The beginning of the space age. Space exploration

The history of space exploration began in the 19th century, long before the first aircraft was able to overcome the gravity of the Earth. The undisputed leader in this process at all times has been Russia, which today continues to implement large-scale scientific projects in interstellar space. They are of great interest throughout the world, as is the history of space exploration, especially since 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of man’s first spacewalk.

Background

Oddly enough, the first design of an aircraft for space travel with an oscillating combustion chamber capable of controlling the thrust vector was developed in prison dungeons. Its author was the People's Volunteer revolutionary N.I. Kibalchich, who was subsequently executed for preparing an assassination attempt on Alexander II. It is known that before his death, the inventor turned to the investigative commission with a request to hand over the drawings and manuscript. However, this was not done, and they became known only after the publication of the project in 1918.

More serious work, supported by appropriate mathematical apparatus, was proposed by K. Tsiolkovsky, who proposed equipping ships suitable for interplanetary flights with jet engines. These ideas were further developed in the work of other scientists such as Hermann Oberth and Robert Goddard. Moreover, if the first of them was a theorist, then the second managed to launch the first rocket using gasoline and liquid oxygen in 1926.

Confrontation between the USSR and the USA in the struggle for primacy in space exploration

Work on the creation of combat missiles began in Germany during the Second World War. Their leadership was entrusted to Wernher von Braun, who managed to achieve significant success. In particular, already in 1944 the V-2 rocket was launched, becoming the first artificial object to reach space.

In the last days of the war, all Nazi rocket developments fell into the hands of the American military and formed the basis of the US space program. Such a favorable “start,” however, did not allow them to win the space confrontation with the USSR, which first launched the first artificial Earth satellite and then sent living beings into orbit, thereby proving the hypothetical possibility of manned flights in outer space.

Gagarin. First in space: how it happened

In April 1961, one of the most famous events in the history of mankind took place, which in its significance is incomparable to anything. After all, on this day the first spacecraft piloted by a man was launched. The flight went well, and 108 minutes after launch, the descent vehicle with the astronaut on board landed near the city of Engels. Thus, the first man in space spent only 1 hour and 48 minutes. Of course, compared to modern flights, which can last up to a year or even more, it seems like a cakewalk. However, at the time of its completion, it was regarded as a feat, since no one could know how weightlessness affects human mental activity, whether such a flight is dangerous to health, and whether the astronaut will even be able to return to Earth.

Brief biography of Yu. A. Gagarin

As already mentioned, the first person in space who was able to overcome gravity was a citizen of the Soviet Union. He was born in the small village of Klushino into a peasant family. In 1955, the young man entered the aviation school and after graduation served for two years as a pilot in a fighter regiment. When recruitment was announced for the newly formed first corps of cosmonauts, he wrote a report on his enrollment in its ranks and took part in the acceptance tests. On April 8, 1961, at a closed meeting of the state commission leading the project to launch the Vostok spacecraft, it was decided that the flight would be made by Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin, who was ideally suited both in terms of physical parameters and training, and had the appropriate origin. It is interesting that almost immediately after landing he was awarded a medal “For the development of virgin lands,” apparently meaning that outer space at that time was also, in a sense, virgin land.

Gagarin: triumph

People of the older generation still remember the joy that swept the country when the successful completion of the flight of the world's first manned spacecraft was announced. Within a few hours after this, the name and call sign of Yuri Gagarin - “Kedr” - was on everyone’s lips, and the cosmonaut was showered with fame on a scale in which no other person had received it either before or after. After all, even in the conditions of the Cold War, he was accepted as a triumphant in the camp “hostile” to the USSR.

First man in outer space

As already mentioned, 2015 is an anniversary year. The fact is that exactly half a century ago a significant event occurred, and the world learned that the first man had been in outer space. He became A. A. Leonov, who on March 18, 1965, went beyond the Voskhod-2 spacecraft through the airlock chamber and spent almost 24 minutes floating in weightlessness. This short “expedition into the unknown” did not go smoothly and almost cost the astronaut his life, as his space suit swelled and he could not return to board the ship for a long time. Troubles awaited the crew on the “return route.” However, everything worked out, and the first man in space, who took a walk in interplanetary space, returned safely to Earth.

Unknown heroes

Recently, the feature film "Gagarin. First in Space" was presented to the audience. After watching it, many became interested in the history of the development of astronautics in our country and abroad. But it is fraught with many mysteries. In particular, only in the last two decades have residents of our country been able to become acquainted with information regarding disasters and victims, at the cost of which successes in space exploration were achieved. Thus, in October 1960, an unmanned rocket exploded at Baikonur, as a result of which 74 people were killed or died from wounds, and in 1971, depressurization of the descent module cost the lives of three Soviet cosmonauts. There were many victims in the process of implementing the United States space program, therefore, when talking about the heroes, one should also remember those who fearlessly took on the task, certainly aware of the risk to which they were putting their lives.

Cosmonautics today

At the moment, we can proudly say that our country has won the championship in the struggle for space. Of course, one cannot belittle the role of those who fought for its development on the other hemisphere of our planet, and no one will dispute the fact that the first man in space to set foot on the moon, Neil Amstrong, was an American. However, at the moment the only country capable of delivering people into space is Russia. And although the International Space Station is considered a joint project in which 16 countries participate, it cannot continue to exist without our participation.

Today no one can say what the future of astronautics will be like in 100-200 years. And this is not surprising, because in the same way, in the now distant 1915, hardly anyone could have believed that in a century the vastness of space would be plowed by hundreds of aircraft for various purposes, and in low-Earth orbit a huge “house” would revolve around the Earth, where People from different countries will live and work permanently.

History of space exploration: first steps, great cosmonauts, launch of the first artificial satellite. Cosmonautics today and tomorrow.

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The history of space exploration is the most striking example of the triumph of the human mind over rebellious matter in the shortest possible time. From the moment a man-made object first overcame Earth's gravity and developed sufficient speed to enter Earth's orbit, only a little over fifty years have passed - nothing by the standards of history! Most of the planet's population vividly remembers the times when a flight to the moon was considered something out of science fiction, and those who dreamed of piercing the heavenly heights were considered, at best, crazy people not dangerous to society. Today, spaceships not only “travel the vast expanse”, successfully maneuvering in conditions of minimal gravity, but also deliver cargo, astronauts and space tourists into Earth orbit. Moreover, the duration of a space flight can now be as long as desired: the shift of Russian cosmonauts on the ISS, for example, lasts 6-7 months. And over the past half century, man has managed to walk on the Moon and photograph its dark side, blessed Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury with artificial satellites, “recognized by sight” distant nebulae with the help of the Hubble telescope, and is seriously thinking about colonizing Mars. And although we have not yet succeeded in making contact with aliens and angels (at least officially), let us not despair - after all, everything is just beginning!

Dreams of space and attempts at writing

For the first time, progressive humanity believed in the reality of flight to distant worlds at the end of the 19th century. It was then that it became clear that if the aircraft was given the speed necessary to overcome gravity and maintained it for a sufficient time, it would be able to go beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and gain a foothold in orbit, like the Moon, revolving around the Earth. The problem was in the engines. The existing specimens at that time either spat extremely powerfully but briefly with bursts of energy, or worked on the principle of “gasp, groan and go away little by little.” The first was more suitable for bombs, the second - for carts. In addition, it was impossible to regulate the thrust vector and thereby influence the trajectory of the apparatus: a vertical launch inevitably led to its rounding, and as a result the body fell to the ground, never reaching space; the horizontal one, with such a release of energy, threatened to destroy all living things around (as if the current ballistic missile were launched flat). Finally, at the beginning of the 20th century, researchers turned their attention to a rocket engine, the operating principle of which has been known to mankind since the turn of our era: fuel burns in the rocket body, simultaneously lightening its mass, and the released energy moves the rocket forward. The first rocket capable of launching an object beyond the limits of gravity was designed by Tsiolkovsky in 1903.

First artificial satellite

Time passed, and although two world wars greatly slowed down the process of creating rockets for peaceful use, space progress still did not stand still. The key moment of the post-war period was the adoption of the so-called package rocket layout, which is still used in astronautics today. Its essence is the simultaneous use of several rockets placed symmetrically with respect to the center of mass of the body that needs to be launched into Earth orbit. This provides a powerful, stable and uniform thrust, sufficient for the object to move at a constant speed of 7.9 km/s, necessary to overcome gravity. And so, on October 4, 1957, a new, or rather the first, era in space exploration began - the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, like everything ingenious, simply called “Sputnik-1”, using the R-7 rocket, designed under the leadership of Sergei Korolev. The silhouette of the R-7, the ancestor of all subsequent space rockets, is still recognizable today in the ultra-modern Soyuz launch vehicle, which successfully sends “trucks” and “cars” into orbit with cosmonauts and tourists on board - the same four “legs” of the package design and red nozzles. The first satellite was microscopic, just over half a meter in diameter and weighed only 83 kg. It completed a full revolution around the Earth in 96 minutes. The “star life” of the iron pioneer of astronautics lasted three months, but during this period he covered a fantastic path of 60 million km!

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The first living creatures in orbit

The success of the first launch inspired the designers, and the prospect of sending a living creature into space and returning it unharmed no longer seemed impossible. Just a month after the launch of Sputnik 1, the first animal, the dog Laika, went into orbit on board the second artificial Earth satellite. Her goal was honorable, but sad - to test the survival of living beings in space flight conditions. Moreover, the return of the dog was not planned... The launch and insertion of the satellite into orbit was successful, but after four orbits around the Earth, due to an error in the calculations, the temperature inside the device rose excessively, and Laika died. The satellite itself rotated in space for another 5 months, and then lost speed and burned up in dense layers of the atmosphere. The first shaggy cosmonauts to greet their “senders” with a joyful bark upon their return were the textbook Belka and Strelka, who set off to conquer the heavens on the fifth satellite in August 1960. Their flight lasted just over a day, and during this time the dogs managed to fly around the planet 17 times. All this time, they were watched from monitor screens in the Mission Control Center - by the way, it was precisely because of the contrast that white dogs were chosen - because the image was then black and white. As a result of the launch, the spacecraft itself was also finalized and finally approved - in just 8 months, the first person will go into space in a similar apparatus.

In addition to dogs, both before and after 1961, monkeys (macaques, squirrel monkeys and chimpanzees), cats, turtles, as well as all sorts of little things - flies, beetles, etc., were in space.

During the same period, the USSR launched the first artificial satellite of the Sun, the Luna-2 station managed to softly land on the surface of the planet, and the first photographs of the side of the Moon invisible from Earth were obtained.

The day of April 12, 1961 divided the history of the exploration of space into two periods - “when man dreamed of the stars” and “since man conquered space.”

Man in space

The day of April 12, 1961 divided the history of the exploration of space into two periods - “when man dreamed of the stars” and “since man conquered space.” At 9:07 Moscow time, the Vostok-1 spacecraft with the world's first cosmonaut on board, Yuri Gagarin, was launched from launch pad No. 1 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Having made one revolution around the Earth and traveled 41 thousand km, 90 minutes after the start, Gagarin landed near Saratov, becoming for many years the most famous, revered and beloved person on the planet. His “let’s go!” and “everything is visible very clearly - space is black - the earth is blue” were included in the list of the most famous phrases of humanity, his open smile, ease and cordiality melted the hearts of people around the world. The first manned flight into space was controlled from Earth; Gagarin himself was more of a passenger, albeit an excellently prepared one. It should be noted that the flight conditions were far from those that are now offered to space tourists: Gagarin experienced eight to tenfold overloads, there was a period when the ship was literally tumbling, and behind the windows the skin was burning and the metal was melting. During the flight, several failures occurred in various systems of the ship, but fortunately, the astronaut was not injured.

Following Gagarin's flight, significant milestones in the history of space exploration fell one after another: the world's first group space flight was completed, then the first female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova went into space (1963), the first multi-seat spacecraft flew, Alexey Leonov became the first a man who performed a spacewalk (1965) - and all these grandiose events are entirely the merit of the Russian cosmonautics. Finally, on July 21, 1969, the first man landed on the Moon: American Neil Armstrong took that “small, big step.”

Cosmonautics - today, tomorrow and always

Today, space travel is taken for granted. Hundreds of satellites and thousands of other necessary and useless objects fly above us, seconds before sunrise from the bedroom window you can see the planes of the solar panels of the International Space Station flashing in rays still invisible from the ground, space tourists with enviable regularity set off to “surf the open spaces” (thereby embodying the ironic phrase “if you really want to, you can fly into space”) and the era of commercial suborbital flights with almost two departures daily is about to begin. The exploration of space by controlled vehicles is absolutely amazing: there are pictures of stars that exploded long ago, and HD images of distant galaxies, and strong evidence of the possibility of the existence of life on other planets. Billionaire corporations are already coordinating plans to build space hotels in Earth’s orbit, and projects for the colonization of our neighboring planets no longer seem like an excerpt from the novels of Asimov or Clark. One thing is obvious: once having overcome earth's gravity, humanity will again and again strive upward, to the endless worlds of stars, galaxies and universes. I would only like to wish that the beauty of the night sky and myriads of twinkling stars, still alluring, mysterious and beautiful, as in the first days of creation, never leaves us.

In the second half of the 20th century. Humanity has stepped onto the threshold of the Universe - it has entered outer space. Our Motherland opened the road to space. The first artificial Earth satellite, which opened the space age, was launched by the former Soviet Union, the world's first cosmonaut is a citizen of the former USSR.

Cosmonautics is a huge catalyst for modern science and technology, which in an unprecedentedly short time has become one of the main levers of the modern world process. It stimulates the development of electronics, mechanical engineering, materials science, computer technology, energy and many other areas of the national economy.

Scientifically, humanity strives to find in space the answer to such fundamental questions as the structure and evolution of the Universe, the formation of the Solar system, the origin and development of life. From hypotheses about the nature of planets and the structure of space, people moved on to a comprehensive and direct study of celestial bodies and interplanetary space with the help of rocket and space technology.

In space exploration, humanity will have to explore various areas of outer space: the Moon, other planets and interplanetary space.

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The current level of space technology and the forecast for its development show that the main goal of scientific research using space means, apparently, in the near future will be our Solar system. The main tasks will be the study of solar-terrestrial connections and the Earth-Moon space, as well as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and other planets, astronomical research, medical and biological research in order to assess the influence of flight duration on the human body and its performance.

In principle, the development of space technology should be ahead of the “Demand” associated with solving pressing national economic problems. The main tasks here are launch vehicles, propulsion systems, spacecraft, as well as supporting facilities (command and measurement and launch complexes, equipment, etc.), ensuring progress in related branches of technology, directly or indirectly related to the development of astronautics.

Before flying into outer space, it was necessary to understand and use in practice the principle of jet propulsion, learn how to make rockets, create a theory of interplanetary communications, etc. Rocketry is not a new concept. Man went to the creation of powerful modern launch vehicles through millennia of dreams, fantasies, mistakes, searches in various fields of science and technology, accumulation of experience and knowledge.

The principle of operation of a rocket is its movement under the influence of recoil force, the reaction of a stream of particles thrown away from the rocket. In a rocket. those. In a device equipped with a rocket engine, escaping gases are formed due to the reaction of the oxidizer and fuel stored in the rocket itself. This circumstance makes the operation of a rocket engine independent of the presence or absence of a gaseous environment. Thus, the rocket is an amazing structure, capable of moving in airless space, i.e. not reference, outer space.

A special place among Russian projects for the application of the jet principle of flight is occupied by the project of N.I. Kibalchich, a famous Russian revolutionary who, despite his short life (1853-1881), left a deep mark in the history of science and technology. Having extensive and deep knowledge of mathematics, physics and especially chemistry, Kibalchich made homemade shells and mines for the Narodnaya Volya members. The "Aeronautical Instrument Project" was the result of Kibalchich's long-term research work on explosives. He, essentially, was the first to propose not a rocket engine adapted to any existing aircraft, as other inventors did, but a completely new (rocket-dynamic) device, the prototype of modern manned spacecraft, in which the thrust of rocket engines serves to directly create lift. force supporting the aircraft in flight. Kibalchich's aircraft was supposed to function on the principle of a rocket!

But because Kibalchich was imprisoned for the attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II, but the design of his aircraft was discovered only in 1917 in the archives of the police department.

So, by the end of the 19th century, the idea of ​​​​using jet instruments for flight gained large scale in Russia. And the first who decided to continue research was our great compatriot Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). He became interested in the reactive principle of motion very early. Already in 1883 he gave a description of a ship with a jet engine. Already in 1903, Tsiolkovsky, for the first time in the world, made it possible to construct a liquid rocket design. Tsiolkovsky's ideas received universal recognition back in the 1920s. And the brilliant successor of his work, S.P. Korolev, a month before the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, said that the ideas and works of Konstantin Eduardovich would attract more and more attention as rocket technology developed, in which he turned out to be absolutely right!

Beginning of the space age

And so, 40 years after the design of the aircraft created by Kibalchich was found, on October 4, 1957, the former USSR launched the world's first artificial Earth satellite. The first Soviet satellite made it possible for the first time to measure the density of the upper atmosphere, obtain data on the propagation of radio signals in the ionosphere, work out issues of insertion into orbit, thermal conditions, etc. The satellite was an aluminum sphere with a diameter of 58 cm and a mass of 83.6 kg with four whip antennas of length 2. 4-2.9 m. The satellite’s sealed housing housed equipment and power supplies. The initial orbital parameters were: perigee altitude 228 km, apogee altitude 947 km, inclination 65.1 deg. On November 3, the Soviet Union announced the launch of a second Soviet satellite into orbit. In a separate hermetic cabin there was a dog Laika and a telemetry system to record its behavior in zero gravity. The satellite was also equipped with scientific instruments to study solar radiation and cosmic rays.

On December 6, 1957, the United States attempted to launch the Avangard-1 satellite using a launch vehicle developed by the Naval Research Laboratory. After ignition, the rocket rose above the launch table, but a second later the engines turned off and the rocket fell onto the table, exploding on impact .

On January 31, 1958, the Explorer 1 satellite was launched into orbit, the American response to the launch of Soviet satellites. In terms of size and weight, it was not a candidate for record holder. Being less than 1 m long and only ~15.2 cm in diameter, it had a mass of only 4.8 kg.

However, its payload was attached to the fourth and final stage of the Juno 1 launch vehicle. The satellite, together with the rocket in orbit, had a length of 205 cm and a mass of 14 kg. It was equipped with external and internal temperature sensors, erosion and impact sensors to detect micrometeorite flows, and a Geiger-Muller counter to record penetrating cosmic rays.

An important scientific result of the satellite's flight was the discovery of the radiation belts surrounding the Earth. The Geiger-Muller counter stopped counting when the device was at apogee at an altitude of 2530 km, the perigee altitude was 360 km.

On February 5, 1958, the United States made a second attempt to launch the Avangard-1 satellite, but it also ended in an accident, like the first attempt. Finally, on March 17, the satellite was launched into orbit. Between December 1957 and September 1959, eleven attempts were made to place Avangard 1 into orbit, only three of which were successful.

Between December 1957 and September 1959, eleven attempts were made to place the Avangard into orbit.

Both satellites introduced a lot of new things into space science and technology (solar batteries, new data on the density of the upper atmosphere, accurate mapping of islands in the Pacific Ocean, etc.) On August 17, 1958, the United States made the first attempt to send satellites from Cape Canaveral to the vicinity of Moon probe with scientific equipment. It turned out to be unsuccessful. The rocket took off and flew only 16 km. The first stage of the rocket exploded 77 minutes into the flight. On October 11, 1958, a second attempt was made to launch the Pioneer 1 lunar probe, which was also unsuccessful. The next few launches also turned out to be unsuccessful, only on March 3, 1959, Pioneer-4, weighing 6.1 kg, partially completed its task: it flew past the Moon at a distance of 60,000 km (instead of the planned 24,000 km).

Just as with the launch of the Earth satellite, priority in launching the first probe belongs to the USSR; on January 2, 1959, the first man-made object was launched, which was placed on a trajectory passing fairly close to the Moon into the orbit of the Sun's satellite. Thus, Luna 1 reached the second escape velocity for the first time. Luna 1 had a mass of 361.3 kg and flew past the Moon at a distance of 5500 km. At a distance of 113,000 km from Earth, a cloud of sodium vapor was released from a rocket stage docked to Luna 1, forming an artificial comet. Solar radiation caused a bright glow of sodium vapor and optical systems on Earth photographed the cloud against the background of the constellation Aquarius.

Luna 2, launched on September 12, 1959, made the world's first flight to another celestial body. The 390.2-kilogram sphere contained instruments that showed that the Moon does not have a magnetic field or radiation belt.

The automatic interplanetary station (AMS) “Luna-3” was launched on October 4, 1959. The weight of the station was 435 kg. The main purpose of the launch was to fly around the Moon and photograph its reverse side, invisible from Earth. Photographing was carried out on October 7 for 40 minutes from an altitude of 6200 km above the Moon.

Man in space

On April 12, 1961, at 9:07 a.m. Moscow time, several tens of kilometers north of the village of Tyuratam in Kazakhstan, at the Soviet Baikonur Cosmodrome, the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile was launched, in the bow compartment of which the manned spaceship “Vostok” was located with Air Force Major Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin on board. The launch was successful. The spacecraft was put into orbit with an inclination of 65 degrees, a perigee altitude of 181 km and an apogee altitude of 327 km and completed one orbit around the Earth in 89 minutes. At 108 minutes after launch, it returned to Earth, landing near the village of Smelovka, Saratov region. Thus, 4 years after the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, the Soviet Union for the first time in the world carried out a human flight into outer space.

The spacecraft consisted of two compartments. The descent module, which was also the cosmonaut's cabin, was a sphere with a diameter of 2.3 m, coated with an ablative material for thermal protection during reentry. The spacecraft was controlled automatically and by the astronaut. During the flight it was continuously maintained with the Earth. The atmosphere of the ship is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen under a pressure of 1 atm. (760 mmHg). Vostok-1 had a mass of 4730 kg, and with the last stage of the launch vehicle 6170 kg. The Vostok spacecraft was launched into space 5 times, after which it was declared safe for human flight.

Four weeks after Gagarin's flight on May 5, 1961, Captain 3rd Rank Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut.

Although it did not reach Earth orbit, it rose above the Earth to an altitude of about 186 km. Shepard, launched from Cape Canaveral into the Mercury 3 spacecraft using a modified Redstone ballistic missile, spent 15 minutes 22 seconds in flight before landing in the Atlantic Ocean. He proved that a person in conditions of weightlessness can exercise manual control of a spacecraft. The Mercury spacecraft was significantly different from the Vostok spacecraft.

It consisted of only one module - a manned capsule in the shape of a truncated cone with a length of 2.9 m and a base diameter of 1.89 m. Its sealed nickel alloy shell had a titanium lining to protect it from heating during reentry. The atmosphere inside Mercury consisted of pure oxygen under a pressure of 0.36 at.

On February 20, 1962, the United States reached low-Earth orbit. Mercury 6, piloted by Navy Lieutenant Colonel John Glenn, was launched from Cape Canaveral. Glenn spent only 4 hours 55 minutes in orbit, completing 3 orbits before a successful landing. The purpose of Glenn's flight was to determine the possibility of a person working in the Mercury spacecraft. The last time Mercury was launched into space was May 15, 1963.

On March 18, 1965, the Voskhod spacecraft was launched into orbit with two cosmonauts on board - the ship's commander, Colonel Pavel Ivarovich Belyaev, and the co-pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. Immediately after entering orbit, the crew cleared themselves of nitrogen by inhaling pure oxygen. Then the airlock compartment was deployed: Leonov entered the airlock compartment, closed the spacecraft hatch cover and for the first time in the world made an exit into outer space. The cosmonaut with an autonomous life support system was outside the spacecraft cabin for 20 minutes, at times moving away from the spacecraft at a distance of up to 5 m. During the exit, he was connected to the spacecraft only by telephone and telemetry cables. Thus, the possibility of an astronaut staying and working outside the spacecraft was practically confirmed.

On June 3, the spacecraft Gemeny 4 was launched with captains James McDivitt and Edward White. During this flight, which lasted 97 hours and 56 minutes, White exited the spacecraft and spent 21 minutes outside the cockpit testing the ability to maneuver in space using a hand-held compressed gas jet gun.

Unfortunately, space exploration was not without casualties. On January 27, 1967, the crew preparing to make the first manned flight under the Apollo program died during a fire inside the spacecraft, burning out in 15 seconds in an atmosphere of pure oxygen. Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee became the first American astronauts to die on space mission. On April 23, the new Soyuz-1 spacecraft was launched from Baikonur, piloted by Colonel Vladimir Komarov. The launch was successful.

On the 18th orbit, 26 hours 45 minutes after launch, Komarov began orientation to enter the atmosphere. All operations went well, but after entering the atmosphere and braking, the parachute system failed. The astronaut died instantly when the Soyuz hit the Earth at a speed of 644 km/h. Subsequently, Space claimed more than one human life, but these victims were the first.

It should be noted that in terms of natural science and production, the world faces a number of global problems, the solution of which requires the united efforts of all peoples. These are problems of raw materials resources, energy, environmental control and biosphere conservation, and others. Space research, one of the most important areas of the scientific and technological revolution, will play a huge role in their fundamental solution. Cosmonautics clearly demonstrates to the whole world the fruitfulness of peaceful creative work, the benefits of combining the efforts of different countries in solving scientific and economic problems.

What problems do astronautics and the astronauts themselves face? Let's start with life support. What is life support? Life support in space flight is the creation and maintenance during the entire flight in the living and working compartments of spacecraft. such conditions that would provide the crew with sufficient performance to complete the assigned task and a minimum likelihood of pathological changes occurring in the human body. How to do it? It is necessary to significantly reduce the degree of human exposure to adverse external factors of space flight - vacuum, meteoric bodies, penetrating radiation, weightlessness, overloads; supply the crew with substances and energy without which normal human life is not possible - food, water, oxygen and food; remove waste products of the body and substances harmful to health released during the operation of spacecraft systems and equipment; provide human needs for movement, rest, external information and normal working conditions; organize medical monitoring of the crew’s health status and maintain it at the required level. Food and water are delivered into space in appropriate packaging, and oxygen is delivered in a chemically bound form. If you do not restore waste products, then for a crew of three people for one year you will need 11 tons of the above products, which, you see, is a considerable weight, volume, and how will all this be stored throughout the year?!

In the near future, regeneration systems will make it possible to almost completely reproduce oxygen and water on board the station. They began to use water after washing and showering, purified in a regeneration system, a long time ago. The exhaled moisture is condensed in the refrigeration-drying unit and then regenerated. Breathable oxygen is extracted from purified water by electrolysis, and hydrogen gas reacts with carbon dioxide coming from the concentrator to form water, which powers the electrolyzer. The use of such a system makes it possible to reduce the mass of stored substances in the considered example from 11 to 2 tons. Recently, it has been practiced to grow various types of plants directly on board the ship, which makes it possible to reduce the supply of food that needs to be taken into space; Tsiolkovsky mentioned this in his works.

Space science

Space exploration helps in many ways in the development of sciences:
On December 18, 1980, the phenomenon of the flow of particles from the Earth's radiation belts under negative magnetic anomalies was established.

Experiments carried out on the first satellites showed that the near-Earth space outside the atmosphere is not “empty” at all. It is filled with plasma, permeated with streams of energy particles. In 1958, the Earth's radiation belts were discovered in near space - giant magnetic traps filled with charged particles - protons and high-energy electrons.

The highest intensity of radiation in the belts is observed at altitudes of several thousand km. Theoretical estimates showed that below 500 km. There should be no increased radiation. Therefore, the discovery of the first K.K. during flights was completely unexpected. areas of intense radiation at altitudes up to 200-300 km. It turned out that this is due to anomalous zones of the Earth's magnetic field.

The study of the Earth's natural resources using space methods has spread, which has greatly contributed to the development of the national economy.

The first problem that faced space researchers in 1980 was a complex of scientific research, including most of the most important areas of space natural science. Their goal was to develop methods for thematic interpretation of multispectral video information and their use in solving problems in the geosciences and economic sectors. These tasks include: studying the global and local structures of the earth’s crust to understand the history of its development.

The second problem is one of the fundamental physical and technical problems of remote sensing and is aimed at creating catalogs of radiation characteristics of earthly objects and models of their transformation, which will make it possible to analyze the state of natural formations at the time of shooting and predict their dynamics.

A distinctive feature of the third problem is the focus on the radiation characteristics of large regions up to the planet as a whole, using data on the parameters and anomalies of the Earth’s gravitational and geomagnetic fields.

Exploring the Earth from space

Man first appreciated the role of satellites for monitoring the condition of agricultural land, forests and other natural resources of the Earth only a few years after the advent of the space age. It began in 1960, when, with the help of the Tiros meteorological satellites, map-like outlines of the globe lying under the clouds were obtained. These first black-and-white TV images provided very little insight into human activity, but it was nonetheless a first step. Soon, new technical means were developed that made it possible to improve the quality of observations. Information was extracted from multispectral images in the visible and infrared (IR) regions of the spectrum. The first satellites designed to make maximum use of these capabilities were the Landsat type. For example, Landsat-D, the fourth in the series, observed the Earth from an altitude of more than 640 km using advanced sensors, allowing consumers to receive significantly more detailed and timely information. One of the first areas of application of images of the earth's surface was cartography. In the pre-satellite era, maps of many areas, even in developed areas of the world, were drawn inaccurately. Landsat images have helped correct and update some existing US maps. In the USSR, images obtained from the Salyut station turned out to be indispensable for calibrating the BAM railway line.

In the mid-70s, NASA and the US Department of Agriculture decided to demonstrate the capabilities of the satellite system in forecasting the most important agricultural crop, wheat. Satellite observations, which turned out to be extremely accurate, were later extended to other crops. Around the same time, in the USSR, observations of agricultural crops were carried out from satellites of the Cosmos, Meteor, Monsoon series and Salyut orbital stations.

The use of satellite information has revealed its undeniable advantages in estimating the volume of timber in vast areas of any country. It has become possible to manage the process of deforestation and, if necessary, make recommendations on changing the contours of the deforestation area from the point of view of the best preservation of the forest. Thanks to satellite images, it has also become possible to quickly assess the boundaries of forest fires, especially “crown-shaped” ones, characteristic of the western regions of North America, as well as the regions of Primorye and the southern regions of Eastern Siberia in Russia.

Of great importance for humanity as a whole is the ability to observe almost continuously the vastness of the World Ocean, this “forge” of weather. It is above the layers of ocean water that monstrous hurricanes and typhoons arise, causing numerous casualties and destruction for coastal residents. Early warning to the public is often critical to saving the lives of tens of thousands of people. Determining the stocks of fish and other seafood is also of great practical importance. Ocean currents often bend, change course and size. For example, El Nino, a warm current in a southerly direction off the coast of Ecuador in some years can spread along the coast of Peru up to 12 degrees. S . When this happens, plankton and fish die in huge quantities, causing irreparable damage to the fisheries of many countries, including Russia. Large concentrations of single-celled marine organisms increase fish mortality, possibly due to the toxins they contain. Satellite observations help reveal the vagaries of such currents and provide useful information to those who need it. According to some estimates by Russian and American scientists, fuel savings, combined with the “additional catch” due to the use of satellite information obtained in the infrared range, gives an annual profit of $ 2.44 million. The use of satellites for survey purposes has facilitated the task of plotting the course of sea vessels . Satellites also detect icebergs and glaciers that are dangerous for ships. Accurate knowledge of snow reserves in the mountains and the volume of glaciers is an important task of scientific research, because as arid territories are developed, the need for water increases sharply.

The cosmonauts' help was invaluable in creating the largest cartographic work - the Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources of the World.

Also, with the help of satellites, oil pollution, air pollution, and minerals are found.

Space Science

Within a short period of time since the beginning of the space age, man has not only sent robotic space stations to other planets and set foot on the surface of the Moon, but has also brought about a revolution in space science unmatched in the entire history of mankind. Along with great technical advances brought about by the development of astronautics, new knowledge was gained about planet Earth and neighboring worlds. One of the first important discoveries, made not by traditional visual, but by another method of observation, was the establishment of the fact of a sharp increase with height, starting from a certain threshold height, in the intensity of cosmic rays previously considered isotropic. This discovery belongs to the Austrian W.F. Hess, who launched a gas balloon with equipment to high altitudes in 1946.

In 1952 and 1953 Dr. James Van Allen conducted research on low-energy cosmic rays during launches of small rockets to an altitude of 19-24 km and high-altitude balloons in the area of ​​the Earth's north magnetic pole. After analyzing the results of the experiments, Van Allen proposed placing cosmic ray detectors that were fairly simple in design on board the first American artificial Earth satellites.

With the help of the Explorer 1 satellite, launched by the United States into orbit on January 31, 1958, a sharp decrease in the intensity of cosmic radiation was discovered at altitudes above 950 km. At the end of 1958, the Pioneer-3 AMS, which covered a distance of over 100,000 km in one day of flight, recorded, using the sensors on board, a second, located above the first, Earth’s radiation belt, which also encircles the entire globe.

In August and September 1958, three atomic explosions were carried out at an altitude of more than 320 km, each with a power of 1.5 kt. The purpose of the tests, codenamed "Argus", was to study the possibility of loss of radio and radar communications during such tests. The study of the Sun is the most important scientific task, to the solution of which many launches of the first satellites and spacecraft are devoted.

The American Pioneer 4 - Pioneer 9 (1959-1968) from near-solar orbits transmitted by radio to Earth the most important information about the structure of the Sun. At the same time, more than twenty satellites of the Intercosmos series were launched to study the Sun and circumsolar space.

Black holes

Black holes were discovered in the 1960s. It turned out that if our eyes could only see x-rays, the starry sky above us would look completely different. True, X-rays emitted by the Sun were discovered even before the birth of astronautics, but they were not even aware of other sources in the starry sky. We came across them by accident.

In 1962, the Americans, having decided to check whether X-ray radiation was emanating from the surface of the Moon, launched a rocket equipped with special equipment. It was then that, when processing the observation results, we became convinced that the instruments had detected a powerful source of X-ray radiation. It was located in the constellation Scorpio. And already in the 70s, the first 2 satellites, designed to search for research into sources of X-rays in the universe, went into orbit - the American Uhuru and the Soviet Cosmos-428.

By this time, things had already begun to become clear. Objects emitting X-rays have been linked to barely visible stars with unusual properties. These were compact clots of plasma of insignificant, of course by cosmic standards, sizes and masses, heated to several tens of millions of degrees. Despite their very modest appearance, these objects possessed a colossal power of X-ray radiation, several thousand times greater than the full compatibility of the Sun.

These are tiny, about 10 km in diameter. , the remains of completely burnt out stars, compressed to a monstrous density, had to somehow make themselves known. That is why neutron stars were so readily “recognized” in X-ray sources. And everything seemed to fit. But the calculations refuted expectations: newly formed neutron stars should have immediately cooled down and stopped emitting, but these ones emitted x-rays.

Using launched satellites, researchers discovered strictly periodic changes in the radiation fluxes of some of them. The period of these variations was also determined - usually it did not exceed several days. Only two stars rotating around themselves could behave this way, one of which periodically eclipsed the other. This has been proven by observation through telescopes.

Where do X-ray sources get their colossal radiation energy? The main condition for the transformation of a normal star into a neutron star is considered to be the complete damping of the nuclear reaction in it. Therefore nuclear energy is excluded. Then maybe this is the kinetic energy of a rapidly rotating massive body? Indeed, it is great for neutron stars. But it only lasts for a short time.

Most neutron stars do not exist alone, but in pairs with a huge star. In their interaction, theorists believe, the source of the mighty power of cosmic X-rays is hidden. It forms a disk of gas around the neutron star. At the magnetic poles of the neutron ball, the substance of the disk falls onto its surface, and the energy acquired by the gas is converted into X-ray radiation.

Cosmos-428 also presented its own surprise. His equipment registered a new, completely unknown phenomenon - X-ray flashes. In one day, the satellite detected 20 bursts, each of which lasted no more than 1 second. , and the radiation power increased tens of times. Scientists called the sources of X-ray flares BURSTERS. They are also associated with binary systems. The most powerful flares in terms of energy fired are only several times inferior to the total radiation of hundreds of billions of stars located in our galaxy.

Theorists have proven that “black holes” that are part of binary star systems can signal themselves with X-rays. And the reason for its occurrence is the same - gas accretion. True, the mechanism in this case is somewhat different. The internal parts of the gas disk settling into the “hole” should heat up and therefore become sources of X-rays. By transitioning to a neutron star, only those luminaries whose mass does not exceed 2-3 solar ones end their “life”. Larger stars suffer the fate of a “black hole”.

X-ray astronomy told us about the last, perhaps the most turbulent, stage in the development of stars. Thanks to her, we learned about powerful cosmic explosions, about gas with temperatures of tens and hundreds of millions of degrees, about the possibility of a completely unusual superdense state of substances in “black holes.”

What else does space give us? For a long time now, television programs have not mentioned that the transmission is carried out via satellite. This is further evidence of the enormous success in the industrialization of space, which has become an integral part of our lives. Communication satellites literally entangle the world with invisible threads. The idea of ​​​​creating communication satellites was born shortly after the Second World War, when A. Clark in the October 1945 issue of Wireless World magazine. presented his concept of a communications relay station located at an altitude of 35,880 km above the Earth.

Clark's merit was that he determined the orbit in which the satellite is stationary relative to the Earth. This orbit is called geostationary or Clarke orbit. When moving in a circular orbit with an altitude of 35880 km, one revolution is completed in 24 hours, i.e. during the period of the Earth's daily rotation. A satellite moving in such an orbit will constantly be above a certain point on the Earth's surface.

The first communications satellite, Telstar-1, was launched into low Earth orbit with parameters of 950 x 5630 km; this happened on July 10, 1962. Almost a year later, the Telstar-2 satellite was launched. The first telecast showed the American flag in New England with the Andover station in the background. This image was transmitted to Great Britain, France and to the American station in the state. New Jersey 15 hours after satellite launch. Two weeks later, millions of Europeans and Americans watched negotiations between people on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. They not only talked but also saw each other, communicating via satellite. Historians can consider this day the birth date of space TV. The world's largest state satellite communications system was created in Russia. It began in April 1965. the launch of Molniya series satellites, placed into highly elongated elliptical orbits with an apogee over the Northern Hemisphere. Each series includes four pairs of satellites orbiting at an angular distance from each other of 90 degrees.

The first long-distance space communications system, Orbita, was built on the basis of the Molniya satellites. In December 1975 The family of communications satellites was replenished with the Raduga satellite operating in geostationary orbit. Then the Ekran satellite appeared with a more powerful transmitter and simpler ground stations. After the first development of satellites, a new period began in the development of satellite communications technology, when satellites began to be placed into a geostationary orbit in which they move synchronously with the rotation of the Earth. This made it possible to establish round-the-clock communication between ground stations using new generation satellites: the American Sinkom, Airlie Bird and Intelsat, and the Russian Raduga and Horizon satellites.

A great future is associated with the placement of antenna complexes in geostationary orbit.

On June 17, 1991, the ERS-1 geodetic satellite was launched into orbit. The satellites' primary mission would be to observe the oceans and ice-covered land masses to provide climatologists, oceanographers, and environmental groups with data on these little-explored regions. The satellite was equipped with state-of-the-art microwave equipment, thanks to which it is ready for any weather: its radar "eyes" penetrate through fog and clouds and provide a clear image of the Earth's surface, through water, through land - and through ice. ERS-1 was aimed at developing ice maps, which would subsequently help avoid many disasters associated with collisions of ships with icebergs, etc.

With all that, the development of shipping routes is, figuratively speaking, only the tip of the iceberg, if we only remember the decoding of ERS data on the oceans and ice-covered spaces of the Earth. We are aware of alarming forecasts of the overall warming of the Earth, which will lead to the melting of the polar caps and rising sea levels. All coastal areas will be flooded, millions of people will suffer.

But we do not know how correct these predictions are. Long-term observations of the polar regions by ERS-1 and its subsequent ERS-2 satellite in late autumn 1994 provide data from which inferences can be made about these trends. They are creating an "early detection" system in the case of melting ice.

Thanks to the images that the ERS-1 satellite transmitted to Earth, we know that the ocean floor with its mountains and valleys is, as it were, “imprinted” on the surface of the waters. This way, scientists can get an idea of ​​whether the distance from the satellite to the sea surface (measured to within ten centimeters by satellite radar altimeters) is an indication of rising sea levels, or whether it is the “imprint” of a mountain on the bottom.

Although the ERS-1 satellite was originally designed for ocean and ice observations, it quickly proved its versatility over land. In agriculture, forestry, fisheries, geology and cartography, specialists work with data provided by satellites. Since ERS-1 is still operational after three years of its mission, scientists have a chance to operate it together with ERS-2 for shared missions, as a tandem. And they are going to obtain new information about the topography of the earth's surface and provide assistance, for example, in warning about possible earthquakes.

Given the many global environmental problems that both ERS-1 and ERS-2 must provide fundamental information to address, planning shipping routes seems to be a relatively minor output of this new generation of satellites. But this is one of the areas where the potential for commercial use of satellite data is being exploited particularly intensively. This helps in funding other important tasks. And this has an effect on environmental protection that is difficult to overestimate: faster shipping routes require less energy consumption. Or let’s remember the oil tankers that ran aground during storms or broke up and sank, losing their environmentally hazardous cargo. Reliable route planning helps avoid such disasters.

The first experimental suborbital space flights were carried out by the German V-2 rocket in 1944. However, practical space exploration began on October 4, 1957, with the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite (AES) in the Soviet Union.

The first years of the development of astronautics were characterized not by cooperation, but by intense competition between states (the so-called Space Race). International cooperation has only begun to develop intensively in recent decades, primarily thanks to the joint construction of the International Space Station and the research carried out on board it.

Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky was one of the first to put forward the idea of ​​using rockets for space flight. He designed a rocket for interplanetary communications in 1903.

The German scientist Hermann Oberth also laid out the principles of interplanetary flight in the 1920s.

American scientist Robert Goddard began developing a liquid-propellant rocket engine in 1923, and a working prototype was created by the end of 1925. On March 16, 1926, he launched the first liquid-propellant rocket, which used gasoline and liquid oxygen as fuel.

The work of Tsiolkovsky, Oberth and Goddard was continued by groups of rocketry enthusiasts in the USA, USSR and Germany. In the USSR, research work was carried out by the Jet Propulsion Study Group (Moscow) and the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (Leningrad). In 1933, the Jet Institute (RNII) was created on their basis.

In Germany, similar work was carried out by the German Society for Interplanetary Communications (VfR). On March 14, 1931, VfR member Johannes Winkler carried out the first successful launch of a liquid-propellant rocket in Europe. Wernher von Braun also worked at the VfR, and in December 1932 he began developing rocket engines at the German army's artillery range in Kummersdorf. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, funds were allocated for the development of rocket weapons, and in the spring of 1936 a program was approved for the construction of a rocket center in Peenemünde, of which von Braun was appointed technical director. It developed the A-4 ballistic missile with a flight range of 320 km. During World War II, the first successful launch of this missile took place on October 3, 1942, and in 1944 its combat use began under the name V-2.

The military use of the V-2 demonstrated the enormous capabilities of missile technology, and the most powerful post-war powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, also began developing ballistic missiles.

To implement the task of creating nuclear weapons and means of their delivery, on May 13, 1946, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution on the deployment of large-scale work on the development of domestic rocket science. In accordance with this decree, the Scientific Research Artillery Institute of Jet Weapons No. 4 was created.

General A. I. Nesterenko was appointed head of the institute, and Colonel M. K. Tikhonravov, a colleague of S. P. Korolev at GIRD and RNII, was appointed his deputy in the specialty “Liquid Ballistic Missiles”. Mikhail Klavdievich Tikhonravov was known as the creator of the first liquid-propellant rocket, launched in Nakhabino on August 17, 1933. In 1945, he led the project to lift two cosmonauts to an altitude of 200 kilometers using a V-2 rocket and a controlled rocket cabin. The project was supported by the Academy of Sciences and approved by Stalin. However, in the difficult post-war years, the leadership of the military industry had no time for space projects, which were perceived as science fiction, interfering with the main task of creating “long-range missiles.”

Exploring the prospects for the development of missiles created according to the classical sequential scheme, M. K. Tikhonravov comes to the conclusion that they are unsuitable for intercontinental distances. Research conducted under the leadership of Tikhonravov showed that a package design of missiles created at the Korolev Design Bureau would provide a speed four times greater than that possible with a conventional layout. By introducing the “package scheme”, Tikhonravov’s group brought closer the realization of their cherished dream of man entering outer space. Research on problems associated with the launch and return of satellites to Earth continued on a proactive basis.

On September 16, 1953, by order of the Korolev Design Bureau, the first research work on space topics, “Research on the creation of the first artificial Earth satellite,” was opened at NII-4. Tikhonravov’s group, which had a solid background on this topic, completed it promptly.

In 1956, M.K. Tikhonravov and part of his employees were transferred from NII-4 to the Korolev Design Bureau as head of the satellite design department. With his direct participation, the first artificial satellites, manned spacecraft, and projects of the first automatic interplanetary and lunar vehicles were created.

The most important stages of space exploration

In 1957, under the leadership of Korolev, the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 was created, which in the same year was used to launch the world's first artificial Earth satellite.

November 3, 1957 - the second artificial satellite of the Earth, Sputnik 2, was launched, which for the first time launched a living creature into space - the dog Laika. (THE USSR).

January 4, 1959 - the Luna-1 station passed at a distance of 6,000 kilometers from the surface of the Moon and entered a heliocentric orbit. It became the world's first artificial satellite of the Sun. (THE USSR).

September 14, 1959 - the Luna-2 station for the first time in the world reached the surface of the Moon in the region of the Sea of ​​Serenity near the craters Aristides, Archimedes and Autolycus, delivering a pennant with the coat of arms of the USSR. (THE USSR).

October 4, 1959 - the Luna-3 spacecraft was launched, which for the first time in the world photographed the side of the Moon invisible from Earth. Also during the flight, a gravity assist maneuver was carried out in practice for the first time in the world. (THE USSR).

August 19, 1960 - the first ever orbital flight of living beings into space was completed with a successful return to Earth. The dogs Belka and Strelka made an orbital flight on the Sputnik 5 spacecraft. (THE USSR).

April 12, 1961 - the first manned flight into space was made (Yu. Gagarin) on the Vostok-1 spacecraft. (THE USSR).

August 12, 1962 - the world's first group space flight was carried out on the Vostok-3 and Vostok-4 spacecraft. The maximum approach of the ships was about 6.5 km. (THE USSR).

June 16, 1963 - the world's first flight into space by a female cosmonaut (Valentina Tereshkova) was made on the Vostok-6 spacecraft. (THE USSR).

October 12, 1964 - the world's first multi-seat spacecraft, Voskhod-1, flew. (THE USSR).

March 18, 1965 - the first human spacewalk in history took place. Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov performed a spacewalk from the Voskhod-2 spacecraft. (THE USSR).

February 3, 1966 - AMS Luna-9 made the world's first soft landing on the surface of the Moon, panoramic images of the Moon were transmitted. (THE USSR).

March 1, 1966 - the Venera 3 station reached the surface of Venus for the first time, delivering the USSR pennant. This was the world's first flight of a spacecraft from Earth to another planet. (THE USSR).

October 30, 1967 - the first docking of two unmanned spacecraft “Cosmos-186” and “Cosmos-188” was carried out. (USSR).

September 15, 1968 - the first return of the spacecraft (Zond-5) to Earth after orbiting the Moon. There were living creatures on board: turtles, fruit flies, worms, plants, seeds, bacteria. (THE USSR).

January 16, 1969 - the first docking of two manned spacecraft Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 was made. (THE USSR).

July 21, 1969 - the first landing of a man on the Moon (N. Armstrong) as part of the lunar expedition of the Apollo 11 spacecraft, which delivered to Earth, including samples of lunar soil. (USA).

September 24, 1970 - the Luna-16 station collected and subsequently delivered to Earth (by the Luna-16 station) samples of lunar soil. (THE USSR). It is also the first unmanned spacecraft to deliver rock samples to Earth from another cosmic body (that is, in this case, from the Moon).

November 17, 1970 - soft landing and start of operation of the world's first semi-automatic remotely controlled self-propelled vehicle controlled from the Earth: Lunokhod-1. (THE USSR).

March 3, 1972 - launch of the first device that subsequently left the solar system: Pioneer 10. (USA).

October 1975 - soft landing of two spacecraft "Venera-9" and "Venera-10" and the world's first photographs of the surface of Venus. (THE USSR).

April 12, 1981 - the first flight of the first reusable transport spacecraft (Columbia. (USA).

February 20, 1986 - launch into orbit of the base module of the orbital station [[Mir_(orbital_station)]Mir]

November 20, 1998 - launch of the first block of the International Space Station. Production and launch (Russia). Owner (USA).

June 24, 2000 - the NEAR Shoemaker station became the first artificial satellite of the asteroid (433 Eros). (USA).

Today

Today is characterized by new projects and plans for space exploration. Space tourism is actively developing. Manned astronautics are once again planning to return to the Moon and have turned their attention to other planets of the Solar System (primarily Mars).

In 2009, the world spent $68 billion on space programs, including the USA - $48.8 billion, the EU - $7.9 billion, Japan - $3 billion, Russia - $2.8 billion, China - $2 billion

History of the development of astronautics

To evaluate the contribution of a person to the development of a certain field of knowledge, it is necessary to trace the history of the development of this field and try to discern the direct or indirect influence of the ideas and works of this person on the process of achieving new knowledge and new successes. Let us consider the history of the development of rocket technology and the subsequent history of rocket and space technology.

The Birth of Rocket Technology

If we talk about the very idea of ​​jet propulsion and the first rocket, then this idea and its embodiment were born in China around the 2nd century AD. The propellant of the rocket was gunpowder. The Chinese first used this invention for entertainment - the Chinese are still leaders in the production of fireworks. And then they put this idea into service, in the literal sense of the word: such a “firework” tied to an arrow increased its flight range by about 100 meters (which was one third of the entire flight length), and when it hit, the target lit up. There were also more formidable weapons on the same principle - “spears of furious fire.”

In this primitive form, rockets existed until the 19th century. It was only at the end of the 19th century that attempts were made to mathematically explain jet propulsion and create serious weapons. In Russia, Nikolai Ivanovich Tikhomirov was one of the first to take up this issue in 1894 32 . Tikhomirov proposed using as a driving force the reaction of gases resulting from the combustion of explosives or highly flammable liquid fuels in combination with an ejected environment. Tikhomirov began to deal with these issues later than Tsiolkovsky, but in terms of implementation he moved much further, because he thought more down to earth. In 1912, he presented a project for a rocket projectile to the Navy Ministry. In 1915 he applied for a privilege for a new type of “self-propelled mines” for water and air. Tikhomirov's invention received a positive assessment from the expert commission chaired by N. E. Zhukovsky. In 1921, at the suggestion of Tikhomirov, a laboratory was created in Moscow for the development of his inventions, which later (after being transferred to Leningrad) received the name Gas Dynamic Laboratory (GDL). Soon after its founding, the activities of the GDL focused on the creation of rocket shells using smokeless powder.

In parallel with Tikhomirov, former tsarist army colonel Ivan Grave 33 worked on solid fuel rockets. In 1926, he received a patent for a rocket that used a special composition of black powder as fuel. He began to push through his idea, even wrote to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, but these efforts ended quite typically for that time: Colonel of the Tsarist Army Grave was arrested and convicted. But I. Grave will still play his role in the development of rocket technology in the USSR, and will take part in the development of rockets for the famous Katyusha.

In 1928, a rocket was launched using Tikhomirov's gunpowder as fuel. In 1930, a patent was issued in the name of Tikhomirov for the recipe for such gunpowder and the technology for making checkers from it.

American genius

The American scientist Robert Hitchings Goddard 34 was one of the first to study the problem of jet propulsion abroad. In 1907, Goddard wrote an article “On the Possibility of Movement in Interplanetary Space,” which is very close in spirit to Tsiolkovsky’s work “Exploration of World Spaces with Jet Instruments,” although Goddard is so far limited to only qualitative estimates and does not derive any formulas. Goddard was 25 years old at the time. In 1914, Goddard received US patents for the design of a composite rocket with conical nozzles and a rocket with continuous combustion in two versions: with a sequential supply of powder charges to the combustion chamber and with a pump supply of two-component liquid fuel. Since 1917, Goddard has been conducting design developments in the field of solid fuel rockets of various types, including multi-charge pulsed combustion rockets. Since 1921, Goddard began experiments with liquid rocket engines (oxidizer - liquid oxygen, fuel - various hydrocarbons). It was these liquid fuel rockets that became the first ancestors of space launch vehicles. In his theoretical works, he repeatedly noted the advantages of liquid rocket engines. On March 16, 1926, Goddard successfully launched a simple propellant rocket (fuel - gasoline, oxidizer - liquid oxygen). The launch weight is 4.2 kg, the achieved height is 12.5 m, the flight range is 56 m. Goddard holds the championship in launching a liquid fuel rocket.

Robert Goddard was a man of difficult, complex character. He preferred to work secretly, in a narrow circle of trusted people who blindly obeyed him. According to one of his American colleagues, " Goddard considered rockets his private reserve, and those who also worked on this issue were considered as poachers... This attitude led him to abandon the scientific tradition of reporting his results through scientific journals..." 35. One can add: and not only through scientific journals. Goddard’s answer on August 16, 1924 to Soviet enthusiasts of research into the problem of interplanetary flights, who sincerely wanted to establish scientific connections with American colleagues, is very characteristic. The answer is very short, but it contains all of Goddard’s character :

"Clark University, Worchester, Massachusetts, Department of Physics. To Mr. Leutheisen, Secretary of the Society for the Study of Interplanetary Communications. Moscow, Russia.

Dear sir! I am glad to know that a society for the study of interplanetary connections has been created in Russia, and I will be glad to collaborate in this work. within the limits of the possible. However, there is no printed material relating to work currently underway or experimental flights. Thank you for introducing me to the materials. Sincerely yours, Director of the Physical Laboratory R.Kh. Goddard " 36 .

Tsiolkovsky’s attitude towards cooperation with foreign scientists looks interesting. Here is an excerpt from his letter to Soviet youth, published in Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1934:

"In 1932, the largest capitalist Metal Airship Society sent me a letter. They asked for detailed information about my metal airships. I didn't answer the questions asked. I consider my knowledge to be the property of the USSR " 37 .

Thus, we can conclude that there was no desire to cooperate on either side. Scientists were very zealous about their work.

Priority disputes

Theorists and practitioners of rocketry at that time were completely disunited. These were the same “... unrelated studies and experiments of many individual scientists attacking an unknown area at random, like a horde of nomadic horsemen,” about which, however, in relation to electricity, F. Engels wrote in “Dialectics of Nature” . Robert Goddard knew nothing about Tsiolkovsky’s work for a very long time, as did Hermann Oberth, who worked with liquid rocket engines and rockets in Germany. Equally lonely in France was one of the pioneers of astronautics, engineer and pilot Robert Esnault-Peltry, the future author of the two-volume work “Astronautics”.

Separated by spaces and borders, they will not soon learn about each other. On October 24, 1929, Oberth would probably get the only typewriter in the entire town of Mediasha with Russian font and send a letter to Tsiolkovsky in Kaluga. " I am, of course, the very last person who would challenge your primacy and your merits in the rocket business, and I only regret that I did not hear about you until 1925. I would probably be much further ahead in my own works today and would do without those many wasted efforts, knowing your excellent works"Obert wrote openly and honestly. But it’s not easy to write like that when you’re 35 years old and you’ve always considered yourself first. 38

In his fundamental report on cosmonautics, the Frenchman Esnault-Peltry never mentioned Tsiolkovsky. Popularizer of science writer Ya.I. Perelman, having read Esnault-Peltry's work, wrote to Tsiolkovsky in Kaluga: " There is a reference to Lorenz, Goddard, Oberth, Hohmann, Vallier, but I did not notice any references to you. It seems that the author is not familiar with your works. It's a shame!"After some time, the newspaper L'Humanité will write quite categorically: " Tsiolkovsky should rightly be recognized as the father of scientific astronautics". It turns out somehow awkward. Esnault-Peltry tries to explain everything: " ...I made every effort to obtain them (works by Tsiolkovsky - Ya.G.). It turned out to be impossible for me to obtain even a small document before my reports in 1912". Some irritation is detected when he writes that in 1928 he received " from Professor S.I. Chizhevsky a statement demanding confirmation of Tsiolkovsky's priority." "I think I have fully satisfied him", writes Esnault-Peltry. 39

Throughout his life, the American Goddard never named Tsiolkovsky in any of his books or articles, although he received his Kaluga books. However, this difficult man rarely referred to other people's works.

Nazi genius

On March 23, 1912, Wernher von Braun, the future creator of the V-2 rocket, was born in Germany. His rocket career began with reading non-fiction books and observing the sky. He later recalled: " This was a goal that could be dedicated to for the rest of my life! Not only observe the planets through a telescope, but also break into the Universe yourself, explore mysterious worlds“40. A serious boy beyond his years, he read Oberth’s book about space flights, watched Fritz Lang’s film “The Girl on the Moon” several times, and at the age of 15 he joined the space travel society, where he met real rocket scientists.

The Brown family was obsessed with war. Among the men of the von Braun house, there was only talk about weapons and war. This family, apparently, was not devoid of the complex that was inherent in many Germans after defeat in the First World War. In 1933, the Nazis came to power in Germany. Baron and true Aryan Wernher von Braun with his ideas for jet missiles came to the court of the country's new leadership. He joined the SS and began to quickly climb the career ladder. The authorities allocated huge amounts of money for his research. The country was preparing for war, and the Fuhrer really needed new weapons. Wernher von Braun had to forget about space flights for many years. 41