Why Cosmonauts Have Never Splashed Down
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- čas přidán 20. 08. 2024
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Soyuz-23 splashed down on the lake Tengiz and was stuck in the water for a long time, because the was also a storm on the lake and it also was in the freezing weather so the recovery was very hard, it was almost a story of a disaster, you could mention that or make a video about it since it one of the least known stories that deserves its own movie.
"Have you ever wondered why in the 1960's..." - Soyuz-23 was in 1976.
Didn't Soyuz 23 sink after it broke through the ice like the soyuz capsul in (that attrocity of physics) Gravity? Or is that something else the film makers got wrong.
Mike, that's Amy's error, not Bullet's.
What's even more ironic: one of cosmonauts from Soyuz-23 was proffesional diver before he signed to space program!
Rozshdestvenskiy, one of cosmonauts of Soyuz-23, who was diver before he became cosmonaut, was named by his colleagues "The admiral of Tengiz" after this splash down.
I've heard the Soyuz re-entry and landing described as "a train wreck followed by a car crash followed by a bike wreck."
I remeber the Soyuz from the 1960s. Its such World War II technology. We are now in the 21st century of Wonders, which I have waited for for over 52 years! I used to watch a TV programme on CBS called "The 21st Century" wiith Walter Cronkite, in 1967.
I heard the shuttle described as a fire-cracker.
Just Some Guy You can watch Souz landing by camera installed inside the capsule here: czcams.com/video/-l7MM9yoxII/video.html . Whining Italian -passanger- astranaut is there also...
Pretty much. It's a wonder they only lost two, the system was practically designed to fail. SRBs are fail on a manned space craft, at least when you have no launch escape system, as Challenger found out. Strapping the spacecraft to the side of the fuel tank and not making the thermal shielding for reentry proof against impacts which you knew were going to happen from ice forming on the main tank was another disaster waiting to happen, and it did, to Columbia.
thanks for the link Random *!
I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to make a very small nitpick, regarding the geography you brought up around 2:30 : At the time Baikonur Cosmodrome was constructed, Kazakhstan was simply part of the Soviet Union, same as Russia or any of the other 13 union republics. There was no lease to the Soviet government, as the cosmodrome was on Soviet land. The lease came in the 1990's, when Russia and Kazakhstan were newly independent, and Russia had inherited the program, but not Baikonur.
Love the videos; this one was excellent!
Kazakhstan was a separate country in the USSR, but not really independent. I'm sure negotiations were very efficient. Of course, it was also a massive jobs program.
Also to get around this dependency on Kazakhstan, the Russians are building a new launch site, the Vostochny Cosmodrome, in the far east of Russia near China.
William Hamilton ."Negotiations were very efficient". During Soviet era it was more like "offer you cann't refuse".
"Republics" within the Soviet Union had certain rights and privileges, some real, but most of them were on paper. The right of secession was one of those paper rights; exercise of this right only became possible in the late 1980s. Even then, the secession of the Baltic states circa 1989, followed by Georgia (the country), and the others in December 1991 came as a big shock to almost everyone.
Zelts is pretty much spot on about the nature of these negotiations back in the 1950s :)
Regarding Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East:
Already constructed, I believe, with some failed launches to show for it, so far.
@2:31 Back in the days when space complex was build, Kazakhstan was part of USSR. Russia rent the complex from 1991 when USSR failed. But before that it was just a "domestic spaceport".
Exactly it is not like the government of Kazakhstan had a choice back then
... or Florida had a choice for Cape Canaveral.
Kazakhstan was a separate country within the USSR, as were most other Soviet countries.
You live in a communist day dream - - these were nations in the sense they had there own culture and history, but they were all vassals in the Soviet Empire
By that logic than the US states are all vassals. Plus I think the Historian knows more than you on this.
While my historical focus is more maritime oriented, I always find these videos fascinating. Keep up the good work, Amy!
@4:01 Also the seats are on shock absorbers. They move up a bit just before landing so as to further soften the landing.
It's still not gentle. lol
IIRC the seats in Apollo were set up the same way.
RickyboyH Nope, it isn’t.
Not only is Baikonur at the same latitude as Portland, Maine, but, apparently, so is Paris. The Gulf Stream makes a big difference in climate, there.
Yep, hardly to got the thought that NY is on the line of the southernmost points of Russia, while Moscow where I live is on the line of Hudson Bay, and it called a "middle latitudes" here. :)
Britain is the same latitude as Newfoundland and labrador in Canada and we get no sea ice here ever
Kazakstan WAS in the USSR, no leasing required.
You know... not that people from the USA know anything TRUE about USSR
BJ: Lease may not have been 'required" nonetheless, governments still find written agreements helpful in coordinating and defining duties and responsibilities. Payments from Moscow to Khazakstan would still have been needed to defray Khazak costs and support. Being communist doesn't change the cost of doing business or the need for coordination.
It is like saying Florida leased land to the federal government. Though soviet republics had way less autonomy than American states.
DarKodama Not anything? I find that hard to believe.
The 2 day in the ocean thing is important because after 2 days the astronauts are classified as fish and can be harvested by fishermen.
Wow! I didn't know that, that's scary :(
Would they be considered starfish?
LMAO that would be hilarious...If it were true.
😂
The capsule can be salvaged by citizens if abandoned for longer than two days.... No problem really.
As SOON as they splash down, they are classified as prey by sharks.
As a historian I am really enjoying your page. Your citing evidence from viable sources and giving an actual " History" other than just the historical opinion. By the way your hair is very attractive and looks so good.
Cheers! Yeah, I suppose I should say, too, that the blog is where the source list lives. That's the research. The video is recapping that research!
Ditto your comment sir. Amy is smart and never looked better on camera than in this vid.
Your research is impressive and is actually done right! I think in historical settings that history is taking a route of opinion rather than fact. I'm very much into history but haven't seen this side of the aisle. Hope to enjoy more.
Truly agree! Nice and classy, but attractive.
Obviously, the most important thing is how she looks to all you guys, which is mightily disrespectful.
Can you talk about the fact that the Russians keep a gun in the capsule to help if they land in the wilderness and have to fight wildlife? They even had a special pistol made, but nowdays they use the standard russian army pistol.
Lorenzo Pagani damn it.... You beat me to it
Lorenzo Pagani wait what? Source? :D
Russians are so hardy I would have thought a large knife would be enough (its also lower tech and more stable).
From what I can tell, astronauts and cosmonauts both carried various knives. For the Russians, that means they do have the stable/simple tech for survival/defense (also useful for butchering animals). The gun is important, though, since a cosmonaut isn't exactly quipped for a stealthy hunting mission.
+Rob Ostry I don't see why they'd be hardier than anyone else, and knives are not nearly as effective a means of defense against predators. Semiautomatic pistols are still fairly simple, rugged devices that can withstand anything astronauts can and then some.
Love this girl. As a person who always studied the space program growing up, it’s good to see someone actually give us actual information.
Actually, Jules Verne picked up on the equatorial launch site in his novel "From the Earth to the Moon".
And that was in 1865. Also, he had some sound understanding about escape velocities and orbital mechanics.
All of this was picked up by NASA, except maybe for his original launch method, which was using a giant canon :-)
+Michael Rapp True, although I think NASA probably could have figured this out for themselves. :)
When rocket science was first taught in the class room, the text books were actually the works of Jules Verne. True dat
He got a few things wrong, though. In his story, the passengers weren't weightless until they had reached the point at which the earth's gravity and the moon's were in equilibrium. "Weightlessness" is a misnomer - it's an artifact of the vessel - and everything in it - being in free-fall.
Yup. The accellerated/ unaccellerated frame of reference wasn't really a thing until 50 years later.
+lesnyk255 He was thinking more in terms of a straight shot to the Moon, in which case he would have been more or less correct in theory (if the Moon were stationary), although in practice everything is in orbit around the Earth, and the curved path represents an acceleration that counters the Earth's gravity (free fall)--just restating what you said from a different angle. What Verne was thinking would actually apply more to a theoretical journey through the center of the Earth (if we could somehow do that without burning up).
I have always been wondering, how does the range safety officer destroy the SBRs or other parts of the rockets in the event of a catastrophic failure and how does this process work? Can you please make a video on this?!
Also, how many times has the range safety officer destroyed rockets / parts?
He presses a big button :)
The long and short of it - explosives :D
Just a guess, but I believe there are two RSOs and they both have to send an encrypted radio signal to detonate the booster.
And as far as I know the only time it’s been used on a manned mission was after The Challenger exploded...
I’m pretty sure it’s det-cord and C-4 in strategic locations but I’d like to know where on the vehicles and how much.
Both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans were used for splashdowns by US spacecraft .
Pacific Splashdowns
Apollo's 8 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 .
Gemini 8
Skylab 4
Sigma 7
Faith 7
Atlantic Splashdowns
Apollo's 7 , 9
Gemini 6A , 7 , 9A , 10 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15
Liberty Bell 7
Freedom 7
Aurora 7
Friendship 7
Russian/Soviet lack of access to warm water ports has been one of the drivers of Russian/Soviet foreign policy. Loved "Breaking the Chains of Gravity." I would have preferred if you had read the audio book but I still enjoyed it. Looking forward to the next installment.
The latitude of the Kazakhstan launch site also contributed to the orbit inclination of the ISS.
Easiest inclination to enter from Florida or Central Asia.
So why not launch from allied Cuba? Just because of the fact you might scare the USA into thinking "ICBM?"
Yep, agreeing on an inclination for IIS was quite an accomplishment in order to be accessible to both US and Russian launch latitudes. Different problem, but the source of the problem is the same--Russia is really far north.
Because it would be way to expensive to ship everything to Cuba every time you wanted to launch a rocket.
It's actually the other way round. The orbit of the ISS was planned so the russians could launch rockets towards it without the need to adjust it's orbit in space and without the risk that rocket parts would crash on Chinese territory.
But making rather large inclination of space station is good by itself, because cosmonauts and astronauts can see the most of the Earth, while with zero inclination they would constantly see very narrow band of equatorial area.
Great video. Also just bought your book on Kindle and am loving it :D
💟
What’s it called?
Breaking the Chains of Gravity
czcams.com/video/_uNup91ZYw0/video.html
I'm going through a bunch of archive videos on this channel - MAN do I prefer these later videos where Amy is herself rather than the earlier Pop-Sci aligned videos. 👍🏻 Great job! Keep going!
Soyuz 23 actually splashed down on lake tengiz, the recovery was made difficult because of freezing weather and there was a storm on the lake,the capsule's escape hatch was actually covered by the water. the crew got out alive, but it was a close call
Retrorockets can set fire to the grass which is a bit worrying when you are trapped inside and can't move much since you just got back to having gravity after 6 months.
Can you do a video on April 5 anomaly (Soyuz 18a)? I think that is the only time a launch abort at high altitude has been made.
zapfanzapfan having just been exposed to the extreme heat of RE entry, I think the capsule is more than capable of withstanding a small grass fire
For a short while, yes, reentry only lasts a couple of minutes though so heating for a longer time will soak through.
But as far as I know no one has suffered injuries because of grass fires although they do happen. One capsule that landed of course caused a bit of a fire that consumed the parachutes and so when locals arrived they were quite confused about how the capsule had got there :-)
zapfanzapfan Don’t you think reentry heating is way hotter than grass on fire?
Leonel Yan Yes, but like I said, only for a very short time. The Russian heat shield I got really close to (sooty fingers close) looked like it was made of glass fiber composite, like a plastic boat, where the epoxy had charred and partly burned off leaving the glass fiber exposed.
Hopefully a grass fire quickly consumes all nearby grass and moves on.
zapfanzapfan well, so far, retro rockets have not caused any fire despite landing in dry grass. Go watch some videos of Soyuz landings. Anyways, doesn’t grass fire burn no hotter than 500 ºC, especially on short grass like these? An iron frying pan can easily hold up to that.
I've often wondered if another reason for landing cosmonauts within the Soviet Union was to prevent them from defecting, since if they landed at sea they could conceivably have been picked up by a non-Soviet ship.
There was an element of security to the choice as well. Given how secretive the program was, keeping everything on Soviet land decreased the chance for someone else to see what they were doing. Of course, that went out the window in the event of an emergency landing in a foreign land... If I recall correctly (it's been a while since I looked this up so take this with a grain of salt!) the cosmonauts had things like a pistol on board should they land in an unfriendly place!
Vintage Space it was actually a sawed off shotgun, if I recall one mission landed off course, and it took a while for them to rescued, and they had to deal with wolves. So they were given a shotgun after that
I think the main use for the firearm was if the recovery team couldn't get to the cosmonauts, the cosmonauts could hunt for food.
It was a three-barreled break-open pistol. Two barrels were 12.5×70 mm (a shotgun round) and one was 5.45x39mm (the same round as the AK74 rifle).
Limited defense capability against hostile humans, but useful against four-legged predators.
(I'd rather have the AK74, to be honest!)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TP-82
And there are four-legged predators in Siberian forests. Loads of them. And in real life (unlike some stereotypes and anecdotes) bear won't stop attacking you if you give him balalayka.
Project Gemini in its early design phase did plan for a recovery on land with the Rogallo wing (one of the concerns expressed by someone either in Congress or at NASA was that “half the US Navy was deployed for a splashdown”). Unfortunately the wing never worked sufficiently well in testing and thus Gemini switched to the parachute and a splashdown for recovery. But a remanent of the Rogallo wing design remained as Gemini was outfitted with ejection seats rather than an escape tower as in Mercury and Apollo (you reported on this a few years ago).
One of my favorite anecdotes involved a test of the Gemini ejection seats as the hatches failed to separate from the spacecraft and the seats, now ignited, plowed right through the closed hatches. The late John Young reportedly said “Well, you’d have quite a headache, but a mighty short one!”
Thanks, Amy, for your great and informative work always.
I think the Voskhod was the first Russian spacecraft to use landing retro rockets.
What's more interesting about Voskhod missions were that there was no launch escape system and the crew who got to ride the 3 seat Voskhod 1 couldn't wear spacesuits because of the limited interior space.
The Soviet era's obsession for secrecy guaranteed that landing outside Russian territory was a non starter and it's space program was no exception. It's why the public often felt that America was well behind because unlike their counterparts each success/failure was being broadcast live to a fascinated public. The space race for The Soviets cost hundreds of lives which remained hidden for decades and unless Cosmonauts died the picture they presented was nearly always of triumph.
Richard Mattingly "The Soviets cost hundreds of lives"
Citation needed from somewhere else than jingoist propaganda.
Krisztián Povázson Yeah I gotta agree that’s some blatant bs
"The Kazakh government leased the site to the Soviet Union in the 1950s" No, Kazakhstan was a republic of the Soviet Union, there was no leasing involved.
I think she mixed up what happened after the USSR broke up with the whole leasing bit.
When I was a kid, I went to an exhibit called "Soviet Space," which was all about the Soviet space program. From this I have a book that shows how all of this equipment worked. It even showed the capsule ejection system on the Soyuz that you were talking about!
Amy, do you ever wonder why Soviets choose Baikonur as a launch site? USSR has enough southern territories with better infrastructure and much welcoming climate. One of them was the Stavropol Territory with almost resort conditions. The limiting factor was the location of radio control ground stations. Guidance of the early missiles wasn't autonomous and relied on radio link. Caucasus mountains could interfere with the signal, that's why radio specialists rejected the initial Stavropol proposal. The irony is that few years after the construction of the missile range an inertial navigation system was developed and the need for ground stations was gone. You may read about that in Boris Chertok's memoirs "Rockets and People, Volume 2", Chapter 16. The Seven Problems of the R-7 Missile, Problem number seven, page 306. The book is available on NASA web site. In my opinion it's a must read book on Soviet space program history, highly recommend it :)
Nasa should take this girl to the ISS for publicity! hint hint Nasa. right Amy? how about a live stream on PBS and youtube of vintage space from ISS? Send Scott Manley too, and some kerbels to keep them company.
FPVREVIEWS Excellent idea!
You mean Russia should take her. NASA's manned programme is just a temp agency for astronauts any more, or a travel agency. Snide remarks aside, that's a good idea.
NASA is probably too superstitious to try to launch another female spaceflight participant for publicity after Christa McAuliffe...
Yeah, I'd like to see her rack floating in the weightlessness of outer space- - cause she is well stacked :-)
why not Roscosmos
There is a story that when Yuri Gagarin landed the first person to see him was a little girl, who asked him "Are you a spaceman?" I like to think of her now, telling her grandchildren how she met the first man in space.
Would love to know if that is true and where she is now.
I love you beyond human comprehension. If your ever in Wisconsin, I'd love to have an educated conversation of comprehension itself. Keep up the good work.
NASA'S unexplained misses you! Hope all is well in this crazy world?
“The soft landing is not really soft” - Paolo Nespoli
To W--Stranger, In 1989 Russia finally acknowledged the Nedelin Diasater in 1960 were upwards of a 135 men were killed when a booster exploded and injured even more. Indeed hundreds have died in accidents ranging from falling from gantry to an US ICBM fuel tank being breached by a falling wrench with the following explosion launched its warhead and cover out of the silo. Every nation that has achieved orbit has lost people on the ground and the dangers of dying even happened well away from the pad like the Pepcon disaster which made the Schuttles solid rocket fuel...
They did it for the same reason Russia does a lot of things they do: they didn't have much choice. Naval recovery is hideously expensive and demands resources that Russia lacked...widespread access to warm water ports and a real blue water navy. The Soviets didn't really have that navy for most of the 1960s. Recovering ships from remote oceans would have been difficult for them to pull off when Soyuz was developed. Even now, their navy is far less capable than the US Navy.
Lack of NASA level funding is the blessing and the curse of the Russian space program. It's forced them to use simple, low cost technology, but it's also limited what they can do. You won't see Russia spending $1.5 billion to launch a shuttle or $9 billion to put up a space telescope.
They did occasionally recover craft in the Indian ocean, like Zond 5 back in 1968, which sent a payload of tortoises (and other animals) around the moon. BOR-4 unmanned subscale space planes were also recovered from the Indian Ocean. I suspect a desire for secrecy was a big factor. I believe accounting would be hard to really go over when it comes to funding in the days of the Soviet Union, but by all account the Soviets spent tons of money on their space programs, like with developing Buran and Energia together (and may have actually spent something like the figure above for that single flight in 1988 of the two systems together) ...
Your quite welcome to take a ride in my ship Amy, she as warp capability and is also configured for atmospheric flight, she's not all that large, though she will give you a rush like nothing on your Earth can, you'd also be the first Terran to board her.
P.S
Joking apart, awesome release, as always
Amy, I would love to see an episode about Gus Grissom’s Mercury space suit. What little I know is that Betty Grissom loaned the suit to NASA...and they proceeded to 1) claim the Gus misappropriated the suit, and 2) place the suit on permanent display in their museum near the cape.
Israel is the only country who launch towards the west, do to concerns of neighboring countries. As a result, their payloads are very small and then don't launch often.
When we launch satellites from Vandenberg CA, we have to lunch toward the west.
Yes, but we have the option of launching east from Cape Canaveral. We only use Vandenburg when we want to launch into a high-inclination orbit where the sideways velocity that's usually so helpful is now unwanted.
Lothar Erkens Vandenberg also launches to the south.
Lately Isreal sends it's rockets to spacex if they want to launch towards the east
So THAT'S why they launch east to west? I thought it was because the instructions were in Hebrew (read from right to left).
I wonder which was less expensive. I'm thinking the Land Landing. Especially when you consider the number of men, ships, fuel etc. the Navy had to employ in multiple areas.
Joe Krol well I guess those navy personnel in the ships would be getting paid regardless of where they were at. But I think the amount resourves devoted to the sea landings would have cost more than the landings made on the land
Joe Krol The Navy wasn’t there just to pick up astronauts, so that cost doesn’t really count. Landing so far north would require a decent amount of fuel and the extra rockets and the pistol that they carried to protect themselves once they landed would increase the cost
Splashdown should be relatively cheap since the navy ships are already there on patrol. Changing course and spending a couple of days to pick up astronauts wouldn't really change much. Once the astronauts were on board they could eat what the sailors were eating and be given accommodations that the ship probably already has in excess. Kinda like adding a few extra items to a wholesale order.
The only big bump in the cost would be sending a helicopter to rendezvous with the ship and take them back to land.
Barrett Jordan I dont rhink the pistol itself would have cost much assuming it was a standard one
Not just a single helicopter. There probably was a lot of additional personell involved that needed to be transferred from and to the carrier group and the capsule also needed to be returned. So it's not as if there was no extra cost involved.
I once went to a lecture of Chris Hadfield who commanded the ISS for some time.
He described a conversation he had with cosmonauts about the (he spoke with Russian accent) "soft landing rrrockets".
He repeated that with a strange emphasis on "soft" and then fell into this meditative silence. The hall exploded laughing.
The first german in space Mr. Sigmund Jähn (DDR) had such hard landing with Sojus 29 in 1978. He was hurt at his spine I heard an interview once that he never really recovered from it. The sojus capsula was dragged by the parashutes in a wind-gust
on the ground after touch down and they had problems to release... It was like a car crash the casula was rolled over again and again...
Retro rockets are way cooler though :)
Glurgi possibly. but “Splashdown!” Sounds way cooler.
Fair argument, although I imagine the thud of a land landing is probably more satisfying that a splosh. Pretty sure engineers don't make choices (normally) by how cool it sounds though. Sadly ;)
Are you jake ropers (vsauce 3) girlfriend?
@Vintage Space.. Hi Amy so love your channel, it feeds my inner space nurd 😂 I am working security for Col Chris Hadfield when his tour comes to Belfast Northern Ireland on 15th of February!! #Starstruck.. OMG As a kid I visited Kennedy space centre (1978) finally I get to meet my 1st real live astronaut! After watching your videos of you meeting Pete Conrad I can say that I will probably be as enthusiastic 😂😂 whilst trying to remain "Professional" Thank you so much as your channel has helped me rekindle my childhood fascination with Apollo and space x PS my 7 yo Grandson Joshua loves your videos and we got him his first telescope for Christmas. Cheers Bill
Thank-you for this piece. I am 63 and have been a space junkie my entire life. Surprisingly, you have taught me many things I didn't know. I would gladly buy the Soyuz ticket to ISS or a Space X ticket to circumnavigate the moon. Some day maybe a viewer will sponsor your first person adventure.
What would happen if the thrusters would fail the second before landing?
Also, the landing would be the least of my worries if I could go to space. :-P
A hard landing, potential injury or death of a Cosmonaut/Astronaut.
I think this actually happened on Soyuz 5. Google it for the entire story - it's pretty horrifying - but basically what happened was the spacecraft initially began to reenter wrong-end first, damaging the pyros meant to fire those final retros. Volynov landed so hard he was flung out of his seat & broke several teeth.
That's crazy. He's lucky to still be alive today.
Thanks!
Wich kind of music did the crews of Apollo and Gemini take with them and what device did tey use to play it on??
A 17th-century gramophone with a sideboard containing the works of rodgers and hammerstein.
Funny enough gramophone wouldn't work in weightless environement. At least the normal one... From what i heard they used cassette players. They were small and light enough.
Did you really believe me?
From what i recall they played cassette during Apollo 15 lunar ascent.
Sorry for joking. I assumed that the weight would be so controlled as to limit such 'pointless' things as music. However, it seems they took a lot of stuff with them, so I'm most certainly wrong. Obviously, if they took music, they should have been playing Starman by David Bowie. :-)
Thanks for the "shout out" to Portland, Maine
What the Western media called the "Zond" missions were Soyuz spacecraft without the cruise module launched on a Proton rocket intended to carry two men on a free-return trajectory around the Moon and back. There were four unmanned test flights. They were all technically successful, but the reentries of the first three were really brutal. The fourth flight splashed down safely in the Indian Ocean with its biological samples. Then Apollo 8 happened, and a free-return mission would have been too little, too late, and there were no manned missions. If there had been, they would have splashed down in the ocean.
You should probably mention how the Soyuz times the retrorocket burn just before touchdown. If I remember correctly, they use backscatter from a cobalt-60 gamma-ray source. It would be interesting to hear why they picked that as opposed to a radar.
The ejection seat detail I hadn't heard before. Very interesting. Must have been tough.
Go talk to Ed Lu, he can tell you some great stories about training for a Soyuz landing. Apparently they put the whole capsule, with cosmonauts/astronauts inside, in an oven, get it heat soaked, and then drop it on the permafrost. They have a limited amount of time to get out (15 min?), and they train for one crew member to be incapacitated and the others have to haul them out.
These gamma-ray altimeters were developed when Voskhod capsules were still in operation (capable of 3 people or 2 people with EVA). They had their retrorockets attached to parachute strings, while the capsule itself was coated with ablative heat shield. They didn't want to make any additional holes in this shield for radar, so gamma-ray turned out to be the best solution. Altimeter was located inside the capsule and worked through both the aluminum casing and heat shield. Later in Soyuz there were detachable heat shield with retrorockets beneath it, so it was possible to use radio or even optic device, but this gamma-ray altimeter was ready and pretty compact and very robust. BTW, this altimeter is called 'Cactus' which is funny, because it's designed for soft landing.
Maybe gamma-rays have a more accurate reflection from diverse soil than radar at such short distance?
Iain McClatchie I
Could be more energy efficient as well. Radar uses a good bit of power and you probably don't want too many batteries on board.
Five Flat-Earthers left a thumbs down...
they forgot what gravity was.
If the earth isn't flat, why are your shoes?
Bob Duckerberg Pssh, you actually believe in the Earth? Quit drinking that government kool-aid.
Yes, let's argue why I shouldn't believe in the Earth. :-)
Pancake-earthers don't know that there is a conspiracy to get them to believe in something demonstrably false so nothing they say can be taken seriously.
All you need to do is sail around Antarctica while measuring the miles traveled then fly around the equator then fly around the arctic circle and you will quickly discover that the distances do not support pancake theory.
thanks for this very clear explanation - yes this disixties landing strategy is something I have wondered about since the sixties
You are so smart... I also like the new hair color! Thanks for explaining why the space powers take off and land where they do.
@2:59 "The bodies of water that the Soviet Union did have access to are all in the Arctic Circle . . . ."
FALSE.
The Soviet Union had direct access to the Sea of Japan, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Bering Sea and, yes, the North Pacific Ocean. These all lie well outside the Arctic Circle. [Please, just *look* at your own map!] Between 1961 and 1991 the Soviet Union possessed a full-fledged blue-water navy capable of operating around the world. Soviet Navy's Pacific Fleet, consisting of hundreds of ships, had its home port at Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan and Avacha Bay (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and later Vilyuchinsk) offered direct naval access to the Pacific. The idea that there was some kind of geographic or naval reason the USSR could not use a warm-water Pacific splashdown is bogus. [The primary and widely recognized reason, the one glaringly omitted by the video, was secrecy. The Soviets didn't want the outside world to watch what it was doing. The other considerations were trivial by comparison.]
@2:34 "The Kazakh government leased the site to the Soviet Union in the 1950's."
FALSE.
As has been pointed out, in the 1950's the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic was a constituent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Baikonur Cosmodrome site was established by joint resolution of the Central Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on February 12, 1955. No lease was required for this secret site. It wasn't until December 1991 that the Kazakh SSR declared its independence of the USSR, took the name, "Republic of Kazakhstan" and the USSR dissolved. It was only after this that the problem of Russian interest in facilities within an independent Kazakhstan was addressed by leases. This is very simple common knowledge.
@Vintage Space I just have to ask, ARE YOU NOT ASHAMED OF THIS? Projecting sloppy disinformation like this onto the internet posing as "education" is irresponsible and immoral. You could easily shanghai a high school intern of middling intellect to research scripts before production. Do it. Whoever is doing that work now (if anyone) obviously cannot hack it. And somehow our presenter (a "spaceflight historian" no less) uttered these obviously false prattlings without choking.
How?
How?
Will it help if I unsubscribe?
Will it?
UNSUBSCRIBED
Since you wouldn't mind the "hard" Soyuz landing, I think we should start the "Let's send Amy to the ISS (with Pete)" petition to NASA! It would be so awesome for you to do a Vintage Space episode from orbit!!!! Whatcha think?? ;)
We could start a crowdfunding. What does one of those Soyuz seats cost these days? I'll chip in a dollar ;)
How would NASA do a litter box in space? Or would Pete have to be toilet trained? :?
I see your point! I could really be a "cat"astrophy!
They'll cut her lovely head off and make her convert to their belief-system.
@Hans Roes 50 million dollars per seat. And she would need to pass some training which I assume won't be cheap either.
Since 2011, Soyouz is also launching from Kourou, French Guyana
Its pretty cool seeing it in a different environment other than a desert
Amy, love your content, loved your book. You get prettier every video. Keep up the amazing work x
The Kazakh government was essentially the Soviet government as it was one of the Soviet Socialist Republics.
James Thacker yeah i was like free decision making nation under soviet times. What lol
She's a historian, I think she knows more about this than you do, random CZcams comment.
Rob Rose maybe, but not in that case. Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet union, that's a fact.
Can You Please make Video about Cars in Space.
Was the Tesla the first Car in Space?
No the Lunar Rover was the first car in space.
I would nominate Lunakhod 1 as the first car in space. It landed on the moon in 1970. The first human drive car was the Lunar Rover used on Apollo 15, which was used on the moon in 1971.
Maybe, but it wasn't human driven like a car.
You could possibly argue that the Tesla was the first regular (production line) electric automobile in space. The Lunar Rover was the first human controlled electric vehicle but it would not be technically classed as a ‘car’. It was a bespoke wheeled vehicle designed to do one job, transport astronauts, tools and samples on the lunar surface. And it wasn’t deployed in space, it was deployed on the moon’s surface.
As for Lunakhod, that was probably the first wheeled vehicle on the moon and, again, technically not in space.
"It was a bespoke wheeled vehicle designed to do one job, transport astronauts, tools and samples on the lunar surface."
Not sure how else you'd define a car. I suppose you could call it a moon car.
As usual, well done. We Mainers (real and from away) appreciate the shout-out from our long-displaced neighbor.
When I was in the US Navy we got to meet the Chief of Naval Operations whose first time out at sea was to pick up the Apollo 8 command module (yeah, he was that old).
Soyuz 23 cosmonauts, Vitaly Zholobov and Valery Rozhdestvensky, splashed down in Lake Tengiz after the failed mission of docking to Salyut 5 space station in 1976. Soviet spacecraft are able to splashdown since Vostok 3KA in early 1960´s.
The USSR also had to consider the problem of defecting cosmonauts. That is one reason Soviet spacecraft design placed so much emphasis on control from the ground.
By landing capsules within the territory of the USSR, the possibilty of losing a crew to the West was greatly reduced.
I vote for sending Space Vintage Girl to space! Make room for her, NASA! She deserves it!
The Baikonur Cosmodrome was built circa 1957 when Kazakhstan was part of the Soviet Union. The lease back you are talking about occurred when Kazakhstan became a separate country after the break up of the Soviet Union (USSR ) in 1991, and Kazakhstan became an independent county, as did Russia.
The Voskhod retro braking system was interesting. Having the same round capsule as the Vostoks, their retro braking rocket was suspended under the parachute much like a military, heavy airdrop system.
Thanks for the video your video's help me feel happy even though I have depression keep up the good work 😊
I love this channel. She always makes such well researched and scripted content.
One of the most unknown test beds for NASA was the rocket sled/track built by the US military and it was used to study a model of the Saturn V for aerodynamics to the G Forces on the human body. Indeed the image of an astronaut in centrifuges is a classic but the men who rode the sled had the right stuff and pioneers in their own right.
This channel has bettered my life.
I thought it had more to do with the available conditions than anything else. Also, you're looking gorgeous! I don't know what it is, but you're getting prettier :)
Vintage Space and everyday astronaut colab imagine how awesome that world be
You're my new favo channel on YT :)
I love the history and the science and I sure don't mind watching a beautiful woman telling it all!
"She blinded me with science!"
One minor thing - I'm pretty sure that the american capsules could still land on land, but spashing down was also done since if they had to abort they would end up splashing down anyways.
I got to see Yuri Gagarin's ejection seat at Moscow's Museum of Cosmonautics. It's definitely worth a visit. I read that when he landed, he was spotted by a Soviet farmer, whom thought he was an extra-terrestrial.
Thank you for not having 2+ minutes of BS at the beginning of every video like some other CZcams creators
Last second of Soyuz landing is like hard braking of average Joe on bicycle (from 20 kph to 5 kph) and final touchdown is at the speed 1-2 m/s. Something like collision with the wall at normal walking speed. So yes, soft landing is not so soft. Some of our samples don't survive return to Earth because of the impact.
I love your Vintage Space channel! Here is a topic to consider: The development of the space suits used for Gemini and Apollo. I think the Playtex (girdles!!?!!) company was heavily involved. Thanks!
The Russian capsule landings have been described like being in a car crash.
Just before landing the seats pivot up to provide more of a crush zone for the deceleration experienced when the capsule lands.
There is a video somewhere on youtube showing the inside of a Russian capsule at landing.
Soyuz is a amazing spacecraft that is still in use today and even launches American Astronauts. It will soon be fazed out due to new designs. Soyuz has launched more Astronauts that any other space ship both American and Russian/soviets. Thank you for your service.
Mercury capsules were equipped with an airbag to soften a land landing, and Gemini astronauts would eject in the event of a land landing. This would only be used in the event of an emergency de-orbit.
Great as always, Amy! Also, you did a killer job on your eyes! Keep it up!!!
Another happy landing! Always interesting thanks!
You should do a video on why the USSR chose their design for Soyuz vs the US design for Apollo. Considering one option for Apollo was a similar design to Soyuz.
Great job Amy, thank you.
I love your videos. With the launch of the Falcon Heavy I heard a lot about it's power and reusability and automaticaly I remember the soviet rocket Energia and the proyect Uragan. Can you make a video about the diferences and the posibilities? (Thanks in advance)
Why am I just now finding this channel? CZcams suggestion algorithm failure..Liked and subscribed immediately
I didn't know cosmonauts before the Soyuz had to eject and parachuted from a descending capsule in order to land, until watching this video, thanks!
NASA should sponsor Amy.She's done more for popularizing the science than all those NASA press conference.
So it was pretty much what I thought. Thanks for the clarifacation and bringing up the many other factors involved.
You Rock-et Amy.😁
I was like "what is the next thing to go on about" THISSSS
amazing video, next time you could do about the SS 520-5
I love your channel! I was around during the vintage space era
Simply Brilliant!
great video as always, I really appreciate that your videos are so professionally made
Fascinating presentation thanks xxx
The original rules by the IAC for a person going into space said they has to return to earth in their capsule. The Ejection Seats used on the first two Soviet man lunches means that, by the actual rules Alan Shepard was the first man in space! The fact the Soviets hid the use of the ejection sea and it only came out because of a slip shows they were concerned about it. This is a personal pet peeve of mine, just like the 72 and 94 Olympics, rules do not matter when you are in compensation with the United States.
Very well explained, was a thought that I had briefly mulled over myself so thank you for the great explanation
Two video ideas for you. I'd like to know why the Gemini capsules had a flat nose and how the cap com worked
Nice to see a Episode again!
I think there was another major factor to consider. It the Soviets landed off course in international water, the Soviets would be unable to prevent the US Navy from carrying out a rescue.
Once in the water the space craft is considered to be a "ship in distress" legally speaking. As any ship at sea is legally obliged to render aid to a ship in distress if able, the US could claim to have carried out a rescue operation and possible even claim salvage rights.
The US and USSR signed treaties to return any wayward space traveler to their home country at once, but the Soviets feared defection as well. If that cosmonaut requested asylum, the US might be able to grant that request despite the treaty.
While the Soviets could have done the same thing, "rescued" and American space crew, they would have been much less likely to have the opportunity to successfully carry it out. Also, the Americans did not fear defection so much.