Post by michelvan on Mar 7, 2022 16:57:18 GMT
18 - Apollo 14 and Soyuz 15
The Apollo 13 accident had a profound impact on the Space Race.
The accident highlighted the feeling that the American space program was struggling to compete with the Soviet Union
and paradoxically increased support for the Manned Space Program by grabbing the public's attention and putting focus back on the Moon.
The heroic rescue efforts of NASA and the daring of the astronauts returned a sense of romanticism, adventure and danger to Manned Spaceflight.
Like the names Shepard, Glenn, White, Grissom, Caprpenter, Armstrong, Aldrin & Collins, the names Lovell, Mattingly & Haise would no doubt be remembered.
As the budget battles raged on in Congress, NASA worked hard to improve the safety of the Command Service Module (CSM)
and return America to the Moon as quickly as possible.
Apollo 14 was also the return of Alan Shepard to Space flight, after he lost his flight status do to Méniére's Disease in 1964.
But this would also be his last flight.
Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa launched on 31 January 1971 as the crew of Apollo 14.
Just as the previous H-Class missions it faced allot of problems, beginning with docking difficultly of CSM Kitty Hawk with LM Antares, Rossa had to ram CSM nose into the docking system of LM on the sixth attempt.
During Lunar Descent the LM computer switch into ABORT mode, Mitchell with help of MIT manage reprogram the LM computer to believe ABORT had happen!
At the same time a bug caused malfunction of LM Radar altimeter, after cycling the Radar system breaker,
They gained control over LM in 5500 meter altitude.
Because of this Shepard and Mitchell could not make a pinpoint landing at planned site on the Fra-Mauro Highlands.
In lunar orbit Roosa faced new problem, one of CM windows became opaque, the one with the camera for mapping the lunar surface.
Shepard first words on moon were:
During they first EVA, after deploying the ALSEP package they went with a "Moon wheelbarrow" for a walk.
After 4 hours and 47 minutes the crew returned to LM and sleep until the next day.
At the end of a second EVA Shepard tried to play Golf, with a six iron head fixed on his lunar excavation tool and two golfballs.
Shepard manage to kick one golf ball for around 300 yards. In total for 42.28 kilograms on Lunars samples were collected in two EVA.
On February 9 landed Apollo 14 safe in pacific and they were the last to be quarantined.
Apollo 14 return to business and Media attention were good for NASA public image, despite the problems the crew faced.
Meanwhile at NASA the future was looking promising. The Agency had scraps next H-Class mission (Apollo 15) and introduced
4 J-Class missions for Apollo 15 to 18 while 5 more J-Class missions (Apollo 19 to 23) mission were under review as Saturn V production was reactivated.
The following year in 1972, the Odyssey Program extension was approved as the Space Shuttle, Space Station, Lunar Base, Reusable Nuclear Shuttle and Chemical Space Tug were approved for development Phase B
On Soviet site...
In 1971 the Soviet Space Agency (MoM) had several Problems.
OKB-1 ran on it's full capacity, building per year, Two Luna, dozens Protons and Soyuz rockets for MoM and Military needs.
Next to that they built Spacecrafts like LOK-LK, Spying Satellites and were working on the advanced Soyuz 7K-SM,
Therefore the Space Station program suffered under a lack of personnel and material.
MoM had to take measures, they order of OKB-52 to help to build the Station on OKB-1 plans, it had certain irony that OKB-52 had to build now the space station.
It's boss Vladimir Chelomei had proposed his Almaz, a military space station to MoM,
What had refused the proposal, because Chelomei insisted on development of the UR-500 rocket and TKS spacecraft for it.
Although as the Boss of OKB-52 could be happy to do something for the Space race,
instead he went to Military complaining about the status of Salut program and promoted Almaz.
Military-industrial Commission Chairman Ustinov was not amused at all, about Chelomei arrogant behavior and his talking shit about his colleagues.
MoM had enough of Chelomei escapade and threatened him to follow orders or OKB-52 would become subdivision of OKB-1 !
The Alita Study had serious setback by provoking a major nuclear disaster!
A test run of Experimental Thermal nuclear engine RD-0410
ended in meltdown and massive contaminations of Semipalatinsk test site and near by Irtysh River!
Responsible for Disaster was a engineer named Anatoly Stepanovich Dyatlov,
The investigation report found him guilty for "criminal mismanagement of potentially dangerous device“.
He was sentenced to ten years in prison.
MoM changed the Alita Study mission architecture in favor of Nuclear Electric Engines.
Next to that the Soviet authority notice that soviet citizens had lost interest in the Soyuz Missions.
Soyuz 14 with Lev Dyomin and Gennadi Sarafanov were launch to the Moon on 10 March 1971
This time to the north edge of Oceanus Procellarum at Luna 13 landing site.
The Soviet academy of sciences wanted geological data from several site of Oceanus Procellarum.
on 18 march, 1971 the LK landed near Lunokhod 5 right on target.
Gennadi Sarafanov first comment on landing site:
The LK had a new Features installed: A external TV color camera and Core sample drill, for taking 4 meter deep samples.
But Sarafanov was not lucky he hit in 3 meter depth a hard layer of magma, the drill ran out of it's operational life time of 60 minutes.
Second EVA went with Lunokhod 5 to Luna 13 landing site collection parts of probe to study the longtime exposure of Soviet hardware on Lunar Environment
On the end of this EVA Sarafanov make report in front of TV color camera about mission and make a surprise
He pulled a red sphere out LK and put on ground and kicked it.
Then he returned into the LK and took off after a seven hours surface mission, the crew returned 3 days later safely to earth.
In comparison of other landing with Apollo 12, the Soyuz 14 samples show
That Oceanus Procellarum is homogeneous mixture of incompatible elements (called by Americans) KREEP and low calcium pyroxene.
What increase the mystery how Oceanus Procellarum is formed, special after Soyuz 14 discovery, a finding that even NASA surprised.
The Lunar 13 parts exposed 5 years to Lunar Environment gave precious Data for Columbus Study on L3M and Lunar base hardware.
The Apollo 13 accident had a profound impact on the Space Race.
The accident highlighted the feeling that the American space program was struggling to compete with the Soviet Union
and paradoxically increased support for the Manned Space Program by grabbing the public's attention and putting focus back on the Moon.
The heroic rescue efforts of NASA and the daring of the astronauts returned a sense of romanticism, adventure and danger to Manned Spaceflight.
Like the names Shepard, Glenn, White, Grissom, Caprpenter, Armstrong, Aldrin & Collins, the names Lovell, Mattingly & Haise would no doubt be remembered.
As the budget battles raged on in Congress, NASA worked hard to improve the safety of the Command Service Module (CSM)
and return America to the Moon as quickly as possible.
Apollo 14 was also the return of Alan Shepard to Space flight, after he lost his flight status do to Méniére's Disease in 1964.
But this would also be his last flight.
Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell and Stuart Roosa launched on 31 January 1971 as the crew of Apollo 14.
Just as the previous H-Class missions it faced allot of problems, beginning with docking difficultly of CSM Kitty Hawk with LM Antares, Rossa had to ram CSM nose into the docking system of LM on the sixth attempt.
During Lunar Descent the LM computer switch into ABORT mode, Mitchell with help of MIT manage reprogram the LM computer to believe ABORT had happen!
At the same time a bug caused malfunction of LM Radar altimeter, after cycling the Radar system breaker,
They gained control over LM in 5500 meter altitude.
Because of this Shepard and Mitchell could not make a pinpoint landing at planned site on the Fra-Mauro Highlands.
In lunar orbit Roosa faced new problem, one of CM windows became opaque, the one with the camera for mapping the lunar surface.
Shepard first words on moon were:
"And it's been a long way, but we're here"
During they first EVA, after deploying the ALSEP package they went with a "Moon wheelbarrow" for a walk.
After 4 hours and 47 minutes the crew returned to LM and sleep until the next day.
At the end of a second EVA Shepard tried to play Golf, with a six iron head fixed on his lunar excavation tool and two golfballs.
Shepard manage to kick one golf ball for around 300 yards. In total for 42.28 kilograms on Lunars samples were collected in two EVA.
On February 9 landed Apollo 14 safe in pacific and they were the last to be quarantined.
Apollo 14 return to business and Media attention were good for NASA public image, despite the problems the crew faced.
Meanwhile at NASA the future was looking promising. The Agency had scraps next H-Class mission (Apollo 15) and introduced
4 J-Class missions for Apollo 15 to 18 while 5 more J-Class missions (Apollo 19 to 23) mission were under review as Saturn V production was reactivated.
The following year in 1972, the Odyssey Program extension was approved as the Space Shuttle, Space Station, Lunar Base, Reusable Nuclear Shuttle and Chemical Space Tug were approved for development Phase B
On Soviet site...
In 1971 the Soviet Space Agency (MoM) had several Problems.
OKB-1 ran on it's full capacity, building per year, Two Luna, dozens Protons and Soyuz rockets for MoM and Military needs.
Next to that they built Spacecrafts like LOK-LK, Spying Satellites and were working on the advanced Soyuz 7K-SM,
Therefore the Space Station program suffered under a lack of personnel and material.
MoM had to take measures, they order of OKB-52 to help to build the Station on OKB-1 plans, it had certain irony that OKB-52 had to build now the space station.
It's boss Vladimir Chelomei had proposed his Almaz, a military space station to MoM,
What had refused the proposal, because Chelomei insisted on development of the UR-500 rocket and TKS spacecraft for it.
Although as the Boss of OKB-52 could be happy to do something for the Space race,
instead he went to Military complaining about the status of Salut program and promoted Almaz.
Military-industrial Commission Chairman Ustinov was not amused at all, about Chelomei arrogant behavior and his talking shit about his colleagues.
MoM had enough of Chelomei escapade and threatened him to follow orders or OKB-52 would become subdivision of OKB-1 !
The Alita Study had serious setback by provoking a major nuclear disaster!
A test run of Experimental Thermal nuclear engine RD-0410
ended in meltdown and massive contaminations of Semipalatinsk test site and near by Irtysh River!
Responsible for Disaster was a engineer named Anatoly Stepanovich Dyatlov,
The investigation report found him guilty for "criminal mismanagement of potentially dangerous device“.
He was sentenced to ten years in prison.
MoM changed the Alita Study mission architecture in favor of Nuclear Electric Engines.
Next to that the Soviet authority notice that soviet citizens had lost interest in the Soyuz Missions.
Soyuz 14 with Lev Dyomin and Gennadi Sarafanov were launch to the Moon on 10 March 1971
This time to the north edge of Oceanus Procellarum at Luna 13 landing site.
The Soviet academy of sciences wanted geological data from several site of Oceanus Procellarum.
on 18 march, 1971 the LK landed near Lunokhod 5 right on target.
Gennadi Sarafanov first comment on landing site:
"This is so flat, like the Russian Plains…“
The LK had a new Features installed: A external TV color camera and Core sample drill, for taking 4 meter deep samples.
But Sarafanov was not lucky he hit in 3 meter depth a hard layer of magma, the drill ran out of it's operational life time of 60 minutes.
Second EVA went with Lunokhod 5 to Luna 13 landing site collection parts of probe to study the longtime exposure of Soviet hardware on Lunar Environment
On the end of this EVA Sarafanov make report in front of TV color camera about mission and make a surprise
He pulled a red sphere out LK and put on ground and kicked it.
"We Soviets prefer Football over decadent Golf…“
Then he returned into the LK and took off after a seven hours surface mission, the crew returned 3 days later safely to earth.
In comparison of other landing with Apollo 12, the Soyuz 14 samples show
That Oceanus Procellarum is homogeneous mixture of incompatible elements (called by Americans) KREEP and low calcium pyroxene.
What increase the mystery how Oceanus Procellarum is formed, special after Soyuz 14 discovery, a finding that even NASA surprised.
The Lunar 13 parts exposed 5 years to Lunar Environment gave precious Data for Columbus Study on L3M and Lunar base hardware.
