Results of space exploration. History of Russian cosmonautics

On August 27, 1957, the first ever test of an intercontinental ballistic missile was successfully carried out in the Soviet Union. In the same year, on October 4, the world's first artificial Earth satellite was successfully launched, consolidating the leadership of the Soviet ... ... Geoeconomic Dictionary

mastering - see master; I; Wed Development / development of virgin and fallow lands. Assimilation new technology... Space exploration … Dictionary of many expressions

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Les Robinsons du Cosmos Genre: Science fiction

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A copy of the R 7 rocket in Moscow at VDNKh Cosmonautics (from the Greek κόσμος Universe and ναυτική the art of navigation, ship navigation) the process of space exploration using automatic and manned spacecraft. Term ... ... Wikipedia

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Books

• Space Exploration, Liz Barneu. Space has always fascinated and made you dream. But it was not until the middle of the 20th century that the first cosmonauts finally flew into space. Atlas "Exploration of Space" takes us on an incredible adventure ...
• , <не указано>... The edition includes sections: - Ten most important terms - Earth's atmosphere - Most important dates space exploration - Get to the moon - The first man in space - The first man on ...

Space exploration began from the most ancient times, when man was just learning to count by the stars, highlighting the constellations. And only just four hundred years ago, after the invention of the telescope, astronomy began to develop rapidly, bringing new discoveries to science.

The 17th century became a transitional century for astronomy, then the scientific method began to be applied in space exploration, thanks to which it was discovered Milky Way, other star clusters and nebulae. And with the creation of a spectroscope that can decompose the light emitted by a celestial object through a prism, scientists have learned to measure data from celestial bodies, such as temperature, chemical composition, mass and other measurements.

Starting from the end of the 19th century, astronomy entered the phase of numerous discoveries and achievements, the main breakthrough of science in the 20th century was the launch of the first satellite into space, the first manned flight into space, an exit into open space, landing on the moon and space missions to planets Solar system... The inventions of super-powerful quantum computers in the 19th century also promise many new studies, both of already known planets and stars, and the discovery of new distant corners of the universe.

The idea of \u200b\u200bhuman penetration into outer space was recently considered unrealistic. Yet space flight became a reality because it was preceded and apparently accompanied by a flight of fantasy.

Only 50 years have passed since man "stepped into space", but it seems that this happened a long time ago. Space flights have become commonplace, and yet every flight is a heroic act.

Time changes the pace of life, each era is characterized by specific scientific discoveries and their practical use. State of the art cosmonautics, when cosmonauts work at orbital stations in long-term space flights, when manned and automatic and cargo transport ships cruise along the Earth-orbital station route, the content of the work performed by cosmonauts allows us to speak about the exclusively national economic and scientific significance of practical space exploration

Objective and careful control over the state of the earth's atmosphere is possible only from space. Artificial communication satellites, space meteorological service, space geological exploration and much more solve important government issues and tasks. For the first time, information was obtained from space on the pollution of Lake Baikal, on the size of oil spills in the ocean, on the intensive offensive of deserts on forests and steppes.

Main names

People have long dreamed of flying to the stars, they offered hundreds of different flying machines that could overcome gravity and go into space. And only in the 20th century the dream of earthlings came true ...

And our compatriots made a huge contribution to the realization of this dream.

Nikolay Ivanovich Kibalchich(1897-1942), a native of the Chernigov province - an ingenious inventor, sentenced to death penalty for making bombs that killed Emperor Alexander II. While awaiting the execution of the sentence, in the casemates of the Peter and Paul Fortress, he created a project for a rocket guided by a man, but scientists learned about his ideas only 37 years later, in 1916. Some elements of this project are so well thought out that they are still used today.

Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) was not familiar with N.I. Kibalchich, but they can be considered siblings, if only because they were both faithful sons of Russia, and because both were obsessed and imbued with the idea of \u200b\u200bspace exploration. KE Tsiolkovsky, a great worker of Russian science and technology, is the creator of the theory of jet propulsion in interplanetary space. He developed the theory of multistage rockets, orbiting satellites of the Earth, considered in detail the possibility of traveling to other planets. The greatest merit of Tsiolkovsky to mankind is that he opened people's eyes to the real ways of realizing space flights. In his work "Exploration of world spaces by jet devices" (1903), a coherent theory of rocket propulsion was given and it was proved that it was the rocket that would be the means of future interplanetary flights.

Ivan Vsevolodovich Meshchersky (1859-1935) was born two years later than K.E. Tsiolkovsky. Theoretical studies on the mechanics of bodies of variable mass (derived an equation that is still the starting point for determining the thrust of a rocket engine), which played such a significant role in the development of rocketry, put his name in one of the honorable series of names of the conquerors of space.

And here Friedrich Arturovich Zander (1887-1933)), a native of Latvia, devoted his whole life practical implementation ideas for the implementation of space flights. He created a school for the theory and design of jet engines, and trained many talented followers of this important work. FA Zander burned a passion for space flights. He did not live to see the day the rocket was launched from his jet engine DR-2, which laid the first space route.

Sergey Pavlovich Korolev (1907-1966) - chief designer of rockets, the first artificial earth satellites and manned aircraft. We owe his talent and energy to the fact that the first spacecraft was created and successfully launched in our country.

With special pride I call the name of my countryman, Yuri Vasilyevich Kondratyuk. The cosmic biography of Novosibirsk began with the name of this self-taught scientist, who in 1929 published the results of his calculations in the book "Conquests of Interplanetary Space". It was on the basis of his works that American astronauts and Soviet automatic stations reached the moon. The war, which cut off his life, did not allow all his plans to come true.

Academician made an invaluable contribution to the development of cosmonautics in our country Mstislav Vsevolodovich Keldysh (1911-1978)... He headed the decisive section of work on the study and exploration of space. Revealing new scientific and technical problems, new horizons in the exploration of outer space, issues of organization and flight control - this is far from a complete circle of activities of MV Keldysh.

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin - the first cosmonaut of the Earth. The whole country admired his feat. He became a hero of the cosmos thanks to his will, perseverance and loyalty to a dream that originated in childhood. The tragic death cut short his life, but the trace of this life remained forever - both on Earth and in space.

Unfortunately, I cannot name everyone and tell in detail about all those scientists, engineers, test pilots and cosmonauts whose contribution to space exploration is enormous. But astronautics is unthinkable without the named names. (Appendix 1)

Chronology of events

October 4, 1957 was launched first satellite... The mass of Sputnik-1 was 83.6 kg. The Eighteenth International Astronautics Congress approved this day as the beginning space age... The first satellite “spoke Russian”. The New York Times wrote: “This particular symbol of the future liberation of man from the forces that binds him to Earth was created and launched by Soviet scientists and technicians. Everyone on Earth should be grateful to them. This is a feat that all humanity can be proud of ”.

1957 and 1958... became the years of the assault on the first space speed, the years of artificial earth satellites. A new field of science has appeared - satellite geodesy.

January 4, 1959... for the first time gravity was "overcome". The first lunar rocket "Dream" reported to the flying vehicle "Luna-1" weighing 361.3 kg the second space velocity (11.2 km / s, became the first artificial satellite of the Sun. Complex technical problems were solved, new data on the radiation field of the Earth were obtained and outer space From that time began the exploration of the moon.

At the same time, persistent and painstaking preparations for the first human flight in the history of the Earth continued. April 12, 1961 The one who was the first in the world to step into the unknown abyss of outer space, a citizen of the USSR, a pilot of the Air Force, ascended into the cockpit of the Vostok spacecraft Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin.Then there were other "East". AND October 12, 1964 the era of "Sunrise" began, which, compared to the "Vostoks", had new cabins that allowed astronauts to fly without spacesuits for the first time, new instrumentation, improved viewing conditions, improved soft landing systems: the landing speed was practically brought to zero.

IN march 1965... for the first time a man went into open space. Alexey Leonov flew in space next to the Voskhod-2 spacecraft at a speed of 28,000 km / h.

Then a new generation was brought to life with talented heads and golden hands. spaceships - "Unions". The Soyuz carried out extensive maneuvering, manual docking, the world's first experimental space station was created, and the first transfer from ship to ship was carried out. The orbital scientific stations of the Salyut type began to function in orbits and carry out their scientific watch. Docking with them is carried out by spacecraft of the Soyuz family, technical capabilities which allow you to change the altitude of the orbit, search for another ship, approach it and dock. "Unions" have acquired complete freedom in space, since they can carry out an autonomous flight without the participation of a ground command-measuring complex.

It should be noted that in 1969 year in space exploration, an event occurred comparable in importance to the first flight into space by Yu. A. Gagarin. The American Apollo 11 spacecraft reached the Moon, and two American astronauts landed on its surface on July 21, 1969.

Satellites of the "Lightning" type have built a radio bridge Earth - space - Earth. The Far East has become close, since radio signals on the Moscow-satellite-Vladivostok route run in 0.03 s.

1975 year in the history of space exploration was marked by an outstanding achievement - the joint flight in space of the Soviet Soyuz spacecraft and the US Apollo spacecraft.

Since 1975... is functioning the new kind space repeater for color TV programs - satellite "Rainbow".

November 2, 1978 The manned flight, which was very long in the history of cosmonautics (140 days), was successfully completed. Cosmonauts Vladimir Kovalenok and Alexander Ivanchenkov successfully landed 180 km southeast of Dzhezkazgan. During their work on board the Salyut-6 - Soyuz - Progress orbital complex, a wide program of scientific, technical and medical and biological experiments was carried out, research was carried out natural resources and the study of the natural environment.

I would like to note another outstanding event in space exploration. November 15, 1988... The reusable orbiter Buran, launched into space by the unique Energia rocket system, performed a two-orbit flight around the Earth and landed on the landing strip of the Baikonur cosmodrome. For the first time in the world, landing of a reusable ship was carried out in automatic mode

In the asset of our cosmonautics annual stay in orbit and fruitful research activities. The long space mission to the Mir station ended successfully for Vladimir Titov and Musa Makarov. They returned safely to their native land.

The history of the development of astronautics is a story about people with an extraordinary mind, about the desire to understand the laws of the Universe and about the desire to surpass the usual and the possible. The exploration of outer space, which began in the last century, has given the world a lot of discoveries. They concern both objects of distant galaxies and completely terrestrial processes. The development of cosmonautics contributed to the improvement of technology, led to discoveries in various fields of knowledge, from physics to medicine. However, this process took a lot of time.

Lost labor

The development of cosmonautics in Russia and abroad began long before the appearance. The first scientific developments in this regard were only theoretical and justified the very possibility of flights into space. In our country, one of the pioneers of cosmonautics at the tip of the pen was Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky. "One of" - because Nikolai Ivanovich Kibalchich was ahead of him, sentenced to death for the attempt on the life of Alexander II and a few days before being hanged had developed a project of an apparatus capable of delivering a man into space. It was in 1881, but Kibalchich's project was not published until 1918.

Rural teacher

Tsiolkovsky, whose article with theoretical foundations She entered space in 1903, did not know about Kibalchich's work. At that time he was teaching arithmetic and geometry at the Kaluga School. His famous scientific article "Exploration of world spaces with jet devices" touched upon the possibilities of using rockets in space. The development of cosmonautics in Russia, then still tsarist, began with Tsiolkovsky. He developed a project for the structure of a rocket capable of carrying a person to the stars, defended the idea of \u200b\u200bthe diversity of life in the Universe, spoke about the need to design artificial satellites and orbital stations.

In parallel, theoretical cosmonautics was developing abroad. However, there were practically no connections between scientists either at the beginning of the century or later, in the 30s. Robert Goddard, Hermann Obert and Esnault-Pelterie, American, German and French, respectively, who worked on similar problems, about the works of Tsiolkovsky for a long time knew nothing. Even then, the disunity of peoples affected the rate of development of the new industry.

Pre-war years and the Great Patriotic War

The development of cosmonautics continued in the 1920s-1940s by the Gas-Dynamic Laboratory and the Jet Propulsion Study Groups, and then the Jet Research Institute. The best engineering minds of the country worked within the walls of scientific institutions, including F. A. Tsander, M. K. Tikhonravov and S. P. Korolev. In the laboratories, they worked on the creation of the first jet vehicles using liquid and solid propellants, and a theoretical basis for astronautics was developed.

In the pre-war years and during the Second World War, jet engines and rocket planes were designed and created. During this period, for obvious reasons, much attention was paid to the development of cruise missiles and unguided rockets.

Korolev and "V-2"

The first ever modern combat missile was created in Germany during the war under the leadership of Wernher von Braun. Then V-2, or "V-2", did a lot of trouble. After the defeat of Germany, von Braun was sent to America, where he began to work on new projects, including the development of rockets for space flights.

In 1945, after the end of the war, a group of Soviet engineers arrived in Germany to study the V-2. Korolev was among them. He was appointed chief engineering officer of the Nordhausen Institute, formed in Germany in the same year. In addition to studying German missiles, Korolev and his colleagues were engaged in the development of new projects. In the 50s, the design bureau under his leadership created the R-7. This two-stage rocket was able to develop the first and ensure the launch of multi-ton vehicles into low-earth orbit.

Stages of development of astronautics

The American advantage in preparing spacecraft, associated with von Braun's work, was a thing of the past when the USSR launched the first satellite on October 4, 1957. From that moment on, the development of astronautics went faster. In the 50s and 60s, several experiments with animals were carried out. Dogs and monkeys have been in space.

As a result, scientists have collected invaluable information that made possible a comfortable stay in space for humans. At the beginning of 1959, the second space velocity was achieved.

Leading development russian cosmonautics was accepted all over the world when Yuri Gagarin was poisoned into the sky. This was, without exaggeration, the great event of 1961. From that day, man began to penetrate into the vast expanses surrounding the Earth.

• October 12, 1964 - an apparatus with several people on board was launched into orbit (USSR);
• March 18, 1965 - the first (USSR);
• February 3, 1966 - the first landing of the device on the Moon (USSR);
• December 24, 1968 - the first launch of a manned spacecraft into Earth satellite orbit (USA);
• July 20, 1969 - Day (USA)
• April 19, 1971 - the first space station was launched (USSR);
• July 17, 1975 - for the first time two ships (Soviet and American) docked;
• April 12, 1981 - The first Space Shuttle (USA) went into space.

Development of modern astronautics

Space exploration continues today. The successes of the past have borne fruit - a person has already visited the moon and is preparing for a direct acquaintance with Mars. However, manned flight programs are now developing less than projects of automatic interplanetary stations. The current state of astronautics is such that the spacecraft being created are capable of transmitting information about distant Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto to Earth, visiting Mercury and even investigating meteorites.
Space tourism is developing in parallel. Great value today have international contacts. gradually comes to the conclusion that great breakthroughs and discoveries happen faster and more often if the efforts and capabilities of different countries are combined.

September 1967 was marked by the proclamation of October 4 by the International Astronautical Federation as the world day of the beginning of the space age of mankind. It was on October 4, 1957 that a small ball with four antennas tore apart near-Earth space and marked the beginning of the space era, opened the golden age of astronautics. How it was, how space exploration took place, what were the first satellites, animals and people in space - this article will tell about all this.

Chronology of events

First, let's give short description chronology of events one way or another connected with the beginning of the space age.

Dreamers from the distant past

As long as humanity exists, so many stars have attracted it. Let's look for the origins of the birth of cosmonautics and the beginning of the space age in ancient folios and give just a few examples amazing facts and sagacious predictions. In the ancient Indian epic Bhagavad Gita (about the 15th century BC), a whole chapter is devoted to instructions for flying to the moon. On the clay tablets of the library of the Assyrian ruler Assurbanipal (3200 BC), King Ethan is told, flying to a height from which the Earth looked like "bread in a basket." The inhabitants of Atlantis left the Earth, flying to other planets. And the Bible tells about the flight of the prophet Elijah on a chariot of fire. But in 1500 AD, the inventor Wang Gu from Ancient China could have become the first astronaut if he had not died. He made a flying machine from kites... Which was supposed to take off when setting fire to 4 powder rockets. Since the 17th century, Europe has been raving about flights to the moon: first Johannes Kepler and Cyrano de Bergerac, and later Jules Verne with his idea of \u200b\u200bcannon flight.

Kibalchich, Hanswind and Tsiolkovsky

In 1881, alone peter and Paul Fortress, awaiting execution for the attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II, N. I. Kibalchich (1853-1881) draws a rocket space platform. The idea behind his project is the creation of jet thrust using combustible substances. His project will show up in the archives tsarist secret police only in 1917. At the same time, the German scientist G. Hansweed creates his own spacecraft, where the thrust is provided by the ejected bullets. And in 1883, the Russian physicist K.E. Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) described a ship with a jet engine, which was embodied in 1903 in a liquid-propellant rocket scheme. It is Tsiolkovsky who is considered to be the father of Russian cosmonautics, whose works were widely recognized by the world community already in the 1920s.

Just a satellite

The artificial satellite, which marked the beginning of the space age, was launched by the Soviet Union from the Baikonur cosmodrome on October 4, 1957. An aluminum sphere weighing 83.5 kilograms and a diameter of 58 centimeters, with four bayonet antennas and equipment inside, took off to a perigee height of 228 kilometers and an apogee of 947 kilometers. They called it simply "Sputnik-1". Such a simple device was a tribute to “ cold war»With the United States, which developed similar programs. America with their satellite Explorer-1 (launched on 02/01/1958) lagged behind us by almost six months. The Soviets who launched the artificial satellite first won the race. The victory, which has not yet been conceded, because the time has come for the first cosmonauts.

Dogs, cats and monkeys

The beginning of the space era in the USSR began with the first orbital flights of rootless tailed cosmonauts. The Soviets chose dogs as astronauts. America is monkeys and France is cats. Immediately after Sputnik-1, Sputnik-2 flew into space with the most unfortunate dog on board - the mongrel Laika. It was November 3, 1957, and the return of Sergei Korolev's favorite Laika was not planned. The well-known Belka and Strelka with their triumphant flight and return to Earth on August 19, 1960 were not the first and far from the last. France launched the cat Felicetta into space (October 18, 1963), and the United States, after the rhesus monkey (September 1961), sent the chimpanzee Ham (January 31, 1961), who became a national hero, to explore space.

The conquest of space by man

And here the Soviet Union was the first. On April 12, 1961, near the village of Tyuratam (Baikonur cosmodrome), the R-7 carrier rocket with the Vostok-1 spacecraft took off into the sky. Air Force Major Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin went on the first space flight in it. At an altitude of perigee of 181 km and apogee of 327 km, it flew around the Earth and, at 108 minutes of flight, landed in the vicinity of the village of Smelovka (Saratov region). The world was blown up by this event - agrarian and bast shoes Russia overtook the high-tech States, and Gagarin's "Let's go!" became an anthem for space fans. It was an event of a planetary scale and incredible significance for all mankind. Here America lagged behind the Union by a month - on May 5, 1961, the Redstone carrier rocket carrying the Mercury-3 spacecraft from Cape Canaveral into orbit brought the American cosmonaut Captain 3rd Rank of the Air Force Alan Shepard.

During the space flight on March 18, 1965, the second pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Leonov (the first pilot was Colonel Pavel Belyaev) went into open space and stayed there for 20 minutes, moving away from the ship at a distance of up to five meters. He confirmed that a person can be and work in outer space. In June, American cosmonaut Edward White spent just a minute longer in outer space and proved the possibility of maneuvering in outer space using a hand-held compressed-gas pistol based on the principle of a jet. The beginning of the space age of man in outer space has come true.

The first human casualties

Space has given us many discoveries and heroes. However, the beginning of the space age was marked by sacrifices. The first to die were the Americans Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee on January 27, 1967. The Apollo 1 spacecraft burned down in 15 seconds due to a fire inside. The first Soviet cosmonaut to die was Vladimir Komarov. On October 23, 1967, he successfully left orbit on the Soyuz-1 spacecraft after an orbital flight. But the main parachute of the descent capsule did not open, and it crashed into the ground at a speed of 200 km / h and completely burned out.

Lunar program "Apollo"

On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin felt the surface of the moon under their feet. So the flight of the Apollo 11 spacecraft with the Eagle lunar module on board ended. America did seize the lead in space exploration from Soviet Union... And although later there were many publications about the falsification of the fact of the American landing on the moon, today everyone knows Neil Armstrong as the first person to set foot on its surface.

Orbital stations "Salyut"

The Soviets were also the first to launch orbital stations - spacecraft for long-term stay of cosmonauts. Salyut is a series of manned stations, the first of which was launched into orbit on April 19, 1971. In total, in this project, 14 space objects were launched into orbit under the military program "Almaz" and the civil one - "Long-term orbital station". Including the station "Mir" ("Salyut-8"), which was in orbit from 1986 to 2001 (flooded at the cemetery of spaceships in Pacific 23.03.2001).

First International Space Station

The ISS has a complex history of creation. Started as american project Freedom (1984), which in 1992 became a joint Mir-Shuttle project and today is an international project with 14 participating countries. The first ISS module launched the Proton-K launch vehicle into orbit on November 20, 1998. Subsequently, the participating countries removed other connecting blocks, and today the station weighs about 400 tons. It was planned to operate the station until 2014, but the project has been extended. And it is jointly managed by four agencies - the Space Flight Control Center (Korolev, Russia), the V.I. Johnson (Houston, USA), European Space Agency Command Center (Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany) and Aerospace Research Agency (Tsukuba, Japan). A crew of 6 cosmonauts is at the station. The station's program provides for the constant presence of people. By this indicator it has already broken the record for the Mir station (3664 days of continuous stay). The food is completely autonomous - solar panels weigh almost 276 kilograms, power up to 90 kilowatts. The station houses laboratories, greenhouses and living quarters (five bedrooms), a gym and bathrooms.

A few facts about the ISS

The International Space Station is the most expensive project in the world today. More than $ 157 billion has already been spent on it. The station's orbital speed is 27.7 thousand km / h, with a weight of more than 41 tons. Astronauts observe sunrise and sunset at the station every 45 minutes. The "Disc of Immortality", a device containing the digitized DNA of prominent representatives of humanity, was delivered to the station in 2008. The purpose of this collection is to preserve human DNA in the event of a global catastrophe. In laboratories space station quails are born and flowers bloom. Viable bacterial spores were found on its skin, which makes one think about the possible expansion of space.

Space commercialization

Humanity cannot imagine itself without space. In addition to all the advantages of practical space exploration, the commercial component is also developing. Since 2005, private spaceports have been under construction in the United States (Mojava), the United Arab Emirates (Ras Alm Khaimah) and Singapore. Virgin Galactic Corporation (USA) plans space cruises for seven thousand tourists at an affordable price of $ 200 thousand. And the famous space merchant Robert Bigelow, owner of the Budget Suites of America hotel chain, announced the project of the first orbital Skywalker hotel. For $ 35 billion, Space Adventures (a partner of the Roscosmos corporation) will send you on a space journey for up to 10 days tomorrow. Paying another 3 billion, you can go into outer space. The company has already organized tours for seven tourists, one of them is the head of the circus du Soleil Guy Laliberté. The same company is preparing a new travel product for 2018 - a trip to the moon.

Dreams and fantasies have come true. Once overcoming gravity, humanity is no longer able to stop in its pursuit of the stars, galaxies and universes. I would like to believe that we will not play too much, and we will continue to be surprised and delighted by the myriad of stars in the night sky. All the same mysterious, alluring and fantastic, as in the first days of creation.