybe the map can help you figure it out...
Answers below:

(1.Russia - 2.Canada - 3.China - 4.United States - 5.Brazil
6.Australia - 7.India - 8.Argentina)


Did you know...?

Kazakhstan is the location of the world's first space launch site - and the largest space launch site - and probably the most used space launch site! The Kaikonur Cosmodrome is on lease to the Russian Space Agency until 2050.





I was so used to American-style "splash-downs" after spaceflight, and then Space Shuttles' plane-like landings, that I was pretty shocked to realize that Soviet / Russian Soyuz space capsules landed with a thump on the barren land of Kazakhstan. Fifteen minutes before landing, four parachutes are deployed, and about seven feet above the ground, four rockets at the base fire to soften the landing. Another thing that helps astronauts land safely is the individually molded seats.

These photos show cosmonauts shortly
after landing on the flat, barren lands
of Kazakhstan.


By the way, it's not just Russian cosmonauts that use the Cosmodrome; American astronauts and astronauts from all over the world use it, too. NASA astronauts commonly join cosmonauts on the Russian Soyuz to go up to the International Space Station and to later return to Earth.



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