Mercury to the Moon
mh...@ohiohills.com
there's this sentence: "An exciting concept, borrowed from an early
mission design based on sending a Mercury capsule to the Moon, was the
"rocket chair" used to land each of the four lunar visitors."
Does anyone know any more about this idea? I've been through a lot of
the Mercury paperwork, and I can never find any NASA papers that that
refer to the ideas. Somewhere I have read that Gordon Cooper
suggested the ride a Mercury around the Moon, and there are the one-
man landers, of course. But nothing formal and official about it.
There's smoke, but was there fire?
Thanks.
Mike
mh...@ohiohills.com
William Mook
requisite time. The Gemini capsule was another story
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/gemander.htm
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/gemnilor.htm
In the 1980s George Bush asked NASA to give him a budget to return to
the moon. They came back with nearly $200 billion. He quickly forgot
the question.
Later that year I gave a talk at an AIAA conference where I showed a
minimum manned moon mission would be possible for under $1 billion.
Joseph Nebus
>Thanks.
You know, that's a great question. I remember hearing of nutty
plans to put a Mercury capsule on the Moon, usually in chapter four of
_Every Space Race Book Ever_ where they talk about how NASA was shocked
by Kennedy's proposal and thought up every idea as long as it was crazy
enough, but I don't remember hearing an original-document source cite
for any of them. Crazy Mercury derivative projects are probably even a
tougher bid.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pat Flannery
> You know, that's a great question. I remember hearing of nutty
> plans to put a Mercury capsule on the Moon, usually in chapter four of
> _Every Space Race Book Ever_ where they talk about how NASA was shocked
> by Kennedy's proposal and thought up every idea as long as it was crazy
> enough, but I don't remember hearing an original-document source cite
> for any of them. Crazy Mercury derivative projects are probably even a
> tougher bid.
I think this came out of the period where Gemini was known as "Mercury
Mk.II".
(or the "Gusmobile" http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/mobile.html )
Putting a Gemini on a lunar-loop trajectory or even landing it on the
Moon was certainly not impossible. Indeed, its ability to do a lifting
reentry wasn't needed for Earth orbital flights, but would have been
necessary for a return at lunar velocities.
McDonnell kept trying to pitch lunar missions via modified Gemini
capsules to NASA after Apollo had started, but NASA realized that
implementing such a scheme would only save a year or so at most, while
pushing a far-more-capable Apollo landing back from 1968-69 to 1971 or so.
Still, the lunar Geminis are fun to look at:
http://www.astronautix.com/fam/gemini.htm
...and the Gemini-Agena docking flights seem to be related to the
lunar-loop concept, by replacing the Agena with a Centaur stage:
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/gemntaur.htm
Pat
Alan Erskine
Is the paper from that 'talk' listed somewhere? Does the AIAA have a
library that's accessable to the general public?
mh...@ohiohills.com
> >There's smoke, but was there fire?
>
> You know, that's a great question. I remember hearing of nutty
> plans to put a Mercury capsule on the Moon, usually in chapter four of
> _Every Space Race Book Ever_ where they talk about how NASA was shocked
> by Kennedy's proposal and thought up every idea as long as it was crazy
> enough, but I don't remember hearing an original-document source cite
> for any of them. Crazy Mercury derivative projects are probably even a
> tougher bid.
Always chapter four? There's probably an interesting historiography
study in that thought: at what point in books of speculation do the
really crazy ideas appear?
I read once -- no idea where, now -- that there was a "Mercury Mk I."
It was described as a slightly expanded version of the capsule we know
and love. It was intended to a single-seat ride that would be able to
change orbits and generally do all the things Gemini did. Dyna-Soar
without wings, I think, was probably the driving concept. I've never
seen any drawings of this -- unless some of the drawings of the
Mercury space station assume it is to be used for that.
I have, from Scott Lowther's incomparable site, an image of a rotary-
decelerated "Mercury." What's different is that it has two large
portholes about 45 degrees apart, and the heat shield is a disk-shaped
"shoe" mounted about two feet below the bottom of the capsule, on a
pylon. It's marked USAF, too. This may have been suggested as a
simple replacement for Dyna-Soar.
And then there's Mercury Mk II. The two seats were parallel, which
makes it maybe a foot larger in diameter. Did anyone do construction
or even formal drawings for that? I've seen only sales art.
There are lots of good questions still floating about. I'm willing to
bet that some of the guys involved took their drawings and notes home
when they retired; what lies forgotten in attics and basements? Some
of these ideas may still have value in a world where the boosters are
smaller than we remember.
Mike
Pat Flannery
> On Dec 2, 8:54 am, nebu...@-rpi-.edu (Joseph Nebus) wrote:
>
>>> There's smoke, but was there fire?
>>
>> You know, that's a great question. I remember hearing of nutty
>> plans to put a Mercury capsule on the Moon, usually in chapter four of
>> _Every Space Race Book Ever_ where they talk about how NASA was shocked
>> by Kennedy's proposal and thought up every idea as long as it was crazy
>> enough, but I don't remember hearing an original-document source cite
>> for any of them. Crazy Mercury derivative projects are probably even a
>> tougher bid.
>
> Always chapter four? There's probably an interesting historiography
> study in that thought: at what point in books of speculation do the
> really crazy ideas appear?
>
> I read once -- no idea where, now -- that there was a "Mercury Mk I."
Info on that here: http://www.astronautix.com/craft/mermarki.htm
> It was described as a slightly expanded version of the capsule we know
> and love. It was intended to a single-seat ride that would be able to
> change orbits and generally do all the things Gemini did. Dyna-Soar
> without wings, I think, was probably the driving concept. I've never
> seen any drawings of this -- unless some of the drawings of the
> Mercury space station assume it is to be used for that.
>
> I have, from Scott Lowther's incomparable site, an image of a rotary-
> decelerated "Mercury." What's different is that it has two large
> portholes about 45 degrees apart, and the heat shield is a disk-shaped
> "shoe" mounted about two feet below the bottom of the capsule, on a
> pylon. It's marked USAF, too. This may have been suggested as a
> simple replacement for Dyna-Soar.
There was a suggestion to stick a Mercury capsule in the nose of the
Dyna-Soar in case it got stranded in orbit; surprisingly, this actually
looked pretty workable:
http://up-ship.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/image2a.jpg
Pat
mh...@ohiohills.com
> I remember hearing of nutty
> plans to put a Mercury capsule on the Moon, usually in chapter four of
> _Every Space Race Book Ever_ where they talk about how NASA was shocked
> by Kennedy's proposal and thought up every idea as long as it was crazy
> enough, but I don't remember hearing an original-document source cite
> for any of them.
I think "The Pilgrim Project" had the guy flying in a Mercury capsule
on top of a Polaris on top of a booster I don't remember any more.
Mike
mh...@ohiohills.com
technology and operations - a chronology." Page 2 has this paragraph,
dated September 1, 1959:
--------
McDonnell Aircraft Corporation, St Louis, Missouri, issued a report on
the companies studies using a modified Mercury capsule to explore some
problems of space flight beyond the initial manned exploration of
space through Mercury. The 300page report discussed six follow-on
experiments: touchdown control, maneuver in orbit, self-contained
guidance, 14-day mission, manned reconnaissance, and lunar-orbit
reentry. These were more in the nature of technically supported
suggestions than firm proposals, but all six experiments could be
conducted with practical modifications of Mercury capsules.
McDonnell Engineering Report No. 6919, "Follow On Experiments, Project
Mercury Capsules, 1 September 1959," revised Oct. 5, 1959
---------
So it was at least sketched out to NASA. Does anyone know to whom I
might address a request for this paper?
Mike
Pat Flannery
>
> McDonnell Engineering Report No. 6919, "Follow On Experiments, Project
> Mercury Capsules, 1 September 1959," revised Oct. 5, 1959
> ---------
>
> So it was at least sketched out to NASA. Does anyone know to whom I
> might address a request for this paper?
I checked out every place I could think of on the web, but no luck.
I did find an illustration from it that shows that the Mercury has an
added jettisonable section behind the heat shield and retropack where
the orbital manuvering engines would be located:
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4002/p1a.htm
Your best bet would probably be to contact Boeing and see if they could
dig it up, but I wouldn't put much hope in that, as a lot of stuff gets
dumped during a merger.
If anyone would have a copy of this lying around, it would probably be
Scott Lowther: scottl...@ix.netcom.com
Pat
mh...@ohiohills.com
> On 12/6/2010 3:53 PM, mh...@ohiohills.com wrote:
> I checked out every place I could think of on the web, but no luck.
We need to trade our lists of usual sources. I found the same thing
you found.
> Your best bet would probably be to contact Boeing and see if they could
> dig it up, but I wouldn't put much hope in that, as a lot of stuff gets
> dumped during a merger.
There's a body of persons who remain angry about the loss of North
American's stuff.
> If anyone would have a copy of this lying around, it would probably be
> Scott Lowther: scottlowt...@ix.netcom.com
I asked; no reply.
I'll ask Boeing. I'd also like to get the one-man space stations
stuff.
Mike
Pat Flannery
>
>> If anyone would have a copy of this lying around, it would probably be
>> Scott Lowther: scottlowt...@ix.netcom.com
>
> I asked; no reply.
You just didn't phrase it right; you should have written:
Subject: "About your cat"
Message: "If you ever want to see Buttons again with his ears and tail
still attached, you had better damn-well dig up your copy of
McDonnell Engineering Report No. 6919, 'Follow On Experiments, Project
Mercury Capsules, 1 September 1959', scan it, and send it to me."
But be careful...he's well armed down there. :-D
Pat
mh...@ohiohills.com
>
> > I asked; no reply.
>
> You just didn't phrase it right; you should have written:
> Subject: "About your cat"
> Message: "If you ever want to see Buttons again with his ears and tail
> still attached, you had better damn-well dig up your copy of
> McDonnell Engineering Report No. 6919, 'Follow On Experiments, Project
> Mercury Capsules, 1 September 1959', scan it, and send it to me."
> But be careful...he's well armed down there. :-D
I love it.
Actually, I didn't ask. I didn't even think of him as a potential
source when I mentioned that report in an unrelated message. After
you suggested asking him I realized my comment might have been seen as
a request.
My cat, Nessie, is acting such that I'm likely to want to stuff the
damn thing into a capsule and send it to the Moon. Which reminds me
of the legends about a Russian midget in that mobile lander ... the
one the CIA stole for a few hours in Mexico.
Mike
Pat Flannery
> Actually, I didn't ask. I didn't even think of him as a potential
> source when I mentioned that report in an unrelated message. After
> you suggested asking him I realized my comment might have been seen as
> a request.
Don't worry, if he's got it, and there's a buck to be made off getting
you a copy of it, he'll be keen on the concept. :-)
> My cat, Nessie, is acting such that I'm likely to want to stuff the
> damn thing into a capsule and send it to the Moon. Which reminds me
> of the legends about a Russian midget in that mobile lander ... the
> one the CIA stole for a few hours in Mexico.
Are you referring to our old friend "Boris the Moon Monkey"?
http://www.astronautix.com/astros/bormp504.htm
I actually did some math once on whether the Soviets could have stuck a
stripped down Soyuz orbital module on the lander used for the Lunokhod
rover and send a cosmonaut on a one-way trip to the Moon atop a Proton.
The concept might have actually worked from a weight viewpoint.
Pat
mh...@ohiohills.com
> Are you referring to our old friend "Boris the Moon Monkey"?http://www.astronautix.com/astros/bormp504.htm
I read of a separate tale of a human.
> I actually did some math once on whether the Soviets could have stuck a
> stripped down Soyuz orbital module on the lander used for the Lunokhod
> rover and send a cosmonaut on a one-way trip to the Moon atop a Proton.
> The concept might have actually worked from a weight viewpoint.
Was this before or after "The Pilgrim Project" was published?
Mike
Pat Flannery
>
>> I actually did some math once on whether the Soviets could have stuck a
>> stripped down Soyuz orbital module on the lander used for the Lunokhod
>> rover and send a cosmonaut on a one-way trip to the Moon atop a Proton.
>> The concept might have actually worked from a weight viewpoint.
>
> Was this before or after "The Pilgrim Project" was published?
My concept was from around 2002-2005 IIRC; I went looking for it on
Google groups, but couldn't find it. I think it was in response to the
Boris Monkey mission, regarding if something like that would actually work.
I was trying to cut weight any way possible; the cosmonaut was lying in
a hammock for takeoff to cut a few pounds off by eliminating the seat.
He had no control over the landing - the spacecraft did a fully
automated landing and he hoped for the best.
It wasn't so much a rational idea as just an examination of if the
Soviets could have gotten a living person to the surface of the Moon
using a Proton rocket and pretty much off-the-shelf technology from
around 1970.
Pat
mh...@ohiohills.com
> My concept was from around 2002-2005 IIRC; I went looking for it on
> Google groups, but couldn't find it. I think it was in response to the
> Boris Monkey mission, regarding if something like that would actually work.
The Boris thing was interesting.
> I was trying to cut weight any way possible; the cosmonaut was lying in
> a hammock for takeoff to cut a few pounds off by eliminating the seat.
Wasn't that considered off and on for Apollo?
> He had no control over the landing - the spacecraft did a fully
> automated landing and he hoped for the best.
It didn't require a pilot.
> It wasn't so much a rational idea as just an examination of if the
> Soviets could have gotten a living person to the surface of the Moon
> using a Proton rocket and pretty much off-the-shelf technology from
> around 1970.
It's also not a completely insane idea, if one can get a good grouping
of successful landings.
Mike
Pat Flannery
>
>> He had no control over the landing - the spacecraft did a fully
>> automated landing and he hoped for the best.
>
> It didn't require a pilot.
Yeah but it had no way of knowing if it was coming down in a boulder
field like Apollo 11's LM was before Armstrong steered it to a new
landing site.
>> It wasn't so much a rational idea as just an examination of if the
>> Soviets could have gotten a living person to the surface of the Moon
>> using a Proton rocket and pretty much off-the-shelf technology from
>> around 1970.
>
> It's also not a completely insane idea, if one can get a good grouping
> of successful landings.
The Soviets did look into putting a homing beacon on a Moon lander so
that another one could land near it.
One idea was to land one of their unmanned lunar sample return
spacecraft first, then land a Lunokhod rover near it that could gather
up rock and soil samples and place them aboard the Earth return capsule
of the first spacecraft.
I actually played a coin-operated mechanical game based on this concept
over at the hotel we stayed at in Moscow* during Christmas/New Years
1978-79 that was the damnedest thing you ever laid eyes on; it had three
different boards that would mechanically rise into position when you
played - the first had you control the lander down from lunar orbit to
the surface, the second had you run the Lunokhod around on the surface
and get samples from rocks that would light up to take back to the
sample return stage, and the third had you fly the sample return stage
back to Russia.
It was really a mechanical wonder, and I'd loved to have a peek at its
innards to see how it all operated internally.
I don't know how old you are, but make in the 1970s there was a coin
operated game here in the US where you looked into a periscope and
torpedoed warships as they passed in front of you.
They had almost exactly the same game in Russia, except that all the
ships had American flags on them. I nailed most of the US Navy one
night. :-D
* At least I think it was in the Moscow hotel; we also spent a week in
Leningrad, and individual minor events in the two cities tend to get
melded into one in my memory at this late date.
Pat
mh...@ohiohills.com
> > It didn't require a pilot.
>
> Yeah but it had no way of knowing if it was coming down in a boulder
> field like Apollo 11's LM was before Armstrong steered it to a new
> landing site.
Well, there's that ....
> > It's also not a completely insane idea, if one can get a good grouping
> > of successful landings.
>
> The Soviets did look into putting a homing beacon on a Moon lander so
> that another one could land near it.
Didn't we do that with a Surveyor?
> One idea was to land one of their unmanned lunar sample return
> spacecraft first, then land a Lunokhod rover near it that could gather
> up rock and soil samples and place them aboard the Earth return capsule
> of the first spacecraft.
Seems to have added complications.
> I actually played a coin-operated mechanical game based on this concept
> over at the hotel we stayed at in Moscow* during Christmas/New Years
> 1978-79 that was the damnedest thing you ever laid eyes on; it had three
> different boards that would mechanically rise into position when you
> played - the first had you control the lander down from lunar orbit to
> the surface, the second had you run the Lunokhod around on the surface
> and get samples from rocks that would light up to take back to the
> sample return stage, and the third had you fly the sample return stage
> back to Russia.
Maybe it was a training system? I once found a tank training device
in a Chuck E. Cheese.
> It was really a mechanical wonder, and I'd loved to have a peek at its
> innards to see how it all operated internally.
Probably a State Secret that would have had you meeting KGB types.
> I don't know how old you are, but make in the 1970s there was a coin
> operated game here in the US where you looked into a periscope and
> torpedoed warships as they passed in front of you.
I remember that! I think we're about the same age.
> They had almost exactly the same game in Russia, except that all the
> ships had American flags on them. I nailed most of the US Navy one
> night. :-D
I don't recall flags on the ships I sank.
> * At least I think it was in the Moscow hotel; we also spent a week in
> Leningrad, and individual minor events in the two cities tend to get
> melded into one in my memory at this late date.
That's not your fault! All Soviet cities are supposed to look alike.
Mike
Pat Flannery
> On Dec 9, 12:58 pm, Pat Flannery<flan...@daktel.com> wrote:
>
>>> It didn't require a pilot.
>>
>> Yeah but it had no way of knowing if it was coming down in a boulder
>> field like Apollo 11's LM was before Armstrong steered it to a new
>> landing site.
>
> Well, there's that ....
The first time they tried to land one of their automated sample return
missions back during the Apollo 11 flight, their lunar maps were so poor
and their lack of understanding of how the MASCONs changed orbital paths
so severe that they flew it into the side of a mountain as it descended
towards its landing site.
>
>>> It's also not a completely insane idea, if one can get a good grouping
>>> of successful landings.
>>
>> The Soviets did look into putting a homing beacon on a Moon lander so
>> that another one could land near it.
>
> Didn't we do that with a Surveyor?
Apollo 12 landed next to Surveyor 3, but that was good aiming, as the
Surveyor didn't send out any sort of homing signal, having been long dead.
>> One idea was to land one of their unmanned lunar sample return
>> spacecraft first, then land a Lunokhod rover near it that could gather
>> up rock and soil samples and place them aboard the Earth return capsule
>> of the first spacecraft.
>
> Seems to have added complications.
It actually would have been fairly easy to do, and would have solved the
individual problem of both type spacecraft. The sample return spacecraft
had no way to adjust where it picked up samples from, and the Lunokhod
could have been modified to pick up choice samples from the landing
site, but had no way of getting them back to Earth.
Combining the two would have allowed the Lunokhod at least two weeks to
gather up samples in the lunar day (or a few months if you were willing
to gamble on it surviving a few lunar day-night cycles) then it could
have rolled over to the sample return spacecraft and had that
spacecraft's mechanical sample arm pick them up and put them into the
return capsule.
>
>> I actually played a coin-operated mechanical game based on this concept
>> over at the hotel we stayed at in Moscow* during Christmas/New Years
>> 1978-79 that was the damnedest thing you ever laid eyes on; it had three
>> different boards that would mechanically rise into position when you
>> played - the first had you control the lander down from lunar orbit to
>> the surface, the second had you run the Lunokhod around on the surface
>> and get samples from rocks that would light up to take back to the
>> sample return stage, and the third had you fly the sample return stage
>> back to Russia.
>
> Maybe it was a training system? I once found a tank training device
> in a Chuck E. Cheese.
No, it was obviously just a amusement game, but one mighty clever and
sophisticated one, you could hear gears whirring around and big things
moving inside of it as it shifted from one board set-up to the next.
Unfortunately, it would shut the lights off as it shifted between the
three set-ups, so you couldn't tell what exactly was going on, but it
involved large mirrors of some sort.
>> It was really a mechanical wonder, and I'd loved to have a peek at its
>> innards to see how it all operated internally.
>
> Probably a State Secret that would have had you meeting KGB types.
Oh, I got to run into that crew over at the Academy of Sciences.
I was shooting the breeze with some of the scientists about how the
Salyut program would evolve in the future, and I drew a thing on the
chalkboard showing two Salyuts docked end-to-end by a spherical module
with multiple docking ports that would be carried aloft by a Soyuz
instead of its orbital module.
Then two guys came into the room, and all talking stopped
immediately...one was dressed in black and over six feet high, thin as a
rail, smoking a cigarette, and wearing sunglasses...inside of a building
at night.
The other one (who did the talking, all in Russian) was around five feet
tall, dressed in a really awful brown suit, had a face like a fat rat
with - I kid you not- a big scar going down the left side of his face.
He said a few words to the scientists, and that was the end of all
conversation on any subject at all. You could tell they knew who these
two were, and were scared shitless of them.
>> I don't know how old you are, but make in the 1970s there was a coin
>> operated game here in the US where you looked into a periscope and
>> torpedoed warships as they passed in front of you.
>
> I remember that! I think we're about the same age.
I'm 53.
>> They had almost exactly the same game in Russia, except that all the
>> ships had American flags on them. I nailed most of the US Navy one
>> night. :-D
>
> I don't recall flags on the ships I sank.
The American version didn't have any.
>> * At least I think it was in the Moscow hotel; we also spent a week in
>> Leningrad, and individual minor events in the two cities tend to get
>> melded into one in my memory at this late date.
>
> That's not your fault! All Soviet cities are supposed to look alike.
They sure smell alike; they all smell of diesel exhaust, at least in
mid-winter.
Pat
Rick Jones
> The first time they tried to land one of their automated sample return
> missions back during the Apollo 11 flight, their lunar maps were so poor
> and their lack of understanding of how the MASCONs changed orbital paths
> so severe that they flew it into the side of a mountain as it descended
> towards its landing site.
I wonder if the LRO imaged that?
rick jones
--
web2.0 n, the dot.com reunion tour...
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... :)
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...
Pat Flannery
> Pat Flannery<fla...@daktel.com> wrote:
>> The first time they tried to land one of their automated sample return
>> missions back during the Apollo 11 flight, their lunar maps were so poor
>> and their lack of understanding of how the MASCONs changed orbital paths
>> so severe that they flew it into the side of a mountain as it descended
>> towards its landing site.
>
> I wonder if the LRO imaged that?
I never thought of that, there should be a noticeable debris field at
the point of impact. The mission was Luna 15:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_15
Pat
Alan Erskine
Not necessarily; it would depend on how hard they hit. If it was a
controlled descent, but landed on the side of a mountain, it may have
just rolled down the side.
hal...@aol.com
> On 11/12/2010 10:35 AM, Pat Flannery wrote:
>
> > On 12/10/2010 10:26 AM, Rick Jones wrote:
> >>> The first time they tried to land one of their automated sample return
> >>> missions back during the Apollo 11 flight, their lunar maps were so poor
> >>> and their lack of understanding of how the MASCONs changed orbital paths
> >>> so severe that they flew it into the side of a mountain as it descended
> >>> towards its landing site.
>
> >> I wonder if the LRO imaged that?
>
> > I never thought of that, there should be a noticeable debris field at
> > the point of impact. The mission was Luna 15:
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_15
>
> > Pat
>
> Not necessarily; it would depend on how hard they hit. If it was a
> controlled descent, but landed on the side of a mountain, it may have
> just rolled down the side.
has the debris from apollo 11s upper stage ever been located?
it was left in lunar orbit to detoriate and nasa didnt bother tracking
it.
too bad it wasnt carried partway back to earth and put in high earth
or heliospheric orbit......
yeah it would of added more work to the mission but after all it was
probably the most historic item ever in the history of mankind
Pat Flannery
> Not necessarily; it would depend on how hard they hit. If it was a
> controlled descent, but landed on the side of a mountain, it may have
> just rolled down the side.
From what I've read it hit at a pretty good turn of speed, as its
landing target was still some distance away and it was still braking its
orbital velocity on impact. So any remaining fuel in the descent stage
and all the fuel in the ascent stage that would carry the sample return
capsule probably detonated on impact.
They wouldn't have planned a landing on a mountainside in any case.
The return stage had to ascend vertically for the capsule to return to
the USSR; in fact, that's what decided where the landing site would be
for each particular mission. A really sharp Soviet mathematician figured
out how to backtrack a trajectory between the Moon and the Earth so that
their gravity fields meant that if you wanted a return capsule to come
down at point "X" in the USSR, you had to launch it towards the zenith
of the sky from point "Y" on the Moon at a particular date and time.
This greatly simplified the design of the sample return stage, as now it
didn't have to do any fancy maneuvers, but just go straight up till it
reached the required velocity, and the gravity of the two bodies would
do all the rest. That in turn brought the weight of the overall
lander/return stage system down to something that a Proton could carry,
and he received a major governmental award for his mathematical work.
Pat
mh...@ohiohills.com
> > Didn't we do that with a Surveyor?
>
> Apollo 12 landed next to Surveyor 3, but that was good aiming, as the
> Surveyor didn't send out any sort of homing signal, having been long dead.
I didn't know that.
> >> One idea was to land one of their unmanned lunar sample return
> >> spacecraft first, then land a Lunokhod rover near it that could gather
> >> up rock and soil samples and place them aboard the Earth return capsule
> >> of the first spacecraft.
>
> > Seems to have added complications.
>
> It actually would have been fairly easy to do, and would have solved the
> individual problem of both type spacecraft. The sample return spacecraft
> had no way to adjust where it picked up samples from, and the Lunokhod
> could have been modified to pick up choice samples from the landing
> site, but had no way of getting them back to Earth.
Why didn't someone else think of doing that?
> Combining the two would have allowed the Lunokhod at least two weeks to
> gather up samples in the lunar day (or a few months if you were willing
> to gamble on it surviving a few lunar day-night cycles) then it could
> have rolled over to the sample return spacecraft and had that
> spacecraft's mechanical sample arm pick them up and put them into the
> return capsule.
What sort of distance might have been involved between the two
landings?
> > Maybe it was a training system? I once found a tank training device
> > in a Chuck E. Cheese.
>
> No, it was obviously just a amusement game, but one mighty clever and
> sophisticated one, you could hear gears whirring around and big things
> moving inside of it as it shifted from one board set-up to the next.
I love stuff like that. The most amazing part is how simple the
systems are; the genius is in the fact that they are combined into one
device.
> Unfortunately, it would shut the lights off as it shifted between the
> three set-ups, so you couldn't tell what exactly was going on, but it
> involved large mirrors of some sort.
Did the CCCP have a patent system?
> > Probably a State Secret that would have had you meeting KGB types.
>
> Oh, I got to run into that crew over at the Academy of Sciences.
> I was shooting the breeze with some of the scientists about how the
> Salyut program would evolve in the future, and I drew a thing on the
> chalkboard showing two Salyuts docked end-to-end by a spherical module
> with multiple docking ports that would be carried aloft by a Soyuz
> instead of its orbital module.
Anybody turn white?
> Then two guys came into the room, and all talking stopped
> immediately...one was dressed in black and over six feet high, thin as a
> rail, smoking a cigarette, and wearing sunglasses...inside of a building
> at night.
When you're as cool as that ...
So they're real.
> The other one (who did the talking, all in Russian) was around five feet
> tall, dressed in a really awful brown suit, had a face like a fat rat
> with - I kid you not- a big scar going down the left side of his face.
The short ones can be nasty.
I'm going to stop laughing at the bad guys in old James Bond movies.
> He said a few words to the scientists, and that was the end of all
> conversation on any subject at all. You could tell they knew who these
> two were, and were scared shitless of them.
And you never heard any more about that, I presume.
> > I remember that! I think we're about the same age.
>
> I'm 53.
I'm 60.
> > That's not your fault! All Soviet cities are supposed to look alike.
>
> They sure smell alike; they all smell of diesel exhaust, at least in
> mid-winter.
I'm told the women are similar in a similar way. (I've only met
Ukranian women.)
Mike
Pat Flannery
>>
>> Apollo 12 landed next to Surveyor 3, but that was good aiming, as the
>> Surveyor didn't send out any sort of homing signal, having been long dead.
>
> I didn't know that.
The landing had one interesting aspect BTW; Moon dust kicked up by the
LM's descent engine hit the Surveyor with enough force due to the lack
of atmosphere to slow it down that it basically sandblasted the side of
the Surveyor facing the LM.
>>>> One idea was to land one of their unmanned lunar sample return
>>>> spacecraft first, then land a Lunokhod rover near it that could gather
>>>> up rock and soil samples and place them aboard the Earth return capsule
>>>> of the first spacecraft.
>>
>>> Seems to have added complications.
>>
>> It actually would have been fairly easy to do, and would have solved the
>> individual problem of both type spacecraft. The sample return spacecraft
>> had no way to adjust where it picked up samples from, and the Lunokhod
>> could have been modified to pick up choice samples from the landing
>> site, but had no way of getting them back to Earth.
>
> Why didn't someone else think of doing that?
The US might have come up with a similar idea involving the spacecraft
that was supposed to follow Surveyor, called Prospector. This was going
to have wheels on it to let it roll around on the lunar surface, but was
seen as a threat to Apollo, because it made manned exploration of the
Moon look less necessary, so it was canceled.
Today it's almost completely forgotten, but at the time it was the "next
big thing" in regards to the Moon, and showed up in toy form and in
magazines:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_RsCCizsWvNw/SnFSv6AV08I/AAAAAAAAEN4/JcHC31JziBk/s400/Moon+Prospector+T+in+a+Circle+1.jpg
I had this toy one as a kid:
>> Combining the two would have allowed the Lunokhod at least two weeks to
>> gather up samples in the lunar day (or a few months if you were willing
>> to gamble on it surviving a few lunar day-night cycles) then it could
>> have rolled over to the sample return spacecraft and had that
>> spacecraft's mechanical sample arm pick them up and put them into the
>> return capsule.
>
> What sort of distance might have been involved between the two
> landings?
I don't know, it never got beyond the initial planning stage. I imagine
they would have wanted to put them down as close together as possible so
the Lunokhod could easily spot the sample return spacecraft with its TV
cameras.
>
>>> Maybe it was a training system? I once found a tank training device
>>> in a Chuck E. Cheese.
>>
>> No, it was obviously just a amusement game, but one mighty clever and
>> sophisticated one, you could hear gears whirring around and big things
>> moving inside of it as it shifted from one board set-up to the next.
>
> I love stuff like that. The most amazing part is how simple the
> systems are; the genius is in the fact that they are combined into one
> device.
>
>> Unfortunately, it would shut the lights off as it shifted between the
>> three set-ups, so you couldn't tell what exactly was going on, but it
>> involved large mirrors of some sort.
>
> Did the CCCP have a patent system?
That's a damn good question; I don't know how they handled stuff like
that. For all I know, the inside of the game may have been classified,
and a repairman would need a security clearance to work on it. :-D
>
>>> Probably a State Secret that would have had you meeting KGB types.
>>
>> Oh, I got to run into that crew over at the Academy of Sciences.
>> I was shooting the breeze with some of the scientists about how the
>> Salyut program would evolve in the future, and I drew a thing on the
>> chalkboard showing two Salyuts docked end-to-end by a spherical module
>> with multiple docking ports that would be carried aloft by a Soyuz
>> instead of its orbital module.
>
> Anybody turn white?
Well, they were looking at it with great interest...the whole thing may
have been due to a screw-up about what they thought I did in the US - at
the time I was building a lot of model spacecraft and hoping to get a
job in Hollywood building models for movies.
I took a small model nuclear powered passenger spacecraft design along
with me to Russia as a gift for them (it was a ball to go through
customs with it, as the radiators for the nuclear power supply made it
look like some sort of tiny missile, and believe me, that really got the
attention of the customs inspectors, who didn't know if it was really
cool, or if I should be taken away for interrogation. :-D )
Anyway, I think the Russians got the idea I was some sort of model
builder for NASA, probably helped by the fact that I had Skylab and
Apollo-Soyuz mission patches on my parka, and were very keen on finding
out anything that I knew about their space program.
The thing that really blew everyone's mind in Russia that saw it was my
Polaroid SX-70 camera mounted on a handgrip mount with a remote trigger
that let you point it at things like a pistol and take photos of them.
When I was photographing spacecraft over at the Kosmos Pavilion in
Moscow I had around ten-twenty people around me that were absolutely
awestruck as the camera unfolded and then spat out the photos, and they
could watch them develop. I went through way too much film taking photos
of Russian kids standing in front of spacecraft for their parents, but
figured it was good propaganda for the US.
>> Then two guys came into the room, and all talking stopped
>> immediately...one was dressed in black and over six feet high, thin as a
>> rail, smoking a cigarette, and wearing sunglasses...inside of a building
>> at night.
>
> When you're as cool as that ...
I think they saw how Soviet secret police were portrayed in western
movies, thought that looked really cool, and started emulating the look.
> So they're real.
Oh, yes...I was half expecting to run into Boris Badenov, Natasha, and
Fearless Leader before I got out of the country.
One really amusing thing was the head of the honor guard over at the Red
Wall that took my flowers to put in front of where the dead cosmonaut's
ashes were interred (the rest of the tour group was of course having
theirs put in front of John Reed's ashes - Komarov saved the state the
cremation costs by getting incinerated in his Soyuz crash)...he was a
really nice guy who a dead ringer in height and looks for John Cleese,
which somehow seemed exactly right for the surreal world of the USSR,
which was very Monty Pythonesque indeed, except that in its comedy
skits, people _really do_ get killed.
>> The other one (who did the talking, all in Russian) was around five feet
>> tall, dressed in a really awful brown suit, had a face like a fat rat
>> with - I kid you not- a big scar going down the left side of his face.
>
> The short ones can be nasty.
Especially the ones with the scar.
But I bet its the tall thin one that breaks your fingers one-by-one
while giggling.
> I'm going to stop laughing at the bad guys in old James Bond movies.
I wonder where they keep the piranha tank with the bridge over it in the
Kremlin?
>> He said a few words to the scientists, and that was the end of all
>> conversation on any subject at all. You could tell they knew who these
>> two were, and were scared shitless of them.
>
> And you never heard any more about that, I presume.
No, that was the end of that; some of the scientists were saying they
thought they were spending too much money on space exploration, and not
enough on other science programs, and I imagine that was all on tape
somewhere about the time the tall skinny guy showed up with his pair of
pliers to discuss matters with the scientists who had said that.
>>> I remember that! I think we're about the same age.
>>
>> I'm 53.
>
> I'm 60.
>
>>> That's not your fault! All Soviet cities are supposed to look alike.
>>
>> They sure smell alike; they all smell of diesel exhaust, at least in
>> mid-winter.
>
> I'm told the women are similar in a similar way. (I've only met
> Ukranian women.)
Russian women smell of diesel exhaust? You've been listening to the
hooligan Olga Kurylenko and her constant insults of Russian women,
haven't you?
Well, two can play at that game, comrade!:
http://www.en.rian.ru/russia/20081027/117972155.html
Pat
mh...@ohiohills.com
> > Did the CCCP have a patent system?
>
> That's a damn good question; I don't know how they handled stuff like
> that. For all I know, the inside of the game may have been classified,
> and a repairman would need a security clearance to work on it. :-D
Didn't everyone need to be vetted to do anything?
I still have no idea how the Russians handled patents. Seems to me
that everything might be a potential State secret.
> I took a small model nuclear powered passenger spacecraft design along
> with me to Russia as a gift for them (it was a ball to go through
> customs with it, as the radiators for the nuclear power supply made it
> look like some sort of tiny missile, and believe me, that really got the
> attention of the customs inspectors, who didn't know if it was really
> cool, or if I should be taken away for interrogation. :-D )
Got any photos of that gadget?
It must have been interesting to be in Customs in places like that at
that time. One could never be sure that the toy just passed through
was really a toy.
> Anyway, I think the Russians got the idea I was some sort of model
> builder for NASA, probably helped by the fact that I had Skylab and
> Apollo-Soyuz mission patches on my parka, and were very keen on finding
> out anything that I knew about their space program.
Did you tell them anything interesting? Or did they understand you
knew no secrets (of which you were aware -- I transgressed once,
making some accurate guesses about submarine hull penetrators).
> The thing that really blew everyone's mind in Russia that saw it was my
> Polaroid SX-70 camera mounted on a handgrip mount with a remote trigger
> that let you point it at things like a pistol and take photos of them.
> When I was photographing spacecraft over at the Kosmos Pavilion in
> Moscow I had around ten-twenty people around me that were absolutely
> awestruck as the camera unfolded and then spat out the photos, and they
> could watch them develop. I went through way too much film taking photos
> of Russian kids standing in front of spacecraft for their parents, but
> figured it was good propaganda for the US.
They probably lost all the photos so the KGB could figure out how it
worked.
> > When you're as cool as that ...
>
> I think they saw how Soviet secret police were portrayed in western
> movies, thought that looked really cool, and started emulating the look.
That may happen more often than we'd like to hope.
>
> > So they're real.
>
> Oh, yes...I was half expecting to run into Boris Badenov, Natasha, and
> Fearless Leader before I got out of the country.
I presume persons like that really did exist as late as the early 60s,
at least to an extent sufficient to make the animated characters
appear plausible. One wonders what Americans would have been on a
Russian version of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
> One really amusing thing was the head of the honor guard over at the Red
> Wall that took my flowers to put in front of where the dead cosmonaut's
> ashes were interred (the rest of the tour group was of course having
> theirs put in front of John Reed's ashes - Komarov saved the state the
> cremation costs by getting incinerated in his Soyuz crash)...he was a
> really nice guy who a dead ringer in height and looks for John Cleese,
> which somehow seemed exactly right for the surreal world of the USSR,
> which was very Monty Pythonesque indeed, except that in its comedy
> skits, people _really do_ get killed.
Art imitates life.
> > The short ones can be nasty.
>
> Especially the ones with the scar.
> But I bet its the tall thin one that breaks your fingers one-by-one
> while giggling.
And I bet he had a distant cousin surnamed "Himmler"
> > I'm going to stop laughing at the bad guys in old James Bond movies.
>
> I wonder where they keep the piranha tank with the bridge over it in the
> Kremlin?
Who can we ask? It was probably in Siberia.
> > And you never heard any more about that, I presume.
>
> No, that was the end of that; some of the scientists were saying they
> thought they were spending too much money on space exploration, and not
> enough on other science programs, and I imagine that was all on tape
> somewhere about the time the tall skinny guy showed up with his pair of
> pliers to discuss matters with the scientists who had said that.
It seems that the USSR had the same questions raised that we heard
here. If Lenin et al. had paid more attention to faculty politics,
they might have had the same need to kill off everyone not following
Party line.
> > I'm told the women are similar in a similar way. (I've only met
> > Ukranian women.)
>
> Russian women smell of diesel exhaust? You've been listening to the
> hooligan Olga Kurylenko and her constant insults of Russian women,
> haven't you?
> Well, two can play at that game, comrade!:http://www.en.rian.ru/russia/20081027/117972155.html
A bit touchy, no?
Mike
Pat Flannery
>> I took a small model nuclear powered passenger spacecraft design along
>> with me to Russia as a gift for them (it was a ball to go through
>> customs with it, as the radiators for the nuclear power supply made it
>> look like some sort of tiny missile, and believe me, that really got the
>> attention of the customs inspectors, who didn't know if it was really
>> cool, or if I should be taken away for interrogation. :-D )
>
> Got any photos of that gadget?
No, I don't know if it ever even got photographed after I built it. It
was very straight-forward and pretty much built from spare model parts
on a lark. It had the advantage of being small, and tough enough to
easily transport...unlike this thing:
http://www.starshipmodeler.com/gallery/pf_disc.htm
I had several models of around half that size at the time of the Russian
trip, but they were all pretty fragile. The only other small one I had
was a destroyer class starship, but that would have sent the wrong
message. If I'd really wanted to freak them I would have brought the
three-foot-long battleship starship along, a ferocious looking thing
with six major and sixteen minor laser turrets on it, as well as
numerous flak guns and nuclear missile launchers to bombard a planetary
surface into oblivion.
> It must have been interesting to be in Customs in places like that at
> that time. One could never be sure that the toy just passed through
> was really a toy.
They did something really clever on customs on the way out of the
country (Customs on the way out were a lot simpler on the way
in...apparently there was nothing in the USSR that anyone would want to
smuggle out) The customs official looked me straight in the eye and said
something in Russian to me; I said I didn't speak Russian, and he let me
through; I think the idea was to see if someone did speak Russian and
was hiding the fact. For all I know he said "you will be shot at dawn"
and watched to see what my response was.
>> Anyway, I think the Russians got the idea I was some sort of model
>> builder for NASA, probably helped by the fact that I had Skylab and
>> Apollo-Soyuz mission patches on my parka, and were very keen on finding
>> out anything that I knew about their space program.
>
> Did you tell them anything interesting? Or did they understand you
> knew no secrets (of which you were aware -- I transgressed once,
> making some accurate guesses about submarine hull penetrators).
More details on that?
Closest I got to that was taking the subway the wrong way in Leningrad
and showing up at the naval base. I came up the escalator, took one
quick look around, and went right back into that subway station faster
than a striped ass baboon.
>> Oh, yes...I was half expecting to run into Boris Badenov, Natasha, and
>> Fearless Leader before I got out of the country.
>
> I presume persons like that really did exist as late as the early 60s,
> at least to an extent sufficient to make the animated characters
> appear plausible. One wonders what Americans would have been on a
> Russian version of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
I'll tell you one cartoon they did rip off, and that was "The Road
Runner Show". In their version the hard-luck predator is a wolf named
"Woof" and the road runner is a rabbit.
> It seems that the USSR had the same questions raised that we heard
> here. If Lenin et al. had paid more attention to faculty politics,
> they might have had the same need to kill off everyone not following
> Party line.
One of the odder aspects of Russia at that time was that there were no
advertising billboards anywhere...instead there were propaganda
billboards everywhere.
This hit some sort of a perfect apex at a Moscow electrical generation
plant that had "Communism Shall Electrify The World!" on its side in
giant metal letters...in English...can you imagine running into a
American power plant that had "Capitalism Shall Electrify The World!"
written on it in Cyrillic Russian?
The Russian artists Komar and Melamid were trained in doing Soviet
propaganda art, and have had a ball parodying it ever since; here,
Bolsheviks return from a party meeting, and get a little surprise from
having had a bit of bad vodka:
http://contimporary.org/app/webroot/uploads/project/Dict_KM.jpg
Here, the Muses honor their new master:
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/muller/vitaly-komar9-9-09_detail.asp?picnum=3
>>> I'm told the women are similar in a similar way. (I've only met
>>> Ukranian women.)
>>
>> Russian women smell of diesel exhaust? You've been listening to the
>> hooligan Olga Kurylenko and her constant insults of Russian women,
>> haven't you?
>> Well, two can play at that game, comrade!:http://www.en.rian.ru/russia/20081027/117972155.html
>
> A bit touchy, no?
I don't think they like her, or Ukrainians in general.
We have a lot of Ukrainians up here in North Dakota - during WW II they
described themselves as "Russians from Germany", but once the Cold War
started they became "Germans from Russia"...but they can't fool me...
they are all the wanton children of the unclean Ukraine.
Pat
Andre Lieven
>
> One of the odder aspects of Russia at that time was that there were no
> advertising billboards anywhere...instead there were propaganda
> billboards everywhere.
> This hit some sort of a perfect apex at a Moscow electrical generation
> plant that had "Communism Shall Electrify The World!" on its side in
> giant metal letters...in English...can you imagine running into a
> American power plant that had "Capitalism Shall Electrify The World!"
> written on it in Cyrillic Russian?
> The Russian artists Komar and Melamid were trained in doing Soviet
> propaganda art, and have had a ball parodying it ever since; here,
> Bolsheviks return from a party meeting, and get a little surprise from
> having had a bit of bad vodka:http://contimporary.org/app/webroot/uploads/project/Dict_KM.jpg
Along that line, have you ever read the DC Comics Elseworlds graphic
novel
where the infant Kal-El lands in the Glorious USSR ? It's titled Red
Son:
Andre
Pat Flannery
ar9-9-09_d...
>
> Along that line, have you ever read the DC Comics Elseworlds graphic
> novel
> where the infant Kal-El lands in the Glorious USSR ? It's titled Red
> Son:
I did a parody Superboy cover where exposure to Red Kyrtonite turns
Krypto into "Kyrpto-Communist" (thought balloon above Kyrpto's head:
"Lies...Injustice...and the _Soviet Way_!")
Frankly, that sounds like something you could actually picture them
using as a story plotline in the late 50's-early 60's.
Pat
Andre Lieven
> On 12/16/2010 9:51 PM, Andre Lieven wrote:
> ar9-9-09_d...
>
> > Along that line, have you ever read the DC Comics Elseworlds graphic
> > novel where the infant Kal-El lands in the Glorious USSR ? It's titled
> > Red Son:
>
> I did a parody Superboy cover where exposure to Red Kyrtonite turns
> Krypto into "Kyrpto-Communist" (thought balloon above Kyrpto's head:
> "Lies...Injustice...and the _Soviet Way_!")
I got the e-mail, thanks. I've saved a copy to my DC Comics picture
files.
> Frankly, that sounds like something you could actually picture them
> using as a story plotline in the late 50's-early 60's.
Heck yeah. I was reading those comics in the early mid 60s, and there
were reprint titles in that, so I saw a fair amount of 50s tales. This
would
have fit right in there and then.
Andre