Spaceship: overcome gravity

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Spaceship is perhaps the most significant invention in the history of mankind. This is a real scientific and technological breakthrough, which allowed us to touch the secrets of the Universe and to know the world outside our home planet. Throughout its history, human civilization has had to go through a long and thorny path full of mistakes and failures, the crowning achievement of which was overcoming the Earth's gravity and entering the near-Earth space. The spaceship has become a symbol and pinnacle of the technological genius of the earthlings.

In addition, these aircraft are a kind of "vanity fair" of the most advanced and developed powers in the world. When creating any spacecraft, all the best achievements of mankind are used - the most progressive developments, technologies and materials. The on-board equipment of such devices is always the most modern. Often the spacecraft is a testing ground fortesting the latest discoveries and inventions.

Not so long ago, during the Cold War, space research was the scene of fierce competition, intense rivalry and even military-political confrontation between the two world superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union. And it is very symbolic that it was the Russian man who became the first conqueror of outer space hostile to man. The significance of this event for the general history of mankind cannot be overestimated.

We are very shortly separated from the golden date that marked the beginning of a new era in the development of mankind - April 12, 1961, when the legendary Vostok spacecraft, piloted by Yuri Gagarin, stormed near-Earth space. And although dozens of manned vehicles have been in space since then, it was the first flight that became the harbinger of a new era of mankind.

A spacecraft in the modern interpretation is a device that is designed to deliver astronauts into outer space and then return them back to Earth. Therefore, the technical requirements for spacecraft are much more stringent than for unmanned research vehicles. The main task of the designers here is to create such flight conditions that will be safe for people.

The device, which will become the home of astronauts for several hours or days, must have perfect systems not only for navigation and control, but also for life support. All this was fully"Vostok", which was launched into orbit by a launch vehicle of the same name. The total prelaunch weight of the complex was 287 tons.

Structurally, this device consisted of two modules - the descent capsule and the instrument compartment. The first had a spherical streamlined shape, which significantly reduced the overload during the passage of dense layers of the atmosphere. The ship's hermetic hull was made of high-strength aluminum alloy. Inside the descent capsule, where the astronauts were to spend the entire flight, the designers placed only the most necessary life support and control systems. Everything else was in the instrument compartment. The internal volume of the descent module was 1.6 m3. There was also a thermoregulation system containing a liquid-air heat exchanger. "Vostok" was the most advanced technique of its time. All the advanced Soviet engineering and design thought was concentrated in it and a lot of secret developments were used.

The Soyuz spacecraft, which replaced the legendary Vostok and the first multi-seat spacecraft, Voskhod, was even more technically advanced. In all respects, it was significantly superior to similar aircraft of the “probable enemy” (and in fact, quite specific).

technology for the exchange of astronauts between ships and many other equally complex events.

Soyuz, which already had three autonomous modules - an instrument-aggregate compartment, an orbital part and a traditional descent capsule, made a grandiose contribution to the exploration and conquest of outer space. With all the variety and perfection of modern space technology, one should not forget that humanity is only at the beginning of a long journey to the stars.