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Aviation History
1969
1969 - 0133.PDF
Apollo 8 astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were received at the White House last week (see also page 78) to be honoured by President Johnson. Lovell, Anders and Fred Haise (a new astronaut who has not flown in space) have been selected as the standby crew for Apollo II, the Moon-landing flight next July Tass has been doing some ingenious dialectical writhing explaining to the Russions why we could have, and didn't. A Zend-based lunar flight? It may be some time before we know how seriously, if at all, the Soviets considered a manned circumlunar mission to anticipate. Apollo 8. Leaks were remarkably consistent both in Moscow and Washington. It was to have been a one-man mission in a Zond-type spacecraft, launched on a free-return trajectory during the Russians' December window (approxi mately December 7 to 14). On such circumstantial evidence as there is, this is probably the most the Russians could have attempted. From its con tainer, Zond 5 appears to have been about the size of a Mercury capsule; the biggest known Soviet booster, the so- called Proton rocket, is estimated to be capable of placing about 20 tons in Earth parking orbit, father less than ;• the weight of Apollo 8 plus S-IVB. A solo circumlunar would probably be ruled out on psycho logical grounds alone, even if the entire work load was placed on automatic systems, as it well could be. It would also have been distinctly more hazardous than the Apollo 8 mission; with only 20 tons for the equivalent of service module, com mand module and lunar injection stage, it is doubtful if pro vision could have been made for any aborts short of a six-day lunar fly-by, whatever was happening to the astronaut or his vehicle. It seems even more unlikely that the Russians will attempt it now; if there is one thing they hate it's an anti-climax. At the time of writing their January lunar window is almost shut. So far they have made no use of it, but launched instead the 2.5001b Venus 5 probe, for another soft landing attempt on Venus. Soviet windows for a lunar shot, it now seems clear, occur at quite different times to those of Cape Kennedy. The Soviets have one constraint the Americans are free of—the lack of a deep space tracking network spread around the globe, with the Moon always above the horizon for at least two of them. The Russian alternative is to wait for a Moon with a high northerly declination; at such times, in latitudes of 50°N, the Moon can be above the horizon for as long as I7hr and with a combination of two tracking stations in the USSR (there is believed to be one near the Crimea and another in the Kamchatka Peninsula) 24hr/day links with a probe could be guaranteed. If this analysis is right—and the lunar flights of both Zond 5 and Zond 6 bear it out—one conclusion is that Soviet windows 113 repeat every 27 days, the period of the Moon's revolution, against 29i days for American windows—the period in which the Moon's phase and hence the terminator position recurs. But the Russians are by no means out of the space race in general. They are behind only temporarily, and only in certain areas. In the decade since the Sputnik, the two rivals have rather intriguingly changed places. It is now the Americans who have an abundance of rocket power and make spectacular deep sorties into the unknown; the Russians who could do with a bigger booster, are making a less dramatic, but more measured approach "on a broad front" The next few months should finally clear up whether they are, or are not. building an even bigger rocket than Saturn, in the 101b million to 121b million thrust bracket. The most distinguished believer in this "Super-Saturnski" is Dr Werner von Braun; with his own Saturn production line axed after the 14th vehicle, he has his own good reasons for making converts in Washington. Even without it, however, the Russians are clearly capable of assembling an orbital workshop a year or two ahead of the American target of 1971-72. A capacity of 13 has been talked off for the Soviet station; with such an orbital "school room" they could very rapidly make up their four-to-one deficiency, vis a vis the Americans, in manned space experience. There also seems no reason at all why they should not attempt the soft landing of an automatic Zond station on Mars during this year's opposition; it would be a very handy diversion from the American Moon landings. It would also be a fascinating repetition of the situation obtaining at Venus in October 1967, when an American Mariner fly-by and a Russian probe descending to the surface were able to cross check their data. Another "first" the Soviets must be thinking hard about is the soft landing and return of a lunar probe. This could rob the astronaut's of their only hard and immediate spoils—the first lumps of the Moon's rock. But whether this is within the capability of current Soviet vehicles is simply impossible to judge. But barring some catastrophic setback, the first men on the Moon will be Americans after all. One must surely be grateful for this for the same of human history, whether one thinks the landing of men on another chunk of the Universe as an enriching achievement or a wicked waste of money and effort. Someone was going to do it soon, anyway; better a milestone set in history by a free people, more or less of their own choice, than a permanent memorial to the omnious creed that Dictatorship Gets Things Done. But even the more absurd side of the space race—the dupli cation of effort by Russia and America—may not in the end turn out to have been altogether a waste. It has been instruc tive to see how. faced with the same problems, American and Soviet scientists have almost invariably corne up with different answers, from re-entry shapes to the configuration of a lunar ascent stage. The Russians have performed near miracles with automatic stations; the flight of Apollo 8 shows what can be done with a human brain and eye in the servo loop. If ever the two super-powers start to plan joint missions in space, they will have at their joint disposal a remarkably flexible body of space technique. And that must surely be the hope for the second decade of the Space Age. VENUS 6 AWAY The second Russian spacecraft to use the 1969 opportunity to fly to Venus was launched from Baikonour on January 10. Like its predecessor Venus 5, launched on January 5, Venus 6 will make a soft landing on the planet in mid-May. Both spacecraft have an identical trajectory. According to Tass, the two flights will enable an analysis of constituents to be made at different levels in the atmosphere. Venus 6 will land on the night side of the planet. With a surface temperature of about 500°C it is probable that substantial qualities of insulation would be needed to protect equipment during entry and landing. It is possible that Venus 6 will act as a data-transmission relay for Venus 5 during descent of the latter in the atmosphere of the planet.
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