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Science / Space Race

[November 4, 1968] A Mysterious Mission (Soyuz-2 and 3)

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by Kaye Dee

Just over a week ago I wrote about the Apollo-7 test flight – America’s successful return to space after the tragedy of the Apollo-1 fire. Just days after Apollo-7’s safe splashdown the Soviet Union also launched its own return-to-flight mission, Soyuz-3. As the Traveller noted in his recent commentary, like Apollo-7, Soyuz-3 represents the recommencement of the Russian manned spaceflight programme following its equally tragic loss of Soyuz-1 last year.

This is reported to be the official Soyuz-3 mission patch. It was apparently intended to be worn by Cosmonaut Beregovoi or at least flown during the mission, however it ia not clear if it was actually used

As readers know, the Soviet space programme is secretive about its activities. Soyuz-3, which was launched on 26 October, has been particularly mysterious for a crewed spaceflight. The mission was preceded by the launch of the un-manned Soyuz-2, although that launch was not announced until after Soyuz-3 was in orbit. What can we make of the little we know so far about this flight, which had a duration of just a little under four days?

New Cosmonaut, New Spacecraft
We know from information released or gleaned at the time of Soyuz-1 that this new Soviet spacecraft is large, capable of carrying at least three cosmonauts – although on this mission, just as with Soyuz-1, there appears to have been only one man aboard, Colonel Georgi Beregovoi.

Although not previously known to be a member of the Soviet cosmonaut team, Col. Beregovoi is a distinguished World War Two veteran, who was awarded the decoration of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1944. After the war he became a test pilot and is said to have joined the cosmonaut team in 1964. At 47, Beregovoi now becomes the oldest person to make a spaceflight, taking the record away from 45-year-old Apollo-7 commander Capt. Wally Schirra only weeks after he achieved it.

The few images of the Soyuz spacecraft available indicate that, unlike the Apollo Command Service Module, it has three sections: a ‘service module’ containing life-support and propulsion systems; and two other modules – one roughly bell-shaped and the other, attached to it, spherical – which both seem to be crew accommodation, given that press releases from the TASS newsagency have described the spacecraft as “two-roomed”.

The bell-shaped section seems to be the part of the spacecraft in which the crew return to Earth, protected by a heatshield. Interestingly, the service module supports a solar panel on either side, which must be folded within the launch shroud and extended once in orbit. The use of solar panels suggests that the USSR does not have the same fuel cell technology as NASA. However, it is also possible that the Soyuz is intended for missions in Earth orbit with an appreciably longer duration than a short trip to the Moon and back, as solar panels would be more efficient than fuel cells for that purpose.

NASA experts assume that, like Apollo-7, Soyuz-3 has been modified and/or re-designed over the past 18 months to address whatever issues have been identified as the cause of the loss of Soyuz-1. It is generally believed that Kosmos-238, which made a four-day flight in August, was an uncrewed Soyuz test flight in advance of the first mission with a crew on board.

How Many on Board?
Speculation and rumours abound as to how many cosmonauts were actually on board Soyuz-3. Official Soviet sources give the name of only one cosmonaut, the aforementioned Col. Beregovoi. However, a report in the armed forces newspaper, Red Star, has caused speculation that more than one cosmonaut may have been intended to be involved in the mission. In referring to the “crew” of Soyuz-3 the article used the plural when it spoke of cosmonauts who were planning to fly with Beregovoi.

Colonel Beregovoi during his training at Star City

Reporting about a meeting at the cosmonaut training centre “Star City” near Moscow, to mark the end of Soyuz-3’s training period, the Red Star article described a speech to the meeting by Colonel Beregovoi then said, “Others followed him. They spoke about the great work they had done and thanked their comrades. These in their turn wished them a happy flight, a good launching and a soft landing”. While this report could be taken to imply that more than one other person was expected to accompany Beregovoi on his flight, it may be that the “others” referred to were the mission’s back-up cosmonauts, since Soviet spaceflights apparently have two back-up crews.

Cosmonaut Beregovoi on the launchpad, apparently alone

An additional vague hint that there might be more than one cosmonaut aboard came Soyuz-3 came from a TASS news agency release referring to Beregovoi as the “commander” of the ship, a term that would seem unnecessary if he was the sole occupant of the spacecraft. Rumours with a more conspiracy-minded flavour have also suggested that one of Col. Beregovoi’s live broadcasts from space was filmed in such a manner that, while an empty seat could be seen on the cosmonaut’s left side, whatever was to his right was not visible, potentially concealing the presence of another crewmember. However, the angle may simply have been the result of a fixed camera, located to give whatever the Soviet mission controllers considered to be the best view of the spacecraft interior.

More than a Rendezvous?
The pre-occupation of Western observers with the possibility that there were other, unidentified cosmonauts on board Soyuz-3 stems from the comparatively basic activities reported as being carried out during the mission. True, the flight is assumed to have been a shakedown test along the same lines as Apollo-7, but the American craft nevertheless flew with a complete crew of three, including a designated Lunar Module pilot, even though a LM was not available for the mission. Yet the large Soyuz has officially flown with only a single crewmember. Does this mean that the Russians were still uncertain about the flightworthiness of the spacecraft and did not want to risk more than one life on the test flight? Or was a more ambitious mission planned that did not eventuate?

Apollo-7 carried out a range of complex manoeuvres and experiments during its test flight, while the only significant activities reported about Soyuz-3 were that it made two rendezvous with the automated Soyuz-2. Yet, an ambitious programme of spacecraft dockings and crew transfers had supposedly been planned for Soyuz-1 had that mission not struck trouble, and since October last year the USSR has apparently perfected the techniques of automated rendezvous and docking through the flights of Kosmos-186-188 and Kosmos-212-213.

Was an actual docking between Soyuz-2 and 3 planned, in addition to the rendezvous manoeuvres, with one or two additional crew members from Soyuz-3 transferring to the automated craft to return from orbit? Did the Soviets keep the presence of additional cosmonauts on Soyuz-3 secret to save face in the event that such a docking and crew transfer failed? Even if Beregovoi was alone in Soyuz-3, was it planned for him to dock with Soyuz-2 to demonstrate that a pilot could accomplish a manual docking, similar to the capabilities demonstrated by the crew of Apollo-7? TASS press releases about the mission were ambiguously worded and extremely light on detail, so – as usual with the Soviet space programme – it may be a very long time before we have answers to these questions.

The Mission as Reported
Although not announced until after the launch of Soyuz-3 (though my friends at the WRE report that it was detected by Western space tracking networks), the automated rendezvous target Soyuz-2 was launched on Friday 25 October, the day before the manned mission. Precision launch timing then placed Soyuz-3 into an orbit within seven and a half miles of its rendezvous target.

According to TASS, during its first orbit, Soyuz-3 “approached’’ to within 656 ft of Soyuz-2 using “an automatic system”, following which Cosmonaut Beregovoi manually effected a closer rendezvous. A second rendezvous was carried out on 27 October. This has puzzled Western space experts, who have said that they could see no immediate reason for such comparatively simple manoeuvres, which do not appear to represent any appreciable advance in Soviet space capabilities.

Soyuz-2 was remotely commanded to return to Earth after just three days. In what was presumably another demonstration of the Soyuz spacecraft’s redesigned landing system, TASS reported that the spacecraft’s re-entry was slowed by parachutes and cushioned “with the use of a soft-landing system at the last stage”.

It is unclear what activities Col. Beregovoi undertook during his final two days in orbit. Official TASS bulletins said only that the cosmonaut was “going ahead with his flight programme”, which apparently included conducting “scientific, technical, medical, and biological experiments and research”. The “research” may possibly have included observations of the Earth for meteorological and intelligence gathering purposes. The cosmonaut also made live television broadcasts from Soyuz-3, during one of which he provided a brief “tour” of the spacecraft interior. In a short, three-minute broadcast, Beregovoi was also shown thumbing through his log-book and adjusting his radio communications cap.

A still from the three-minute brodcast from Soyuz-3 showing Colonel Beregovoi

The flight was repeatedly said to be “proceeding normally”, with the Colonel “feeling fine” and the spaceship “functioning normally”. We did learn that Soyuz-3 moved to a new orbit after Soyuz-2’s de-orbit, and that the cosmonaut’s daily routine included 25 minutes of morning exercise before breakfast, but whatever else the mission may have actually accomplished remains a mystery.

Back to Earth
After almost exactly four days in space, Soyuz-3 returned to Earth, landing safely on the snowy steppes of Kazakhstan near the city of Karaganda. TASS reported that “After his landing, Georgi Beregovoi feels well. Friends and correspondents met him in the area of the landing”. The cosmonaut has since been reported as saying that his landing was so easy he hardly felt the impact at all.

Following his safe return, Col. Beregovoi was flown to Moscow, where he received a red-carpet welcome, an instant promotion to Major-General and the award of the Order of Lenin. At the ceremony, the Soviet party leader, Mr Brezhnev, devoted most of his 15-minute speech to praise of the Soviet manned space programme, describing Soyuz-3 as a “complete success”. He said that the mission had brought nearer the day when “Man will not be the guest but the host of space”. He also offered a word of praise to the Apollo-7 astronauts, referring to them as “courageous”. 

A Step on the Way to the Moon?
So, what was the purpose of the Soyuz-3 mission? Dr. Welsh’s recently-mentioned comment that Soyuz and Zond spacecraft are different vehicles and that the Russians are not yet ready to attempt a lunar mission, seems to be borne out by statements from Soviet academician and aerospace scientist, Prof. Leonid Sedov, during a visit to the University of Tennessee Space Institute on 31 October-1 November. Prof. Sedov has said that the USSR would reach Moon from a space station in Earth orbit but would not conduct manned lunar space operations within the next six months. He indicated that Zond-type satellites would circumnavigate other planets and return and told the university audience that Soyuz-3 was part of a “programme to develop operations around the Earth”.

Prof. Sedov on an earlier visit to the United States in 1961 at the time of the USSR's first manned spaceflight

Mastering the techniques of rendezvous and docking would certainly be necessary to establish the orbiting space station from which a Soviet Moon mission would be launched, but Sedov’s comments leave unanswered the question of why a docking between Soyuz-2 and 3 was not attempted during the mission – unless an attempted docking did fail.

Awards All Round
Despite their testiness during the flight, the overall success of the Apollo-7 mission has been recognised by the presentation of NASA’s second highest award, the Exceptional Service Medal, to the crew at a ceremony in Texas on 2 November, presided over by President Johnson. During the ceremony, the President said the United States was “ready to take that first great step out into the Solar System and on to the surface of the nearest of the many mysterious worlds that surround us in space.” He noted that Apollo-7 had logged more than 780 man-hours in space, which is more than has been logged “in all Soviet manned flights to date”.

Left: Former NASA Administrator James Webb speaking at the Apollo-7 awards event, at which he also received NASA's highest award. Right: After the formal ceremony, President Johnson (second from left) chats with Apollo 7 astronauts Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham.

At the same ceremony, President Johnson presented the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the space agency’s highest award, to recently-retired NASA Administrator James E. Webb, for his outstanding leadership of NASA from 1961-1968. 

NASA has also recently indicated that it will make a decision on the plans for the Apollo-8 mission on 11 November. The space agency has listed the alternatives for the December mission as: an Earth orbital mission deeper into space; a circumlunar fly-by; or a lunar orbit mission. These are all exciting prospects, but I'm hoping that NASA will choose the boldest option and go for a lunar orbit mission. To have human eyes see the Earth from the Moon for the very first time would be a Christmas present indeed!

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Science / Space Race

[August 26, 1968] No time for a breath (Summer space round-up)

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by Gideon Marcus

There are some months where the space shots come so quickly that there's scarcely time to apprehend them all, much less report on them!  Every other day, it seems, the newspaper has got a headling about this launch or that discovery, and that's before you get to the announcements about the impending moon missions.

So, in rapid-fire style, let's see how many exciting new missions I can tell you about on a single exhale (while you stand on one leg, no less…that's a Jewish joke).

A Pair of Yankee Explorers

On August 8th, a Scout rocket took off from Vandenberg Air Force Base (the Western Test Range) in Southern California carrying the two latest NASA science satellites.  It was a virtual duplicate of the launch nearly four years ago of Explorers 24 and 25: a balloon for measuring air density in the upper atmosphere, and a more conventional satellite with an array of instruments for surveying the Earth's ionosphere.  Affectionately dubbed "Mutt and Jeff", these two craft were sent into polar orbit (hence the Pacific launch site).  If you're wondering why NASA is repeating itself, that's because the sun has a profound effect on the Earth's atmosphere.  It is important to measure its impact throughout the 11 year solar cycle, from minimum to maximum output, to better understand the relationship between the solar wind and the air's upper layers.

Not much can go wrong with a balloon, but Explorer 40, after deploying its spindly experiment arms, suffered a malfunction.  Its solar panels are not delivering as much power as they should.  NASA is confident, however, that this will not compromise the mission, which is planned to last more than a year.

Alphabet Soup

Time was, we gave proper names to our satellites.  Now it's all acronyms and arcane jumbles of letters and numbers.  That's all right.  I can decipher them for you!

Advanced Technology Satellite (ATS) 4

August 10 marked the launch of "Daddy Longlegs" ATS 4, the fourth of seven satellites in this series.

Some of you may remember ATS-1–you may recall that ATS-1 helped relay the first worldwide "Our World" broadcast last year. 

ATS-1 is actually still working, just like its two siblings.  ATS-2, launched April 5, 1967 was judged a failure since the second stage of its carrier rocket malfunctioned, stranding it in an eccentric orbit.  Still, the several science experiments onboard have returned information on cosmic rays and such in space.  ATS-3, which went up November 5, 1967, was the last to ride an Atlas Agena D rocket.  Armed with a panoply of experiments, including two transceivers, two cameras, and a host of radiation detectors, that satellite worked perfectly, returning the first color picture of the entire Earth!

ATS-4, unlike its predecessors, is a strictly practical spacecraft, carrying no science experiments, but makes up for it in engineering marvels.  One is a a day-night Image Orthicon Camera, a teevee transmitter that would provide continuous color coverage of the world from high up in geosynchronous orbit (i.e. orbiting at the same rate as the Earth turns, keeping it more or less stationary with respect to the ground).  Another is a microwave transmitter, turning ATS into a powerful communications satellite like its progenitor

ATS-4 also was to test out a gravity gradient stabilization system, basically using the subtle gradations of the Earth's pull on the satellite's arms to keep it oriented in orbit.  Finally, ATS-4 has an ion engine aboard.  These drives, perfect for space, work by shooting out Cesium electrons.  They are incredibly economical compared to conventional rockets, but their thrust is quite low, meaning they must be fired continuously to have an appreciable effect on velocity.

Sadly, as with ATS-2, ATS-4's Atlas Centaur failed on the second stage, stranding the satellite in a low, largely useless orbit.  Well, I guess that's why you launch lots of them!

ESSA 7

We haven't given the ESSA series of satellites much love, which I suppose is what happens when a technology stops being novel and instead becomes routine, even essential.  After all, who reports on every airplane that takes off anymore?

But it's worth talking about the latest satellite, ESSA 7, launched August 16, to summarize what the system has done for us over the last several years.

There were eleven satellites in the TIROS series of weather craft, the first launched in 1960.  In February 1966, with the launch of ESSA 1, the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) took over the cartwheel satellites, making the series officially operational.

All of them have worked perfectly, launched into sun-synchronous polar orbits about 900 miles up that circle the Earth from north to south as the planet rotates eastward beneath.  So perfect is ESSA 7's orbit that it will cross the equator at virtually the same time every day, drifting from that time table by only four minutes every year.

ESSA satellites have returned 3000 warnings of hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones, reporting not just on the existence but the intensity of these dangerous storms.  As of May 27 of this year, ESSA satellites had taken a million photos of the Earth's weather–that's $42 per picture, since the total launch cost of an ESSA is $6 million.


An image of Tropical Storm Shirley taken August 19, 1968

Up in the Kosmos

If we had to cover the launch of every Kosmos (Cosmos) satellite out of the Soviet Union, we'd have to go to a daily schedule.  There's such a thing as too much of a good thing, right?

But the Russkies are putting them up on the average of one a week, so it's worth sampling them occasionally to keep tabs on all the stuff they're putting in orbit.  Especially since the Kosmos is a catch-all designator, even more broad than our Explorer series.  It includes military satellites, science satellites, weather satellites, even automatic tests of the Soyuz spacecraft.

Here's a brief outline of the launches this last month:

Kosmos 230

This is a typical Soviet launch press release:

The Soviet Union launched another Cosmos satellite today and the Sputnik was reported functioning normally, Tass, the official Soviet news agency, said.  The device, Cosmos 230, is sending information to a Soviet research center for evaluation.

We know it was launched July 5 into a 48.5 degree inclined orbit, that it soars between 181 and 362 miles above the Earth, and that it's still in orbit as we speak, circling the Earth every 92.8 minutes.

As for what it's for… well, your guess is as good as mine.  That said, it's probably not a spy satellite.  How do I know?  Read on, and I'll show you what a spy sat looks like so you can spot them yourself!

Kosmos 231

The Soviet Union has launched another satellite in its program of exploring outer space, the official Tass news agency said Thursday.  It said Cosmos 231 was launched Wednesday [July 10] and is functioning normally.  The latest Cosmos is orbiting the earth once every 89.7 minutes in a low orbit from 130 miles to 205 miles.  Its angle to the earth was 65 degrees.

Seems innocuous enough, right?  Doesn't tell you anything more than the other one.  Except…

First tip-off: the angle.  A zero degree angle would be along the equator, never leaving 0 degrees latitude.  A 90 degree angle is polar, heading due north and south.  The lower the angle, the narrower a band of the Earth a satellite covers.

A 65 degree angle is sufficient to cover a wide swathe…including all of the continental United States.

The altitude is quite low, too.  The closer, the better–if you want to look at something from orbit.

But the real kicker is this: the spacecraft reentered on July 18, just eight days after launch.  Normally, when you send a science satellite up, you want it to stay in orbit as long as possible to get more back for your buck…er…ruble.  You only deorbit a spacecraft (and make no mistake–Kosmos 231 had to have been deorbited; its orbit wasn't that low) when there's something onboard you want to get back.  Like a person…or film.

We know there wasn't anyone onboard Kosmos 231.  The Soviets would have told us.  By the way, I'm not the only one who thinks the Kosmos was a spy satellite, taking pictures in orbit and then landing the film for processing.  There's a blurb in the July 15th issue of Aviation Weekly and Space Report which says the same thing.  And they reached that conclusion before the craft even landed, just based on the orbit!

By the way, if you're wondering what the Soviet spy satellites look like, we actually have a better idea of theirs than ours!  We're pretty sure they're based on the Vostok space capsules used to carry cosmonauts.  In fact, it's an open question whether or not the spy sat was evolved from the Vostok or the other way around!

Kosmos 232

Launched July 16, its orbital parameters were as follows: 125 to 220 miles in altitude, 89.8 minute orbit, 65 degree inclination.  The newspaper article I read noted that the satellite's path was a common one, and predicted the satellite would be recovered in eight days.

Sure enough, it was on the ground again on July 24.

Sound familiar?

Kosmos 233

Here's another oddball: launched on the 18th, the Soviets didn't release news of its orbiting until at least the 20th.  It's in a near polar orbit, soaring up to 935 miles, grazing the Earth with a perigee of 124 miles.

That's no spy sat.  In fact, I'd guess this one might be a bonafide science satellite, exploring the Earth's Van Allen Belts.  But it could just as easily be the equivalent of our Transit navigational satellites or something.  We won't know until and unless the Communists publish scientific results.

Kosmos 234

Launched July 30, it soared from 130 to 183 miles up with a period of 89.5 minutes and an inclination of 51.8 degrees.  Low orbit?  Check.  Cryptic announcement describing its purpose as "the continued exploration of outer space"?  Check.  But the inclination's a bit low.  Better wait for more information.

Oh wait.  It landed August 5.  Pretty sure we know what this one was!

Kosmos 235

Up August 9, down August 17.  Orbit went from 126 to 176 miles, period was 89.3 minutes, and the inclination was exactly the same as before–51.8 degrees.

I'm not sure the significance of the different inclinations.  Maybe it's a matter of the rocket or the launch location.  Generally, the higher the inclination, the more expensive the shot in terms of fuel since the rocket doesn't get the extra boost of the Earth's rotation.

Operator?

It's been a while since we covered the Molniya communications satellites, one of the few Soviet series we do know something about.  July 5 marked the launch of the ninth comsat in the series, zooming up to a high, not quite geosynchronous, orbit, where it has a nice vantage of the whole of Asia.

This launch comes less than three months after the orbiting of Molniya H, the eighth in the series.  Whether Molniya I is replacing its predecessor, which may have been faulty, or whether the ninth Molniya is simply acting as a backup, is not certain.  The latter seems unlikely, though.  When Molniya G went up just three weeks after Molniya F, it was widely believed that the Russians had sent up two to make sure they could televise their annual November Moscow parade to the other Communist countries.

That's all folks!

That's the big news for this month.  The rest of the year is going to be really exciting, what with the upcoming launch of Apollo 7 and Zond 5.  We're about to enter a new phase of manned lunar exploration.  That said, we promise to keep covering the significant shots closer to home, too.  For us, all space missions are out of this world!


The prime crew for Apollo 7 (l-r) Astronauts Donn F. Eisele, Command Module Pilot; Walter Cunningham, Lunar Module Pilot; and Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Commander




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Magazine, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Serial

[February 26, 1968] Stormy Weather (March 1968 Analog)

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by Gideon Marcus

There's no sun up in the sky

Out in the vastness of space, a constellation of man-made moons keeps watch on the Earth below.  Unlike their brethren, the military sentinels that look out for rocket plumes and atomic blasts, these benign probes monitor the planet's weather with a vantage and a vigilance that would make a 19th Century meteorologist green with envy.

In addition to the wealth of daily data we get from TIROS, ESSA, and Nimbus, the West is now getting aid from an unlikely, but no less welcome, source: behind the Iron Curtain.

Two years ago, the Soviets rebuffed the idea of exchanging weather satellite imagery.  "No need," was what they said; "no sats," was probably the real story.  For in August of 1966, all of a sudden, the USSR activated the "Cold Line" link between Moscow and Washington for the exchange of meteorological data.  This action coincided with the recent launch of Cosmos 122, revealed to be a weather satellite.

This constituted a late start in the weather race–after all, TIROS had been broadcasting since 1960.  Nevertheless, better late than never.  Unfortunately, the Soviets first sent only basic weather charts with limited cloud analysis.  Not much good without the raw picture data.  When we finally got the pictures, starting September 11, 1966, the quality was lousy–the communications link is just too long and lossy.  Our ESSA photos probably didn't look any better to them.

By March 1967, however, the lines had been improved, and Kosmos 122 was returning photos with excellent clarity.

We also got infrared data.  The resolution was much worse, but the Soviets maintained they did first discover a pair of typhoons bearing down on Japan.

Since then, the USSR has orbited at least two more weather satellites, Kosmos 144 and Kosmos 184, both returning the same useful data, often from different orbital perspectives than we can easily reach.  For instance, the Soviet pictures offer particularly good views of the poles and northern Eurasia.

It's a little thing, perhaps, this trading of weather data between the superpowers.  But anything that promotes peaceful exchange and keeps the connections between East and West ready and friendly is something to appreciate.  Sometimes the Space Race is more of a torch relay!

Raining all the time


by Kelly Freas

In sharp contrast, Analog remains an island unto itself, and like all inbred families, often produces challenged offspring.  Such is the case with the March 1968 issue, which ranges from middlin' to awful.

The Alien Rulers, by Piers Anthony


by Kelly Freas

We start with the awful.

Fifteen years ago, the blue-skinned Kaozo engaged our space fleet, destroyed it utterly, and became the benevolent masters of Earth.  They created a working socialist society, implementing tremendous public works projects, and humanity proved remarkably complacent under their rule.  Nevertheless, a revolution of sorts has been hatched, and Richard Henrys is tasked with the stickiest assignment–assassinate the Kazo leader, Bitool.

Henrys is quickly captured, but instead of facing execution, Bitool offers him a deal: protect Seren, the first female Kazo on Earth, during the next three days of the revolution, and he can go free.

Sounds like a decent setup.  It's actually a terrible story.  For one thing, the author of Chthon has all of his off-putting tics on display.  Seren is a straw woman, whose vocabulary is largely limited to "Yes, Richard," and "No, Richard."  The social attitudes of this far future world seem rooted in the Victorian times, with passages like this:

"You'll pose as my wife.  Hang on to my arm and–"

"Pose?" she inquired.  "I do not comprehend this, Richard."

Damn the forthright Kazo manner!  He had five minutes to explain human ethics, or lack of them, to a person who had been born to another manner.  Pretense was not a concept in the alien repertoire, it seemed.

He chose another approach.  "For the time being, you are my wife, then.  Call it a marriage of convenience."  She began to speak, but he cut her off.  "My companion, my female.  On Earth we pair off two by two.  This means you must defer to my wishes, expressed and implied, and avoid bringing shame upon me.  Only in this manner are you permitted to accompany me in public places.  Is this clear?"

And this one:

"I promised to explain why this subterfuge was necessary.  I didn't mean to place you in a compromising situation, but–"

"Compromising, Richard?"

"Ordinarily a man and a woman do not share a room unless they are married."

And then, there's the scene where the feminine disguise Richard puts together for Seren falls apart because her body lacks mammalian contours.  Why doesn't he then dress her in male clothes?  And when her stockings start to fall off her legs, I couldn't help wondering how they'd somehow uninvented Panty Hose in the 21st Century.

But then, I'm not sure if Piers Anthony has actually ever talked to a woman, much less seen her in her underthings.

On top of that, the final revelation that the Earth fleet was never destroyed, but instead went on to conquer Kazo, and the two planets have swapped overlords (both governments populated only by the very best technocrats) is so ridiculous as to beggar belief.  That Henrys is invited to become one of the ruling class largely for his novel ideas on how to cut a cake fairly, well, takes the cake.

One star.

Uplift the Savage, by Christopher Anvil


by Kelly Freas

Members of an interstellar agency learn that the best way to increase the technological sophistication of a primitive race is not to give them expertise, but allow them to steal it.  The two-page point is hammered in using fourteen pages of digs at women, higher education, and educated women.

One star.

The Inevitable Weapon, by Poul Anderson


by Harry Bennett

A scientist discovers teleportation.  Useless for interstellar travel, at least for a while, it's great for beaming in concentrated starlight–as a weapon at first, but potentially, to provide energy.

This would be a decent, one-page Theodore L. Thomas piece in F&SF.  Instead, it's fourteen pages of bog-standard detective/secret agent thriller.

Two stars.

Birth of a Salesman, by James Tiptree, Jr.


by Kelly Freas

Jim Tiptee's freshman story is an Anvilesque tale of breakneck pace and nonstop patter.  T. Benedict of the Xeno-Cultural Gestalt Clearance (XCGC) has got a tough job: making sure the trade goods of the galaxy not only take into account the taboos or allergies of alien customers, but also the transhipment longshorebeings. 

Tedium sets in by page two, which, coincidentally, is how many stars I rate it.

The Horse Barbarians (Part 2 of 3), by Harry Harrison


by Kelly Freas

A lot and very little happen in this installment of Jason dinAlt's latest adventure.  Last time on Deathworld III, Jason offered up his fellow Pyrrans as mercenaries to wipe out the horse barbarians on the planet Felicity.  It's fair play, after all, since these barbarians (absolutely not the Mongols, because they have red hair!) slaughtered the last attempt at a mining camp on their frozen plateau.

So, Jason accompanies "Temuchin", the warlord, on an expedition down a cliffside to the technologically advanced civilization on the plains below.  There, they steal some gunpowder, kill a lot of innocent people, and come back–in time to link up with the rest of the Pyrrans for a raid on the Weasel clan.  More slaughter ensues.

Jason feels kind of bad about his part in the killing, but it's all a part of a master plan to someday, eventually, pacify the warriors with by opening up a trade route with the south (as opposed to setting up off-world trade, since the barbarians hate off-worlders).  So whaddaya gonna do?

Well, personally?  Pick a different career path.  Even if the nomads are the biggest savages since the Whimsies, Growleywogs, and Phantasms, what right do the Pyrrans have to kill…anyone? 

Setting aside the moral concerns, Harrison is still an effective writer.  I wasn't bored, just a bit disgusted.

Three stars.

Practice!, by Verge Foray


by Kelly Freas

A shabby little private school for problem children is suddenly the subject of a set of accreditation inspectors.  There's nothing wrong with the kids or the staff–the problem is that the snoops might discover it's really a training ground for junior ESPers!  Luckily, the tykes are on the side of management, and the inspectors are snowed.

I went back and forth on whether this very Analogian tale deserved two or three stars.  On the one hand, I'm getting a little tired of psi stories (the headmaster in the story even says there's no such thing as something for nothing–and that's what psi is), and I resented the smug digs at public school.

But what swayed me toward the positive end of the ledger (aside from the unique and lovely art) was the bit at the end whereby it's suggested that the reason for the school, and the reason psi is so unreliable, is because, like music or language, it's something that needs to be practiced from an early age.  It's a new angle, and pretty neat.

So, three stars.

Can't go on…

Wow.  2.1 stars is bottom-of-Amazing territory, and it easily makes this month's Analog the worst magazine of the month.  Compare it to Fantastic (2.2), IF (3), New Worlds (3.3), and the excellent Fantasy and Science Fiction (3.6), and the contrast is even stronger.

Because of the paucity of magazines, you could fit all the really good stuff into, say, one issue of Galaxy.  On the other hand, women wrote 12% of new fiction this month, which is decent for the times (not to mention the episodes of Star Trek D. C. Fontana has been penning).

It's 1968, an election year.  Maybe this is the year Campbell hands the reins over to someone else.  It certainly couldn't hurt the tarnished old mag.

And then, maybe the sun will come out again!

Speaking of election news, there's plenty of it and more on today's KGJ Weekly report.  You give us four minutes, and we'll give you the world:



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Science / Space Race

[November 12, 1967] Still in the Race! (Apollo-4, Surveyor-6, OSO-4 and Cosmos-186-188)

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by Kaye Dee

As I noted in my previous article, October was such a busy month for space activity that I had to hold over several items for this month. But November has already provided us with plenty of space news as well. Even though both American and Soviet manned spaceflight is currently on hold while the investigations into their respective accidents continue, preparations for putting astronauts and cosmonauts on the Moon are ongoing and the Moon race is still on!

“Oh, it’s terrific, the building’s shaking!”

Opening the door to human lunar exploration needs an immensely powerful booster, and the successful launch of Apollo-4 a few days ago on 9 November has demonstrated that NASA has a rocket that is up to the task. Although the Saturn 1B rocket intended to loft Apollo Earth-orbiting missions has already been tested, Apollo-4 (also designated SA-501) marked the first flight of a complete Saturn V lunar launcher.

The sheer power of the massive rocket took everyone by surprise. When Apollo-4 took off from Pad 39A at the John F. Kennedy Space Centre, the sound pressure waves it generated rattled the new Launch Control Centre, three miles from the launch pad, causing dust to fall from the ceiling onto the launch controllers’ consoles. At the nearby Press Centre, ceiling tiles fell from the roof. Reporting live from the site, Walter Cronkite described the experience: “… our building’s shaking here. Our building’s shaking! Oh, it’s terrific, the building’s shaking! This big blast window is shaking! We’re holding it with our hands! Look at that rocket go into the clouds at 3000 feet! … You can see it… you can see it… oh the roar is terrific!”

Firing Room 1 in the Launch Control Centre at Kennedy Space Centre, under construction in early 1966. The Apollo-4 launch was controlled from here

Could it be that the sound of a Saturn V launch is one of the loudest noises, natural or artificial, ever heard by human beings? (Apart, perhaps, from the explosion of an atomic bomb?) I hope I’ll get the opportunity to hear, and see, a Saturn V launch for myself at some point in the future.

The Power for the Glory

Developed by Dr. Wernher von Braun’s team at NASA’s George C. Marshall Space Flight Centre, everything about the Saturn V is impressive. The 363-foot vehicle weighs 3,000-tons and the thrust of its first-stage motors alone is 71 million pounds! No wonder it rattled buildings miles away at liftoff!

The F-1 rocket motor, five of which power the Saturn V’s S1-C first stage, is the most powerful single combustion chamber liquid-propellant rocket engine so far developed (at least as far as we know, since whatever vehicle the USSR is developing for its lunar program could have even more powerful motors).

The launcher consists of three stages. The Boeing-built S1-C first stage, when fully fuelled with RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen, has a total mass of 4,881,000 pounds. Its five F-1 engines are arranged so that the four outer engines are gimballed, enabling them to turn so they can steer the rocket, while the fifth is fixed in position in the centre. Constructed by North American Aviation and weighing 1,060,000 pounds, the S-II second stage has five Rocketdyne-built cryogenic J-2 engines, powered by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. They are arranged in a similar manner to the first stage engines, and also used for steering. The Saturn V’s S-IVB third stage has been built by the Douglas Aircraft Company and has a single J-2 engine using the same cryogenic fuel as the second stage. Fully fuelled, it weighs approximately 262,000 pounds. Guidance and telemetry systems for the rocket are contained within an instrument unit located on top of the third stage.

Soaring into the Future

This first Saturn V test flight has been tremendously important to the ultimate success of the Apollo programme, marking several necessary first steps: the first launch from Complex 39 at Cape Kennedy, built especially for Apollo; the first flight of the complete Apollo/Saturn V space vehicle; and the first test of Apollo Command Module’s performance re-entering the Earth's atmosphere at a velocity approximating that expected when returning from a lunar mission. In addition, the flight enabled testing of many modifications made to the Command Module in the wake of the January fire. This included the functioning of the thermal seals used in the new quick-release spacecraft hatch design.

 
Up, Up and Away!

Apollo-4 lifted off on schedule at 7am US Eastern time. Just 12 minutes later it successfully placed a Command and Service Module (CSM), weighing a record 278,885 pounds, into orbit 115 miles above the Earth. This is equivalent to the parking orbit that will be used during lunar missions to check out the spacecraft before it embarks for the Moon.

After two orbits, the third stage engine was re-ignited (itself another space first) to simulate the trans-lunar injection burn that will be used to send Apollo missions on their way to the Moon. This sent the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 10,700 miles. Shortly afterwards, the CSM separated from the S-IVB stage and, after passing apogee, the Service Module engine was fired for 281 seconds to increase the re-entry speed to 36,639 feet per second, bringing the CSM into conditions simulating a return from the Moon.


An image of the Earth taken from an automatic camera on the Apollo-4 Command Module

After a successful re-entry, the Command Module splashed down approximately 10 miles from its target landing site in the North Pacific Ocean and was recovered by the aircraft carrier USS Bennington. The mission lasted just eight hours 36 minutes and 54 seconds (four minutes six seconds ahead of schedule!), but it successfully demonstrated all the major components of an Apollo mission, apart from the Lunar Module (which is still in development) that will make the actual landing on the Moon’s surface. In a special message of congratulations to the NASA team, President Johnson said the flight “symbolises the power this nation is harnessing for the peaceful exploration of space”.

Goodbye Lunar Orbiters…

While Apollo’s chariot was readied for its first test flight, NASA has continued its unmanned exploration of the Moon, to ensure a safe landing for the astronauts. In August, Gideon gave us an excellent summary of NASA’s Lunar Orbiter programme, the first three missions of which were designed to study potential Apollo landing sites. Lunar Orbiter-3, launched back in February this year, met its fate last month when the spacecraft was intentionally crashed into the lunar surface on 9 October. Despite the failure of its imaging system in March, Lunar Orbiter-3 was tracked from Earth for several months for lunar geodesy research and communication experiments. On 30 August, commands were sent to the spacecraft to circularise its orbit to 99 miles in order to simulate an Apollo trajectory.

Lunar Orbiter-3 image of the Moon's far side, showing the crater Tsiolkovski

Each Lunar Orbiter mission has been de-orbited so that it will not become a navigation hazard to future manned Apollo spacecraft. Consequently, before its manoeuvring thrusters were depleted, Lunar Orbiter 3 was commanded on 9 October to impact on the Moon, hitting the lunar surface at 14 degrees 36 minutes North latitude and 91 degrees 42 minutes West longitude. Co-incidentally, Lunar Orbiter-4, which failed back in July and could not be controlled, decayed naturally from orbit and impacted on the Moon on 6 October. Lunar Orbiter-5, launched in August, remains in orbit.

…Hello Surveyor 6

A month after the demise of the Lunar Orbiters, NASA’s Surveyor-6 probe has made a much softer landing on the lunar surface, achieving a “spot on” touchdown in the rugged Sinus Medii (Central Bay – it’s in the centre of the Moon's visible hemisphere) on 10 November (Australian time; 9 November in the US). This region is a potential site for the first Apollo landing, but since it appeared to be cratered and rocky, mission planners needed to know if its geological structure (different to the ‘plains’ areas where earlier Surveyor missions have landed) could support the weight of a manned Lunar Module.

Only an hour after landing safely, Surveyor-6 was operational and sent back pictures of a lunar cliff about a mile from its landing point, which has been described as “the most rugged feature we have yet seen on the Moon”. The first panoramas from Surveyor indicate that the landing site is not as rough as anticipated, and seems suitable for an Apollo landing.

Deep Space Network stations in Australia are helping to support the Surveyor-6 mission, as well as Surveyor-5, that landed in the Mare Tranquilitatis (Sea of Tranquillity) in September and is still operational. Hopefully both spacecraft will survive the next lunar night, commencing two weeks from now. NASA plans to send one more Surveyor probe to the Moon, in January, so look out for a review of the completed Surveyor programme early next year.

Watching the Sun for Astronaut Safety

With the Sun moving towards its maximum activity late next year or early in 1969, and likely to still be very active when the Apollo landing missions are occurring (assuming that the programme resumes some time within the next 12 months), NASA has wasted no time in launching another spacecraft in its Orbiting Solar Observatory (OSO) series, to help characterise the effects of solar activity in deep space. A NASA spokesman was recently quoted as saying that “A study of solar activity and its effect on Earth, aside from basic scientific interest, is necessary for a greater understanding of the space environment prior to manned flights to the Moon”.

OSO-4 under construction

Launched on 18 October, OSO-4 (also known as OSO-D) is the latest satellite developed under the leadership of Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, NASA’s first female executive, who is Chief of Astronomy and Solar Physics. The satellite is equipped to measure the direction and intensity of Ultraviolet, X-ray and Gamma radiation, not just from the Sun, but across the entire celestial sphere.

The OSO-4 spacecraft, like its predecessors, consists of a solar-cell covered “sail” section and a “wheel” section that spins about an axis perpendicular to the pointing direction of the sail. The sail carries a 75 pound payload of two instruments that are kept pointing on the centre of the Sun. The wheel carries a 100 pound payload of seven instruments and rotates once every two seconds. This rotation enables the instruments to scan the solar disc and atmosphere as well as other parts of the galaxy. The satellite’s extended arms give it greater axial stability.

Hopefully, OSO-4 will have a long lifespan, producing data as solar activity increases across the Sun’s cycle, and enhancing safety for the Apollo and Soviet crews who will venture beyond the protection of the van Allen belts on their way to the Moon.

What are the Soviets Up To?

The USSR has been remarkably quiet about its manned lunar programme. One could almost think that they had given up racing Apollo to the Moon, if not for the rumours and hints that constantly swirl around. Rumours abounded at the time of the tragically lost Soyuz-1 mission that it was intended to be a space spectacular, debuting in the Soyuz a new, much larger spacecraft which would participate in multiple rendezvous and docking manoeuvres, and possibly even crew transfers, with one or more other manned spacecraft.

Such a space feat has yet to occur, but the mysterious recent space missions of Cosmos-186 and 188 suggest that the Soviets have something of the sort in mind for the future, and are still quietly working to develop the techniques that they will need for lunar landing missions and/or a space station programme.

It Takes Two to Rendezvous

On 27 October, Cosmos-186 was launched into a low Earth orbit, with a perigee of 129 miles and an apogee of 146 miles and an orbital period of 88.7 minutes. Cosmos-187 was launched the following day, and there has been speculation that it was intended to be part of a rendezvous and docking demonstration with Cosmos-186 but was placed into an incorrect orbit. However, as is so often the case with Cosmos satellites, the Soviet authorities only described their missions as continuing studies of outer space and testing new systems, so the actual purpose of this mission remains a mystery.


A rare Soviet illustration of what is believed to be the Cosmos-186-188 docking

However, Cosmos-186 was joined by a companion on 30 October, when Cosmos-188 was placed into a very similar orbit with a separation of just 15 miles. This clearly demonstrates the precision with which the USSR can insert satellites into orbit. The two spacecraft then proceeded to perform the first fully automated space docking (unlike the manual dockings performed by Gemini missions from Gemini-8 onwards), just an hour after Cosmos-188 was launched. Soviet sources, and some electronic eavesdropping by the now-famous science class at Kettering Grammar School in England, using surprisingly unsophisticated equipment, indicate that Cosmos-186 was the ‘active’ partner in the docking. It used its onboard radar system to locate, approach and dock with the ‘passive’ Cosmos-188.

While the two spacecraft were mechanically docked, it seems that an electrical connection could not be made between them, and no other manoeuvres appear to have been carried out while Cosmos-186 and 188 were joined together. Perhaps there were technical issues surrounding the docking, but an onboard camera on Cosmos-186 did provide live (if rather low quality) television images of the rendezvous docking and separation, and some footage was publicly broadcast.

After three and a half hours docked together, the two satellites separated on command from the ground and continued to operate separately in orbit. Cosmos-186 made a soft-landing return to Earth on 31 October, lending credence to the speculations that it was testing out improvements to the Soyuz parachute system, while Cosmos-188 reportedly soft-landed on 2 November.

Speculating on Soviet Space Plans

Was Cosmos-186 a Soyuz-type vehicle, possibly testing out modifications made to prevent a recurrence of the re-entry parachute tangling that apparently led to the loss of Soyuz-1 and the death of Cosmonaut Komarov? Building on speculations from the time of the Soyuz-1 launch, there have even been suggestions that Cosmos-186, while unmanned, was a spacecraft large enough to hold a crew of five cosmonauts. There is also speculation that Cosmos-188 may have been the prototype of a new propulsion system for orbital operations. Does this mean, then, that the USSR is planning some kind of manned spaceflight feat in orbit to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Communist Revolution? Or that it will soon attempt a circumlunar flight, to reach the Moon ahead of the United States?

Whatever their future plans may be, the automated rendezvous and docking of two unmanned spacecraft in Earth orbit shows that the USSR’s space technology is still advancing rapidly. The joint Cosmos 186-188 mission proves that it is possible to launch small components and assemble them in space to make a larger structure, even without the assistance of astronauts. This means that massive rockets like the Saturn V might not be required to construct space stations in orbit, or even undertake lunar missions, if the project is designed around assembling the lunar spacecraft in Earth orbit. Has the Cosmos 186-188 mission therefore been a hint of what the USSR's Moon programme will look like, in contrast to Apollo? Only time will tell…


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Science / Space Race

[October 28, 1967] Unveiling Venus – at Least a Little (Venera-4 and Mariner-5)

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by Kaye Dee

Despite the hiatus in manned spaceflight missions while the Apollo-1 and Soyuz-1 accident investigations continue, October has been a very busy month for space activities – so much so that I’ve had to defer writing about some of this month’s events to an article next month!

Spaceflight Slowdown?

4 October saw the tenth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik-1, the Soviet satellite that surprised the world and ushered in the Space Age and the Space Race. Since that first launch, the pace of space exploration has been breathtaking, far surpassing what even its most ardent proponents in the 1950s anticipated.

In the famous Colliers’ “Man Will Conquer Space Soon” article series, reproduced even here in Australia, Dr Wernher von Braun predicted that the first manned mission to the Moon would not occur until the late 1970s

As part of the USSR’s Sputnik 10th anniversary celebrations, many space-focussed newspaper articles were published.  One of these, written by Voskhod-1 cosmonaut and engineer Dr. Konstantin Feoktistov, strongly hinted that Russia's next major space feat would be the launch of an orbiting space platform. This would certainly be an important development in establishing a permanent human presence in space and put the Soviet Union once again ahead in the Space Race, especially if the US and USSR lunar programmes are faltering.

Earlier this month, the head of the NASA, Mr James Webb, said it was increasingly doubtful that either the United States or the Soviet Union would land people on the Moon in this decade. He delivered a gloomy prognostication for the second decade of the Space Age, saying the entire US programme was “slowing down”. Mr. Webb criticised recent Congressional cuts of 10 per cent to the space-agency budget projected for the year ending next 30 June, saying that NASA was laying off over 100,000 people.

Administrator Webb also cast doubt on some proposed NASA planetary exploration missions. “The serious question is whether or not this country wants to start a Voyager mission to Mars in 1968”, he is reported to have said. The Voyager programme is a 10-year project that envisages sending two spacecraft to Mars (one to orbit around it, the other to land on its surface), with the additional possibility of landing a spacecraft on Venus and exploring Jupiter. These would undoubtedly be exciting missions that would reveal new knowledge about these planets, but Mr Webb said he had virtually no money for the Voyager programme as a result of the budget cut.

Parallel Planetary Probes: Venera-4 and Mariner-5

But possible future downturns in space activity can’t detract from this month’s big news: the safe arrival of two spacecraft at Venus!

Back in June, a suitable launch window meant that both the USSR and NASA sent spacecraft on their way to our closest planetary neighbour. First off the blocks was the Soviet Union, which launched its Venera-4 mission (generally known in the West as Venus-4) on 12 June from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. NASA’s Mariner-5 followed two days later, on 14 June, launched from Cape Kennedy.

Pre-launch photo of Venera-4

Venera-4 is the most recent Soviet attempt to reach the planet after Venera-2 and 3 failed to send back any data in March last year. There is some speculation that, since its previous Venus mission employed twin spacecraft, Russia may have also intended this Venus shot to be a two-spacecraft mission. It’s possible that the short-lived Cosmos 167 spacecraft, launched on 17 June, was Venera-4’s twin that failed to leave orbit, although with the secrecy that surrounds so much of the Soviet space program, who knows if we’ll ever get the truth of it? Venera-4 was itself first put into a parking orbit around the Earth before being launched in the direction of Venus. A course correction was performed on 29 July, to ensure that the probe would not miss its target.


Mariner-5 being prepared for launch

Mariner-5 is NASA’s first Venus probe since Mariner-2 in 1962. Originally constructed as a backup for the Mariner-4 Mars mission, that probe’s success meant that the spacecraft could be repurposed to take advantage of the 1967 Venus launch window. Interestingly, I understand from my friends at the Sydney Observatory that there were initial suggestions to send the Mariner back-up spacecraft to either comet 7P/Pons–Winnecke or comet 10P/Tempel, before the Venus mission was decided upon. While it’s useful to have additional data from Venus, it would have been fascinating to send an exploratory mission to a comet, since we know so little about these transient visitors to our skies. 

At its closest, Venus is just 36 million miles from Earth, but Mariner-5 followed a looping flightpath of 212 million miles, to enable it to fly past Venus at a distance of around 2,500 miles (about 10 times closer than Mariner-2’s flyby). Australia’s Deep Space Network (DSN) stations at Tidbinbilla, near Canberra, and Island Lagoon, near the Woomera Rocket Range, were respectively the prime and back-up monitoring and control stations for Mariner-5’s mid-course correction burn that placed it on its close flyby trajectory. 

Keys to Unlock a Mystery

Venus has always been a planet shrouded in mystery since its thick, cloudy atmosphere prevents any telescopic observation of its surface. For this year’s launch window, one could almost believe that Cold War tensions had been overcome and the USSR and USA had agreed to work together on a Venus exploration program, given that their two spacecraft effectively complement each other.

Venera-4’s mission was announced as “direct atmospheric studies”, with Western scientists speculating that this meant that it would follow Venera-3 in attempting to land on the planet’s surface. The spacecraft’s arrival at Venus has proved this speculation to be correct, and the few images of Venera-4 now available show the 2,436 lb spacecraft to be near-identical to Venera-3. 11 ft high, with its solar panels spanning 13 ft, Venera-4 carried a 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) spherical landing capsule that was released to descend through the atmosphere while the main spacecraft flew past Venus and provided a relay station for its signals.
Soviet models of the Venera-4 spacecraft and its descent capsule

The 844 lb descent capsule was equipped with a heat shield, capable of withstanding temperatures up to 11,000°C (19,800 °F) and had a rechargeable battery providing 100 minutes of power for the instruments and transmitter. During the flight to Venus the battery was kept charged by the solar panels of the carrier spacecraft. Supposedly, the entire Venera-4 probe was sterilised to prevent any biological contamination of Venus, but some Western scientists have cast doubt on this claim. The capsule was pressurized up to 25 atmospheres since the surface pressure on Venus was unknown until Venera-4’s arrival.
Picture of the Venera-4 descent capsule released by the USSR. Western scientists are wondering what that heat shield is made of

Information recently released by the Soviet Academy of Sciences has said that the descent vehicle carried two thermometers, a barometer, a radio altimeter, an atmospheric density gauge, 11 gas analysers, and two radio transmitters. Scientific instruments on the main body of the spacecraft included a magnetometer and charged particle traps, both for measuring Venus' magnetic field and the stellar wind on the way to Venus, an ultraviolet spectrometer to detect hydrogen and oxygen gases in Venus' atmosphere, and cosmic ray detectors.


Much smaller than Venera-4, the 5401b Mariner-5 was designed to flyby Venus taking scientific measurements: it was not equipped with a camera, as NASA considered this un-necessary in view of the planet’s cloud cover. NASA controllers initially planned a distant flyby of Venus, to avoid the possibility of an unsterilised spacecraft crashing into the planet, but the final close flyby was eventually chosen to improve the chances of detecting a magnetic field and any interaction with the solar wind.

As Mariner-4’s backup, Mariner-5 has the same basic body – an octagonal magnesium frame 50 in diagonally across and 18 in high. However, since it was heading to Venus instead of Mars, Mariner-5 had to be modified to cope with the conditions much closer to the Sun. Due to its trajectory, Mariner-5 needed to face away from the Sun to keep its high-gain antenna pointed at Earth. Its solar panels were therefore reversed to face aft, so they could remain pointed at the Sun. They were also reduced in size, since closer proximity to the Sun meant less solar cells were needed to generate the same level of power. Mariner-5's trajectory also required the high-gain antenna to be placed at a different angle and made moveable as part of the radio occultation experiment. A deployable sunshade on the aft of the spacecraft was used for thermal control, and Mariner-5 was fully attitude stabilized, using the sun and Canopus as references.
View from below showing the main components of Mariner-5

Mariner-5’s prime task was to determine the thickness of Venus’ atmosphere, investigate any potential magnetic field and refine the understanding of Venus’ gravity. Its suite of instruments included: an ultraviolet photometer, a two-frequency beacon receiver, a S-Band radio occultation experiment, a helium magnetometer, an interplanetary ion plasma probe and a trapped radiation detector. The spacecraft instruments measured both interplanetary and Venusian magnetic fields, charged particles, and plasmas, as well as the radio refractivity and UV emissions of the Venusian atmosphere.

During its 127-day cruise to Venus, Mariner-5 gathered data on the interplanetary environment. In September and October, observations were co-ordinated with measurements made by Mariner-4, which is on its own extended mission, following its 1965 encounter with Mars. Similar observations were made by Venera-4 during its flight to Venus, which found that the concentration of positive ions in interplanetary space is much lower than expected. 

Missions Accomplished

A few days before it arrived at Venus, the Soviet Academy of Sciences requested assistance from the massive 250 feet radio telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK, asking the facility to track Venera-4 for the final part of its voyage. This has provided Western scientists with some independent verification of Soviet claims about the mission. Jodrell Bank even announced the landing of the Venera-4 descent capsule more than seven hours before it was reported by the Soviet news agency Tass!

On 18 October, Venera-4’s descent vehicle entered the Venusian atmosphere, deploying a parachute to slow its fall onto the night side of the planet. According to a story that one of the Sydney Observatory astronomers picked up from a Soviet colleague at a recent international scientific conference, because there was still the possibility that, beneath its clouds Venus might be largely covered by water (one of the main theories about its surface), the capsule was designed to float if it did land in water. Uniquely, the spacecraft’s designers made the lock of the capsule using sugar, which would dissolve in liquid water and release the transmitter antennae in the event of a water landing.

Although the Venera-4 capsule had 100 minutes of battery power available and sent back valuable data as it fell through the atmosphere, Jodrell Bank observations, and the official announcement from Tass, indicated that the signal cut off around 96 minutes. While it was initially thought that this meant that the capsule had touched down on the surface, and there were even early reports claiming it had detected a rocky terrain, questions are now being raised as to whether it actually reached the surface, or if the spacecraft failed while still descending. Tass has said that the capsule stopped transmitting data because it apparently landed in a way that obstructed its directional antenna. A recording of the last 20 seconds of signal received at Jodrell Bank was delivered to Vostok-5 cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky during a visit to the radio telescope on 26 October. Perhaps once it is fully analysed, the question of the capsule’s fate will be clarified. Of course, if the landing is confirmed, Venera-4 will have made history with the first successful landing and in-situ data gathering on another planet.

Diagram illustrating the major milestones during the Mariner-5 encounter with Venus on 19 October
Mariner-5 swept past Venus on 19 October, making a close approach of 2,480 miles. At 02:49 GMT the Island Lagoon DSN station commanded Mariner 5 to prepare for the encounter sequence and 12 hours later its tape recorder began to store science data. Tracked by the new 200 in antenna at NASA’s Goldstone tracking station, Mariner reached its closest encounter distance at 17:35 GMT, and minutes later entered the “occultation zone” before passed behind Venus as seen from the Earth. 17 minutes later, Mariner-5 emerged from behind Venus and completed its encounter at 18:34 GMT.

The following day, Mariner-5 began to transmit its recorded data back to Earth. Over 72½ hours there were three playbacks of the data to correct for missed bits. Mariner-5's flight path following its Venus encounter is bringing it closer to the Sun than any previous probe and the intention is for to be tracked until its instruments fail.

A Peep Behind the Veil

So what have we learned about Venus from these two successful probes? There has long been controversy among astronomers as to whether Venus is a desert planet, too hot for life, or an ocean world, covered in water. The data from both Venera and Mariner has come down firmly on the side of the desert world hypothesis.
Astronomical artist Mr. Chesley Bonestell's 1947 vision of a desert Venus

The effects of Venus’ atmosphere on radio signals during Mariner-5’s occultation experiment have enabled scientists to calculate temperature and pressure at the planet's surface as 980°F and 75 to 100 Earth atmospheres. These figures disagree with readings from Venera 4 mission, which indicate surface temperatures from 104 to 536°F and 15 Earth atmospheres’ pressure, but both sets of data indicate a hellish world, with little evidence of water and an extremely dense atmosphere.

Venera has established that Venus’ atmosphere consists almost exclusively of carbon dioxide with traces of hydrogen vapour, very little oxygen, and no nitrogen. Mariner-5's data indicates that the atmosphere of Venus ranges from 52 to 87 per cent carbon dioxide, with both hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere: it found no trace of nitrogen. It detected about as much hydrogen proportionately as there is in the Earth's atmosphere. Mariner scientists, however, have pointed out that further analysis and refinements of both Russian and American data could clear up the apparent discrepancies.

Although Mariner’s instruments could not penetrate deeply enough into Venus’ atmosphere to obtain surface readings, they determined that the outer fringe of the atmosphere, where atoms were excited by direct sunlight, had a temperature of 700°F, below which was a layer close to Zero degrees, lying about 100 miles above the surface. Chemicals in the atmosphere, or electrical storms far more intense than those of Earth, give the night side of the planet an ashen glow.
A view of the Mariner-5 control room at JPL during the Venus encounter

A fascinating finding is that the dense atmosphere acts like a giant lens, bending light waves so they travel around the planet. Both American and Russian researchers agree that astronauts standing on the surface would feel like they were “standing at the bottom of a giant bowl”, with the back of their own heads a shimmering mirage on the horizon. Vision would be so distorted that the sun would appear at sunset to be a long bright line on the horizon: its light could penetrate the atmosphere, but not escape because of scattering, so that it would appear as a bright ball again for a time at sunrise until the atmosphere distorted its rays.

Neither spacecraft found any evidence of radiation belts comparable to the Van Allen belts around the Earth, and both established that Venus has only a very slight magnetic field, less than 1% that of the Earth. Observing how much Venus' gravity changed Mariner 5's trajectory established that Venus’ mass is 81.5 % that of Earth. Tracking of radio signals from Mariner-5 as it swept behind Venus, has shown that the planet is virtually spherical, compared with Earth's slightly pear-shape. (Other celestial mechanics experiments conducted with Mariner-5 obtained improved determinations of the mass of the Moon, of the astronomical unit, and improved ephemerides of Earth and Venus).

Life on Venus?

Although neither spacecraft was equipped to look for life on Venus, their findings will undoubtedly contribute to the growing scientific controversy over whether life does, or can, exist there. Based on its Venera results, the Soviet Union has said that Venus is “too hot for human life”, although Sir Bernard Lovell, the Director of Jodrell Bank Station, has suggested that future probes might find remnants of some early organic development, even if conditions today make life highly unlikely. However, German/American rocket pioneer and space writer Dr Willy Ley, has suggested there might be the possibility of “a very specialised kind of life on Venus”, possibly at the poles, which he believes would be cooler that the currently measured temperatures. The USSR’s Dr Krasilnikov has said that Earth bacteria could withstand the atmospheric pressure on Venus and might even be able to survive the intense heat. 


But just as Mariner-4 demolished fantasies of canals made by intelligent Martians, so the results from Venera-4 and Mariner-5, in allowing us a glimpse behind its cloudy veil, have swept aside any number of science fiction visions of Venus. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ verdant Amtor, with its continents and oceans, and Heinlein’s swampy Venus are no more. They have been replaced by a new vision of a hellish Venus, almost certainly inimical to life, with fiery storms raging in a dense, metal melting atmosphere which traps and bends light waves in a weird manner. I wonder where the SF writers of the future will take it?



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Science / Space Race

[May 28, 1967] Around the World in 80 Months (May 1967 Space Roundup)

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by Gideon Marcus

Between the tragic aftermath of this year's twin space disasters (Apollo 1 and Soyuz 1) as well as the dramatic results from the Lunar Orbiter and Surveyor Moon explorers, it's easy to forget the amazing things being done in Earth orbit.

So here's a little news grab bag of some flights you may have missed over the last several months (and even years, in some cases):

Moscow calling

Two years ago, the Soviets joined the world of comsats with the orbiting of their first Molniya satellite.  Launched into an eccentric orbit that takes them up to geosynchronous altitudes but then swooping down to graze the Earth, they work in pairs to facilitate transmissions across the 11 time zones of the Soviet Union.

It's an impressive system–half a ton of satellite broadcasting at 40w of power, more than twice that of the Intelsat "Early Bird" satellites.  Unfortunately for the Soviets, it's also been a balky system.  Both of the first two satellites stopped working within a year, Molniya 1B failing to keep station in space.  It's a bad thing when your comsat moves out of position!  This is something more likely to happen in an eccentric orbit than in a more-stable geosynchronous orbit where a satellite goes around the Earth once every 24 hours, remaining more or less stationary (except for a little figure eight over the course of the day) from the perspective of the ground observer.  Worse, because the Molniyas scrape so close to the Earth, it doesn't take much to send them careening into the atmosphere, which happened to 1B March 17, 1967.

Still, the Soviets prefer their odd orbit because it's ideal for their purposes (giving coverage to Eurasia) and, I suspect, requires less booster power.  And it still carries the satellites high enough to return photos like this one, shot by Molniya 1A last year–the first all-Earth photo ever:

Molniya 1C was launched on April 25 last year, Molniya 1D on October 20.  They were replacements for their non-functioning companions.  But Molniya 1C may well have given up the ghost, too.  Molniya 1E was launched on May 24, apparently to replace it. 

May they solve their teething problems sooner rather than later!

A Pair of Imps

Out beyond the Earth's magnetic field is the sun's domain.  High energy plasmas (the "solar wind") and our star's magnetic field fill the vacuum of interplanetary space.  Not very densely, to be sure, but with profound effects on the planets and offering clues as to the nature of the stellar furnace that creates them.

It is not surprising that NASA has devoted so many satellites to understanding and mapping this zone given how many spacecraft (including the upcoming Apollos) will travel through it.  Explorer 18, Explorer 21, and Explorer 28 were all part of the "Interplanetary Monitoring Program" (IMP).  The first two have already reentered, and the last just stopped working a couple of weeks ago.  Luckily, virtually uninterrupted service has been maintained thanks to the launches of Explorer 33 and Explorer 34!


Explorer 33

Explorer 33, launched July 1, 1966, was supposed to be the first of the "anchored" IMPs, returning data from the orbit of the Moon (which does not have a magnetic field or radiations of its own).  Unfortunately, the satellite was shot into space a bit too rapidly to safely decelerate into orbit around the Moon.  Instead, it now has an extremely high (270,000 miles perigee!) but eccentric (low apogee) orbit from which it still can return perfectly good science.  Indeed, NASA planned for this eventuality.


Explorer 34

The other Explorer, #34, was just sent up on May 24.  It is a more conventional IMP and will pick up where #28 left off. 

With four years of continuous data, we now have terrific data sets on the Sun through a good portion of its 11-year cycle, including the recent solar minimum.  I look forward to a slew of reports in the Astrophysical Journal over the next few years!

Yes, I read those for fun.  Doesn't everyone?

Bright Future

If the IMPs exist to monitor the Sun's output, the Orbiting Solar Observatories' job is to directly watch the Sun.  Prior to 1967, two of these giant satellites had been orbited: OSO 1 on March 7, 1962, and February 3, 1965.  A third launch was made on August 25 of the same year, but it failed.

Sadly, the OSOs haven't quite provided continuous coverage over the last five years.  Still they have returned the most comprehensive data set of solar measurements to date.  And, as of March 8, the wiggly needles that mark the collection of data are jiggling again: OSO 3 has been returning data from its nine instruments on all manner of solar radiation–including and especially in the ultraviolet, X-Ray, and cosmic ray wavelengths that are blocked from terrestrial measurement by the Earth's atmosphere.

The timing is perfect–the Sun is just entering its period of maximum output.  OSO 3 will not only tell us more about the nearest star, it will report on its interactions with the Earth's magnetic field and the space environment in near orbit.

A Meteoric Rise

The Soviets have been awfully cagey about a lot of their launches.  Every couple of weeks, another unheralded Kosmos heads into orbit, stays there for a week, then lands.  It's an open secret that they are really Vostok-derived spy satellites that snap shots and return to Earth for film development.  This is utterly reprehensible–certainly WE would never do anything like that.

But while many of Communist flights have been hush hush, one subset of their Kosmos series has been pretty open: the weather satellite flights of Kosmoses 122, 144, 149, and 156!

The first of the Soviet meteorological satellites went into space on June 25, 1966, broadcasting for about four months before falling silent.  For a while, it seemed the Russkies were going to keep the pretty weather photos to themselves, but on August 18 of last year, they suddenly started sharing data over the Washingon/Moscow "Cold Line"–both visibile and infrared pictures, too.  It appears the delay was due to the Soviet reluctance to announce a mission until they're sure of its success.  It is entirely possible that some of the unexplained Kosmoses before 122 were failed flights.


Kosmos 122

The picture quality was pretty low at first, probably due to the length of the line the data must be sent over.  Improvements were made, and the new stuff is great.

Since 122, the Soviets have launched Kosmos 144 on February 28, 1967, Kosmos 149 on March 21 (it reentered on April 7–a failure of its weather-related mission, but it successfully tested the first aerodynamic stabilizer in orbit), and the latest Kosmos, #156, just went up on April 27, 1967.  It is my understanding that photos are being regularly shared with the National Environmental Satellite Service (NESS) in Suitland, Maryland.  I don't know if these are revolutionizing our view of the planet given our successful ESSA and NIMBUS programs, but it does give a warm glow of international cooperation.

If the nukes fly, at least we'll know if it's nice weather over their targets…

From the Far East into the Drink

The Japanese have been working their darndest to become the sixth space power (after the USSR, US, UK, France, and Italy).  Unfortunately, all of their efforts have thus far come up a cropper.

Their Lambda 4S rocket is the first one capable of launching a satellite into orbit, specifically an ionospheric probe with a 52 pound science package.  The problem is the vehicle's fourth stage.  The truck-launched Lambda 3 has been pretty much perfected, but when the new engine was put at the top of the stack, everything went to hell.


The successful precursor of the Lambda 4S, the Lambda 3

On September 26, 1966, the first Lambda 4S was lost when the fourth stage attitude control failed.  The fourth stage didn't even ignite the second time around on December 20.  That happened again on April 13 of this year during the third flight.

It looks like Nissan and JAXA engineers will be going back to the drawing board before trying another flight.  Maybe 1968 will be the year the Rising Sun joins the rising sun above the Earth…

What's next?

This summer, our eyes will surely turn beyond the Earth to Earth's twin, the planet Venus, for June marks the latest opportunity to send probes to the second planet at a premium on fuel consumption and payload allowance.  You can bet we'll be covering Mariner 5 and Venera 4 when they launch!


Testing Mariner 5



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Science / Space Race

[June 4, 1966] Over Under Sideways Down (Surveyor 1, Explorer 32, Kosmos 110 + 119!)

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by Gideon Marcus

[With Gemini 9 currently overhead and preempting regular network programming, it's easy to forget the other space spectaculars that are going on.  Here's the skinny on four of the more exciting ones.]

Live from the Moon!

America may be second in the Moon race, but we sure aren't far behind the Soviets.  Less than a month after the Russians managed their first soft-landing (with Luna 10, after several failed efforts), NASA's Surveyor 1 did it in just one try. 

On May 30, 7:40 AM Pacific, Atlas-Centaur #8 lifted off from Cape Canaveral less than a second after its scheduled launch time.  757 seconds later, right on the button, Surveyor departed from its Centaur stage on an almost perfect path toward the Moon.  Nevertheless, just before midnight, the spacecraft made a 20.75 second mid-course burn, reducing its landing margin of error from 250 miles to just 10.

Surveyor made a flawless touchdown almost exactly two days later, at 11:17 PM on June 1.  Shortly thereafter, America got its first pictures from the surface of the Moon.

The success of Surveyor marks several major achievements. Firstly, it's a success for the rocket that carried it.  The Atlas-Centaur is the most advanced booster currently in existence, the first to utilize pure hydrogen for fuel and liquid oxygen for the oxidizer.  There is no more efficient combination in existence, and the development of a system that could successfully utilize the pair has been tough.  Now that the Centaur second stage is operational, it can be used on top of many different first stages — from Titan to Saturn.  This dramatically increases the mass of the probes that can be sent to the Moon or to other planets.  By comparison, Surveyor masses more than twice as much as the Ranger crash-lander probes, launched with the less powerful Atlas-Agena.

Surveyor's success also marks a big leap forward for the Project Apollo.  It's been bandied about that this flight shaves a year off the schedule.  This soft-lander mission was really a dress rehearsal for a manned spacecraft, and what a beautiful rehearsal.  Reaching the lunar surface at just twelve feet per second, the three legged Surveyor with crushable aluminum honeycomb feet endured no undue strain.  Moreover, it didn't sink into a quicksand of lunar dust, as had been previously feared.  The landing spot, inside the dry Ocean of Storms, is in a zone that an Apollo mission will be sent to.  If a probe can safely land, then a piloted Lunar Excursion Module can, too.

Finally, Surveyor 1 marks a triumph for lunar science.  Not a huge one, mind you; Surveyor, like the latter Rangers, serves primarily as a handmaiden to the Apollo project.  Nevertheless, we have our first hundred pictures, temperature data, seismological data, and radar reflectivity data of the lunar surface.  The selenologists (lunar counterpart to Earth-based geologists) have plenty of information to play with.

Surveyor will continue broadcasting photos for at least the next 11 days, up through the lunar night.  Then there will be several more missions in the series.  You can be sure you'll read about them here!

Son of Explorer 17

Three years ago, NASA sent up its first high orbit atmospheric satellite, Explorer 17.  It only lasted a few months, going silent on July 10, 1963, but it returned a wealth of information on the least dense regions of our atmosphere.

Every good story deserves a sequel.  On May 25, 1966, we got one: Explorer 32, a satellite so similar to Explorer 17 that it must be considered kin, was hurled into an eccentric orbit that brings the ball of a probe zooming just 150 miles from Earth before flying far, far away.

Too far, actually.  It was only supposed to reach ~500 miles from the Earth at apogee.  Instead, because the Delta booster that carried Explorer didn't turn off in time, the satellite reaches 1000 miles in altitude before looping back.

This has not adversely affected plucky 32, and we are once again getting a wealth of data on the temperature, composition, density, and pressure of the upper atmosphere.  Explorer 32 also has several improvements on its predecessor.  Explorer 32 has solar cells, so its onboard batteries will last years instead of months.  Because the satellite has a tape recorder on board, data can be stored rather than only relayed when a ground station is in sight.  This means the data set from 32 will be continuous.

Even when the satellite goes silent, thanks to its perfectly round shape, it will be useful for measuring the density of the atmosphere, as 17 has been.  A bunch of cameras are tracking 32 from the ground.  Its slow orbital decay will tell us how thick the air is way up there.

It will be a legacy any parent could be proud of!

The Other Side

There have been a whole bunch of Kosmos satellites launched since our last update.  While all of them are classified to some degree, and most of them (Kosmos 107, 109, 111, 113, 114, 115, and 117) were probably spy satellites akin to our biweekly Discoverer program, a couple stand out as unusual — mostly because we know what they are!

Kosmos 110, launched February 22, 1966, carried two caninauts: Veterok and Ugolyok.  They and a menagerie of biological samples circled the Earth for an unprecedented 22 days before safely landing.  We're not sure what capsule was used for the trip, but it was probably a modified Voskhod — I don't think they've had time to test a lunar spacecraft akin to our Apollo yet.  Nevertheless, it's certain that this feat was conducted in support of long term efforts in space: either a Moon mission or a space station effort.

Most recently, Kosmos 119 went up on May 24.  We can deduce its purpose based on what it's doing, namely emitting 31.8 kHz and 44.9 kHz radio-waves.  It is believed that 119 is an ionospheric experiment to determine if and how ultralow frequency electromagnetic waves pass through that region of the atmosphere.  Data from this satellite will be useful for estimating charged-particle concentration in the lower ionosphere.  Whether the satellite's mission is purely scientific or serves to support some sort of military application is unknown.  Nevertheless, it's nifty!

Things to Come

Of course, the big news over the next week will be how successful Gemini 9 is at completing its rendezvous, docking, and spacewalk maneuvers.  You can be certain we'll have full coverage of that mission after splashdown next week!

Speaking of adventure in space, don't miss your chance to get this amazing novel by yours truly!

From a recent review:

Imagine Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys … in space! Kitra took me back to my childhood when I would have loved to read stories of young people in sci-fi settings overcoming difficult odds and conquering the universe. In Marcus's own words: "Tales of friendship, ingenuity, and wonder."

Take a group of diverse friends (not all human), toss in a bit of gender fluidity, cultural diversity, and conflict, and push them to their limits as they have to work together to overcome an unexpected threat. This YA fiction will thrill any number of budding science fiction fans.




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Science / Space Race

[February 6, 1966] Hello, Stranger (exploring Space in Winter 65/66)

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You don't want to miss today's Journey Show!  In this first episode of the new season, we'll be talking about comics: Marvel, DC, British, European — and we'll also be discussing the new Batman show.  Y'all come!


by Gideon Marcus

It seems like a mighty long time…

Looming huge on the horizon, shining brightly at zenith, one would imagine that visiting the Moon wouldn't be all that difficult.  But making the 400,000+ kilometer trek has proved one of the hardest feats for humanity to tackle.  Just reaching the vicinity of the Moon took four Pioneers and who knows how many secret Mechtas.  And while the Soviets managed to hit the Moon in 1959 with Luna 2, the United States went through four Pioneer Ables and three Rangers before duplicating the feat in 1962.  It wasn't until last year's Ranger 7 that we managed a fully successful TV crashlanding mission.

But despite early successes, the real heartbreak kings have been the Soviets.  Since their spectacular Luna 3 mission in 1959, which was the first to return pictures from the Far Side, the Russians have failed in at least four attempts over the past year to soft-land on the Moon.

That all changed on February 3, 1966, when Luna 9 settled gently onto Oceanus Procellarum and returned the first pictures from the lunar surface.

Luna 9 was launched on January 31 amid the typical TASS fanfare.  After the prior failures, it was hard to get too excited until the vehicle actually reached the Moon.  Even then, we in the West had to find out about its success second-hand at first.  The Russians are notoriously mum about their missions until it is certain that they worked (or that news of a failure can be properly massaged).

Luckily, the good folks at Britain's Jodrell Bank radio observatory were able to intercept Luna 9's transmissions, thus giving us a pretty good idea of its timeline.  The U.S. Army also listened in on Luna 9's whole trip, though this fact wasn't broadcast initially. 

Per TASS, we know that the spacecraft began its landing sequence about an hour before landing at 1:45 PM EST.  Jodrell Bank confirms that Luna 9 broadcast a stream of pictures for the next 20 minutes followed by a second transmission at 9:00 PM. 

And this is what Luna 9 saw:

In addition to the engineering triumph that the Luna 9 mission represents, it also yielded a bonanza of scientific information.  For instance, we now know that the Moon is not covered by a dangerous quicksand of dust, which was a big concern for the Apollo people.  Luna 9 has also returned valuable cosmic ray data.

Luna 9's chief success, however, has been nationalistic.  After the two Voskhod flights, the Soviets watched helplessly as our Gemini program surpassed their accomplishments by leaps and bounds.  For the moment, the Soviets are once again ahead in at least one aspect of the Space Race.

At least until Surveyor 1 lands in May…

I got my eyes on you

The Moon hasn't been the only Soviet target these past two months. Since December 10, they have launched six "Kosmos" class satellites, almost all of which likely been photographic surveillance craft like our Discoverer series (which we have continued to launch consistently every couple of weeks).  We can tell this from the angle of their orbit, designed to maximize coverage of the West, and the fact that they land in Russia after about a week in space.  Certainly, these "scientific" probes don't seem to return much data — I think Kosmos 41 was the last with any results published in any of the journals I follow, and it was launched in August 1964.

Stormy weather

The same day Luna 9 stunned the world with its pictures, the United States launched a quieter but no less momentous shutterbug of its own.  ESSA 1, also known as TIROS 11, marked the beginning of a new era of weather forecasting.  The prior TIROS satellites were all experimental, despite their unquestioned contribution to our daily forecasts.  The new TIROS is not only better able to provide instant global weather pictures to any station in view at any time from its 700km altitude, it is the first to be managed by the new Environmental Science Services Administration. 

From test product to fundamental government equipment in six years.  Not bad!

The Sun is Shining

Completing the exploration of the Earth/Moon/Sun trinity is Pioneer 6, launched December 16, 1965.  In the tradition of Pioneer 5, Pioneer 6 is a truly interplanetary probe.  Its mission is not to encounter any other celestial bodies but to instead be a solar weather station in an orbit somewhere between that of Earth's and Venus'. 

Its six instruments have been diligently recording long term data on radiation and magnetic conditions out in deep space, thus far reporting that the "solar wind" blows at about 1,000,000 km/h during quiet periods as opposed to three times as much in active times.  The solar magnetic field appears comparatively unfluctuating, accompanied by a relatively low number of charged particles.

Pioneer 6 is the first of five such interplanetary probes planned for launch over the next few years. 

1-2-3

Our last piece of news covers the multiple launch of December 21.  The Air Force has been testing its mighty Titan IIIC, which remains the world's most powerful rocket until such time as the Saturn 1B takes off later this month.  Since science abhors a vacuum, space aboard the mighty booster was used to launch four satellites into orbit at the same time.

These satellites were OV2-3, a radiation studies probe; LES-3 and 4, communications test satellites; and OSCAR 4, a relay broadcaster designed to be used by amateur "ham" radio enthusiasts.  All of these satellites were supposed to be placed in 35,000 km high geosynchronous orbits, circling the Earth about once every day such that they appeared to remain roughly fixed in the sky.  Unfortunately, while the Titan delivered the satellites into a geosynchronous transfer orbit, a final burn never happened.  The four vehicles are thus trapped in a highly eccentric path that zooms up to 30,000 km while retaining an Earth-grazing 170km perigee.

Moreover, OV2-3 never switched on.  LES-3 and 4 appear to work, however, doing top secret work offering data on communications in the UHF and SHF bands.  OSCAR 4 has been less successful, only being used for 12 transmissions; one of them was the first ever satellite-relayed conversation between the United States and the USSR, however!

Man oh man

The space-related excitment won't stop anytime soon.  On February 20, we'll see our first real Apollo mission when the new Saturn 1B launches a full Apollo CSM on a suborbital flight.  And in March, we'll likely see our first docking in space when Gemini 8 goes up. 

Science fiction made real, indeed!




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Science / Space Race

[July 22, 1965] Do what you do do well (July space round-up)

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by Gideon Marcus

With both sides of the Cold War passing milestone after milestone in the Space Race, it's easy to neglect the less splashy events that are still, nonetheless, noteworthy.  So here is a grab bag of July achievements that might have slipped below your radar amidst the Mariner news.

Mother Russia goes big

Four days ago, the Soviets launched Zond 3 with (apparently) no particular destination in mind.  The timing is wrong for a planetary probe, and though the spacecraft sailed past the Moon, it is not being described as a lunar mission.  What could it be?

The consensus is that the Russians are in a similar position to that of the Americans after a string of failures to launch a Pioneer to the Moon.  Those missions had been designed as preambles for a 1959 Venus flight, but because of all the teething problems, the first probe destined for the Planet of Love was launched late.  But while Pioneer 5 couldn't rendezvous with Venus, it could sail out as far as Venus and perform long range telemetry and endurance tests.  The results of these came in very handy with Mariner 2 and now Mariner 4.

The Soviets have attempted to reach Mars at least twice with its Mars 1 and Zond 2 missions.  Zond 1 was a failed Venus probe.  It is likely that Zond 3 is an interplanetary probe, perhaps a back-up to Zond 2 as Mariner 4 was a back-up to Mariner 3.  Rather than wait for another favorable alignment between Earth and Mars, the USSR has elected to launch Zond 3 as an endurance mission to test its systems at a distance.  If they are successful, this will surely add to the reliability of their next interplanetary flights.

In even bigger news, figuratively and literally, the Soviets launched a satellite they call "Proton" into orbit on July 16.  At 26,880 lb, it is the heaviest satellite ever put into orbit, and the Soviets have stated that they now have a new booster in the same class as our Saturn and Titan 3.  Proton is billed as a science satellite, designed to investigate charged particles — and it probably is, like its predecessor "Electron".  However, many experts see Proton as a precursor to elements of a Soviet space station, which could perhaps be launched concurrent with or in support of a lunar program.

Also on the 16th, the Soviets launched five Kosmos satellites in one mission, Nos. 71-75.  Other than their orbital information (low) and that they're equipped with radio transceivers (of course), nothing else is known.  They are probably not spy satellites since they seem too light be the Vostok-derivatives the Russians have used to date.  They might be geodetic satellites, or perhaps engineering test craft.

Last, but hardly not least, Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, one of the nation's three leaders, boasted that the country had developed a "Fractional Orbital Bombardment System."  This means that they can launch a satellite with a nuclear bomb, which can deorbit and hit any target at any time.  Such a weapon makes our early warning radars virtually useless.

Sleep well tonight…

Think Blue, Count Two

Launched just two days ago, the third pair of Vela satellites will continuously monitor the Earth to ensure that the Soviets keep to the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.  Velas 3A and 3B orbit at an altitude of around 70,000 miles on opposite sides of the planet, ensuring that the USSR is always in sight.  They are designed to operate for six months, but since the last two pairs lasted around a year, there's probably some engineering tolerance built in.

Piggybacked with the twins was ORS (Octagon Research Satellite) 3, whose mission is to monitor natural radiation far above the Earth's magnetic field.

Finally, though actually first chronologically, is TIROS 10, the latest weather satellite.  It's funny; the TIROS series, begun in 1960, was supposed to be superseded by the next-generation NIMBUS satellites.  Yet TIROS has proven so useful and reliable, that we still use them. 

That doesn't mean this is the same old TIROS, however.  For one, it's the second TIROS to be launched into a polar orbit, which means it circles the Earth as the planet spins beneath it.  This orbit is called "sun-synchronous" which means that, from the perspective of the satellite, it is always the same time of day.  Thus, every 24 hours, the entire world gets photographed in complete daylight.

TIROS 10 is the first of three satellites to be funded by the Weather Bureau “to be used to assure continuity of satellite observations for operational purposes;” the previous nine satellites were categorized as research missions. 

It is astonishing that just ten years ago, there were no satellites of any kind.  Now TIROS is a fundamental part of our daily forecast.  It boggles to think what might be next coming down the pike!

Our next Journey Show features Dr. Lisa Yaszek, a Professor of Science Fiction at Georgia Tech; Hugo Finalists Tom Purdom and Cora Buhlert; Marie Vibbert, author of 50 science fiction stories in magazines like Analog and F&SF; plus a musical performance by Lorelei!

DON'T MISS IT!




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Science / Space Race

[May 30, 1965] Ticket to Ride (May space round-up)

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by Gideon Marcus

It's been another exciting month in the realm of spaceflight.  We're between crewed missions, what with Voskhod 2 and Gemini 3 having flown in March and the next Gemini due in a few days.  Nevertheless, it has been a field day for robotic spacecraft, with a number of civilian and military packages booking passage aboard a plethora of satellites.  Take a look:

The Shape of Things that Came

Yuri Gagarin soared into history in April 1961, becoming the first human space traveler.  His face became known worldwide. His spacecraft, on the other hand, remained shrouded in mystery. For four years, the shape of the Vostok capsule remained a secret, with only a few dubious artists' conceptions offering any clues to its configuration.

That changed suddenly last month when the Soviets displayed the complete Vostok spacecraft at an exhibition in Moscow.  Now we know that the fanciful cylinders and bullet-shaped craft were completely off the mark — Vostok was spherical.

This is significant.  A sphere is a simple shape, mathematically, and it is not hard to weight a ball such that one end always points down.  In the Vostok, that point is where its heat shield was mounted.  A similar concept was employed with America's Mercury capsule, but the back end of the Mercury is only a small arc of a circle.  That's because American rockets were too weak to loft a full sphere.  Vostok is clearly a much heavier spacecraft than Mercury, and this suggests that the Soviet Vostok rocket was much more powerful than the Atlas and certainly the Redstone that lofted the first astronauts.

The unveiling of Vostok affords us a look into a completely different space program, too.  Earlier in the year, American intelligence determined that the Vostok had been turned into a spy satellite.  Instead of cosmonauts, the new Vostok carries a camera.  After a week snapping pictures in orbit, the capsule parachutes to Earth, and the film is developed.  It's an elegant repurposing, though it has to be more expensive than the American analog, Discoverer.

While the Soviets do not announce their spy missions, it's not too hard to figure out which of their Kosmos "science satellites" are probably spy Vostoks.  Their orbits, sweeping them over Western targets of interest, and their short lifespans on the order of a week give them away.  In just the last two months, it's likely that Kosmoses 64, 65, and 66 were all spy satellites.  In a few days, we'll know if Kosmos 67, launched on May 25, is also a space shutterbug.

Softly, softly

Another probe about which the Soviets are being less than forthcoming is Luna 5.  Launched on May 9, the ton-and-a-half spacecraft was headed for the Moon.  Reportedly, it conducted a mid-course maneuver on May 10, directing it toward the Sea of Clouds — which it hit at 10:10 PM, Moscow time.  Per TASS, "During the flight and the approach of the station to the moon a great deal of information was obtained which is necessary for the further elaboration of a system for soft landing on the moon’s surface."

That might lead one to the conclusion that Luna 5 was the Soviet version of Ranger, a TV probe designed to take pictures until it crashed.  However, Western observers using telescopes saw the plume of dust that one would expect accompanying an attempt at a soft landing.  That such a landing did not occur suggests that Luna 5 was supposed to be an equivalent of our Surveyor, set to launch next year, and that things did not go as planned.  The lunar race thus remains neck and neck.

Exploring, Communicating

The last month saw two more entries into the Explorer series: Explorer 27, launched April 29, is a windmill-shaped little satellite that will measure irregularities in the Earth's shape; a secondary mission is probing the ionosphere.

Meanwhile, Explorer 28 was launched on May 28, and is the latest in the Interplanetary Monitoring Probe series, along with Explorers 18 and 21.  All three craft have high, eccentric orbits that allow them to thoroughly map Earth's magnetic field, though Explorer 18 went kaput earlier this month.

As we saw with last month's flight of Intelsat 1, space-based communications are now a fact of everyday life.  The USSR has now gotten in on the act, following up the flight of Early Bird with their own first satellite called Molniya, launched April 22, 1965.  It has a high, 12-hour orbit, not quite geosynchronous, designed to service the high latitude residents of the Soviet Union during the daytime.  European nations have already requested use of the Molniyas; they feel that the "international" Intelsat corporation too strongly favors the United States.


Finally, the Air Force's second "Lincoln Experimental Satellite," launched May 6, has been a success.  This next-generation communications satellite tests new technologies that will allow it to service hundreds of users at a time.  Its predecessor, LES-1 launched February 11, failed to fire its onboard engine that would kick it from its initial low orbit.  LES-2 had no such problems, and its orbit takes it more than 9000 miles above the surface of the Earth.

Of course, being a military satellite (as opposed to Telstar, Relay, and Syncom), it is possible that we civilians won't see immediate benefits, but I suspect they will trickle down in good time.

Another step Moonward

May 25 marked the ninth successful launch of the Saturn rocket, possibly the biggest rocket on Earth.  At its tip were boilerplates of the Apollo Command and Service Modules.  But these mock spacecraft weren't the stars of the show: inside the cylindrical Service Module was a giant satellite, the second Pegasus.  Appropriately adorned with a pair of enormous wings, Pegasus will stay in orbit for years measuring how many micrometeoroids our astronauts are likely to encounter on their way to the Moon.

The reliability of the Saturn is truly remarkable.  Remember the early days of the Space Race?  Chances were 50/50 then that any given rocket, Atlas, Juno, or Vanguard, would blow up on the launch pad, tilt off course, or otherwise fail.  We're now in an age of maturing space travel.  If Gemini's Titan rocket continues to do as well as the Saturn, I do believe that, by the 1970s, everyday citizens like you and me will be able to get tickets to ride into space. 

This week's Journey Show is a special Space Race episode!  Don't miss it!




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