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Introduction

In the second half of the 20th century. Humanity has stepped onto the threshold of the Universe - it has entered outer space. Our Motherland opened the road to space. The first artificial Earth satellite, which opened the space age, was launched by the former Soviet Union, the world's first cosmonaut is a citizen of the former USSR.

Cosmonautics is a huge catalyst for modern science and technology, which in an unprecedentedly short time has become one of the main levers of the modern world process. It stimulates the development of electronics, mechanical engineering, materials science, computer technology, energy and many other areas of the national economy.

Scientifically, humanity strives to find in space the answer to such fundamental questions as the structure and evolution of the Universe, the formation of the Solar system, the origin and development of life. From hypotheses about the nature of planets and the structure of space, people moved on to a comprehensive and direct study of celestial bodies and interplanetary space with the help of rocket and space technology.

In space exploration, humanity will have to explore various areas of outer space: the Moon, other planets and interplanetary space.

The current level of space technology and the forecast for its development show that the main goal of scientific research using space means, apparently, in the near future will be our Solar system. The main tasks will be the study of solar-terrestrial connections and the Earth-Moon space, as well as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and other planets, astronomical research, medical and biological research in order to assess the influence of flight duration on the human body and its performance.

In principle, the development of space technology should be ahead of the “Demand” associated with solving pressing national economic problems. The main tasks here are launch vehicles, propulsion systems, spacecraft, as well as supporting facilities (command and measurement and launch complexes, equipment, etc.), ensuring progress in related branches of technology, directly or indirectly related to the development of astronautics.

Before flying into outer space, it was necessary to understand and use in practice the principle of jet propulsion, learn how to make rockets, create a theory of interplanetary communications, etc.

Rocketry is not a new concept. Man went to the creation of powerful modern launch vehicles through millennia of dreams, fantasies, mistakes, searches in various fields of science and technology, accumulation of experience and knowledge.

The principle of operation of a rocket is its movement under the influence of recoil force, the reaction of a stream of particles thrown away from the rocket. In a rocket. those. In a device equipped with a rocket engine, escaping gases are formed due to the reaction of the oxidizer and fuel stored in the rocket itself. This circumstance makes the operation of the rocket engine independent of the presence or absence of a gaseous environment. Thus, the rocket is an amazing structure, capable of moving in airless space, i.e. not reference, outer space.

A special place among Russian projects for the application of the jet principle of flight is occupied by the project of N.I. Kibalchich, a famous Russian revolutionary who, despite his short life (1853-1881), left a deep mark in the history of science and technology. Having extensive and deep knowledge of mathematics, physics and especially chemistry, Kibalchich made homemade shells and mines for the Narodnaya Volya members. The "Aeronautical Instrument Project" was the result of Kibalchich's long-term research work on explosives. He, essentially, was the first to propose not a rocket engine adapted to any existing aircraft, as other inventors did, but a completely new (rocket-dynamic) device, the prototype of modern manned spacecraft, in which the thrust of rocket engines serves to directly create lift. force supporting the aircraft in flight. Kibalchich's aircraft was supposed to function on the principle of a rocket!

But because Kibalchich was imprisoned for the attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II, but the design of his aircraft was discovered only in 1917 in the archives of the police department.

So, by the end of the last century, the idea of using jet instruments for flights gained large scale in Russia. And the first who decided to continue research was our great compatriot Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). Already in 1883 he gave a description of a ship with a jet engine. Already in 1903, Tsiolkovsky, for the first time in the world, made it possible to construct a liquid rocket design. Tsiolkovsky's ideas received universal recognition back in the 1920s. And the brilliant successor of his work, S.P. Korolev, a month before the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, said that the ideas and works of Konstantin Eduardovich would attract more and more attention as rocket technology developed, in which he turned out to be absolutely right.

Beginning of the space age

And so, 40 years after the design of the aircraft created by Kibalchich was found, on October 4, 1957, the former USSR launched the world's first artificial Earth satellite. The first Soviet satellite made it possible for the first time to measure the density of the upper atmosphere, obtain data on the propagation of radio signals in the ionosphere, work out issues of insertion into orbit, thermal conditions, etc. The satellite was an aluminum sphere with a diameter of 58 cm and a mass of 83.6 kg with four whip antennas of length 2. 4-2.9 m. The satellite’s sealed housing housed equipment and power supplies. The initial orbital parameters were: perigee altitude 228 km, apogee altitude 947 km, inclination 65.1 deg. On November 3, the Soviet Union announced the launch of a second Soviet satellite into orbit. In a separate hermetic cabin there was a dog Laika and a telemetry system to record its behavior in zero gravity. The satellite was also equipped with scientific instruments to study solar radiation and cosmic rays.

On December 6, 1957, the United States attempted to launch the Avangard-1 satellite using a launch vehicle developed by the Naval Research Laboratory. After ignition, the rocket rose above the launch table, but a second later the engines turned off and the rocket fell onto the table, exploding on impact .

On January 31, 1958, the Explorer 1 satellite was launched into orbit, the American response to the launch of Soviet satellites. In terms of size and weight, it was not a candidate for record holder. Being less than 1 m long and only ~15.2 cm in diameter, it had a mass of only 4.8 kg.

However, its payload was attached to the fourth and final stage of the Juno 1 launch vehicle. The satellite, together with the rocket in orbit, had a length of 205 cm and a mass of 14 kg. It was equipped with external and internal temperature sensors, erosion and impact sensors to detect micrometeorite flows, and a Geiger-Muller counter to record penetrating cosmic rays.

An important scientific result of the satellite's flight was the discovery of the radiation belts surrounding the Earth. The Geiger-Muller counter stopped counting when the device was at apogee at an altitude of 2530 km, the perigee altitude was 360 km.

On February 5, 1958, the United States made a second attempt to launch the Avangard-1 satellite, but it also ended in an accident, like the first attempt. Finally, on March 17, the satellite was launched into orbit. Between December 1957 and September 1959, eleven attempts were made to place Avangard 1 into orbit, only three of which were successful.

Between December 1957 and September 1959, eleven attempts were made to place the Avangard into orbit.

Both satellites introduced a lot of new things into space science and technology (solar panels, new data on the density of the upper atmosphere, accurate mapping of islands in the Pacific Ocean, etc.) On August 17, 1958, the United States made the first attempt to send satellites from Cape Canaveral to the vicinity of Moon probe with scientific equipment. It turned out to be unsuccessful. The rocket took off and flew only 16 km. The first stage of the rocket exploded 77 minutes into the flight. On October 11, 1958, a second attempt was made to launch the Pioneer 1 lunar probe, which was also unsuccessful. The next few launches also turned out to be unsuccessful, only on March 3, 1959, Pioneer-4, weighing 6.1 kg, partially completed its task: it flew past the Moon at a distance of 60,000 km (instead of the planned 24,000 km).

As with the launch of the Earth satellite, priority in launching the first probe belongs to the USSR; on January 2, 1959, the first man-made object was launched, which was placed on a trajectory passing fairly close to the Moon into the orbit of the Sun's satellite. Thus, Luna 1 reached the second escape velocity for the first time. Luna 1 had a mass of 361.3 kg and flew past the Moon at a distance of 5500 km. At a distance of 113,000 km from Earth, a cloud of sodium vapor was released from a rocket stage docked to Luna 1, forming an artificial comet. Solar radiation caused a bright glow of sodium vapor and optical systems on Earth photographed the cloud against the background of the constellation Aquarius.

Luna 2, launched on September 12, 1959, made the world's first flight to another celestial body. The 390.2-kilogram sphere contained instruments that showed that the Moon does not have a magnetic field or radiation belt.

The automatic interplanetary station (AMS) “Luna-3” was launched on October 4, 1959. The weight of the station was 435 kg. The main purpose of the launch was to fly around the Moon and photograph its reverse side, invisible from Earth. Photographing was carried out on October 7 for 40 minutes from an altitude of 6200 km above the Moon.

Man in space

On April 12, 1961, at 9:07 a.m. Moscow time, several tens of kilometers north of the village of Tyuratam in Kazakhstan, at the Soviet Baikonur Cosmodrome, the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile was launched, in the bow compartment of which the manned spacecraft “Vostok” was located with Air Force Major Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin on board. The launch was successful. The spacecraft was launched into an orbit with an inclination of 65 degrees, a perigee altitude of 181 km and an apogee altitude of 327 km and completed one orbit around the Earth in 89 minutes. At 108 minutes after launch, it returned to Earth, landing near the village of Smelovka, Saratov region. Thus, 4 years after the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, the Soviet Union for the first time in the world carried out a human flight into outer space.

The spacecraft consisted of two compartments. The descent module, which was also the cosmonaut's cabin, was a sphere with a diameter of 2.3 m, coated with an ablative material for thermal protection during reentry. The spacecraft was controlled automatically and by the astronaut. During the flight it was continuously maintained with the Earth. The atmosphere of the ship is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen under a pressure of 1 atm. (760 mmHg). Vostok-1 had a mass of 4730 kg, and with the last stage of the launch vehicle 6170 kg. The Vostok spacecraft was launched into space 5 times, after which it was declared safe for human flight.

Four weeks after Gagarin's flight on May 5, 1961, Captain 3rd Rank Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut.

Although it did not reach Earth orbit, it rose above the Earth to an altitude of about 186 km. Shepard, launched from Cape Canaveral into the Mercury 3 spacecraft using a modified Redstone ballistic missile, spent 15 minutes 22 seconds in flight before landing in the Atlantic Ocean. He proved that a person in conditions of weightlessness can exercise manual control of a spacecraft. The Mercury spacecraft was significantly different from the Vostok spacecraft.

It consisted of only one module - a manned capsule in the shape of a truncated cone with a length of 2.9 m and a base diameter of 1.89 m. Its sealed nickel alloy shell was lined with titanium to protect it from heating during reentry.

The atmosphere inside Mercury consisted of pure oxygen under a pressure of 0.36 at.

On February 20, 1962, the United States reached low-Earth orbit. Mercury 6, piloted by Navy Lieutenant Colonel John Glenn, was launched from Cape Canaveral. Glenn spent only 4 hours 55 minutes in orbit, completing 3 orbits before a successful landing. The purpose of Glenn's flight was to determine the possibility of a person working in the Mercury spacecraft. The last time Mercury was launched into space was May 15, 1963.

On March 18, 1965, the Voskhod spacecraft was launched into orbit with two cosmonauts on board - the ship's commander, Colonel Pavel Ivarovich Belyaev, and the co-pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. Immediately after entering orbit, the crew cleared themselves of nitrogen by inhaling pure oxygen. Then the airlock compartment was deployed: Leonov entered the airlock compartment, closed the spacecraft hatch cover and for the first time in the world made an exit into outer space. The cosmonaut with an autonomous life support system was outside the spacecraft cabin for 20 minutes, at times moving away from the spacecraft at a distance of up to 5 m. During the exit, he was connected to the spacecraft only by telephone and telemetry cables. Thus, the possibility of an astronaut staying and working outside the spacecraft was practically confirmed.

On June 3, the spacecraft Gemeny 4 was launched with captains James McDivitt and Edward White. During this flight, which lasted 97 hours and 56 minutes, White exited the spacecraft and spent 21 minutes outside the cockpit testing the ability to maneuver in space using a hand-held compressed gas jet gun.

Unfortunately, space exploration was not without casualties. On January 27, 1967, the crew preparing to make the first manned flight under the Apollo program died during a fire inside the spacecraft, burning out in 15 seconds in an atmosphere of pure oxygen. Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee became the first American astronauts to die on space mission. On April 23, the new Soyuz-1 spacecraft was launched from Baikonur, piloted by Colonel Vladimir Komarov. The launch was successful.

On the 18th orbit, 26 hours 45 minutes after launch, Komarov began orientation to enter the atmosphere. All operations went well, but after entering the atmosphere and braking, the parachute system failed. The astronaut died instantly when the Soyuz hit the Earth at a speed of 644 km/h. Subsequently, Space claimed more than one human life, but these victims were the first.

It should be noted that in terms of natural science and production, the world faces a number of global problems, the solution of which requires the united efforts of all peoples. These are problems of raw materials, energy, environmental control and biosphere conservation, and others. Space research, one of the most important areas of the scientific and technological revolution, will play a huge role in their fundamental solution.

Cosmonautics clearly demonstrates to the whole world the fruitfulness of peaceful creative work, the benefits of combining the efforts of different countries in solving scientific and economic problems.

What problems do astronautics and the astronauts themselves face?

Let's start with life support. What is life support? Life support in space flight is the creation and maintenance during the entire flight in the living and working compartments of spacecraft. such conditions that would provide the crew with sufficient performance to complete the assigned task and a minimum likelihood of pathological changes occurring in the human body. How to do this? It is necessary to significantly reduce the degree of human exposure to adverse external factors of space flight - vacuum, meteoric bodies, penetrating radiation, weightlessness, overloads; supply the crew with substances and energy without which normal human life is not possible - food, water, oxygen and food; remove waste products of the body and substances harmful to health released during the operation of spacecraft systems and equipment; provide human needs for movement, rest, external information and normal working conditions; organize medical monitoring of the crew’s health status and maintain it at the required level. Food and water are delivered into space in appropriate packaging, and oxygen is delivered in a chemically bound form. If you do not restore waste products, then for a crew of three people for one year you will need 11 tons of the above products, which, you see, is a considerable weight, volume, and how will all this be stored throughout the year?!

In the near future, regeneration systems will make it possible to almost completely reproduce oxygen and water on board the station. They began to use water after washing and showering, purified in a regeneration system, a long time ago. The exhaled moisture is condensed in the refrigeration-drying unit and then regenerated. Breathable oxygen is extracted from purified water by electrolysis, and hydrogen gas reacts with carbon dioxide coming from the concentrator to form water, which powers the electrolyzer. The use of such a system makes it possible to reduce the mass of stored substances in the considered example from 11 to 2 tons. Recently, it has been practiced to grow various types of plants directly on board the ship, which makes it possible to reduce the supply of food that needs to be taken into space; Tsiolkovsky mentioned this in his works.

Space science

Space exploration helps in many ways in the development of sciences:

On December 18, 1980, the phenomenon of the flow of particles from the Earth's radiation belts under negative magnetic anomalies was established.

Experiments carried out on the first satellites showed that the near-Earth space outside the atmosphere is not “empty” at all. It is filled with plasma, permeated with streams of energy particles. In 1958, the Earth's radiation belts were discovered in near space - giant magnetic traps filled with charged particles - protons and high-energy electrons.

The highest intensity of radiation in the belts is observed at altitudes of several thousand km. Theoretical estimates showed that below 500 km. There should be no increased radiation. Therefore, the discovery of the first K.K. during flights was completely unexpected. areas of intense radiation at altitudes up to 200-300 km. It turned out that this is due to anomalous zones of the Earth's magnetic field.

The study of the Earth's natural resources using space methods has spread, which has greatly contributed to the development of the national economy.

The first problem that faced space researchers in 1980 was a complex of scientific research, including most of the most important areas of space natural science. Their goal was to develop methods for thematic interpretation of multispectral video information and their use in solving problems in the geosciences and economic sectors. These tasks include: studying the global and local structures of the earth’s crust to understand the history of its development.

The second problem is one of the fundamental physical and technical problems of remote sensing and is aimed at creating catalogs of radiation characteristics of earthly objects and models of their transformation, which will make it possible to analyze the state of natural formations at the time of shooting and predict their dynamics.

A distinctive feature of the third problem is the focus on the radiation characteristics of large regions up to the planet as a whole, using data on the parameters and anomalies of the Earth’s gravitational and geomagnetic fields.

Exploring the Earth from space

Man first appreciated the role of satellites for monitoring the condition of agricultural land, forests and other natural resources of the Earth only a few years after the advent of the space age. It began in 1960, when, with the help of the Tiros meteorological satellites, map-like outlines of the globe lying under the clouds were obtained. These first black-and-white TV images provided very little insight into human activity, but it was nonetheless a first step. Soon new technical means were developed that made it possible to improve the quality of observations. Information was extracted from multispectral images in the visible and infrared (IR) regions of the spectrum. The first satellites designed to make maximum use of these capabilities were the Landsat type. For example, Landsat-D, the fourth in the series, observed the Earth from an altitude of more than 640 km using advanced sensors, allowing consumers to receive significantly more detailed and timely information. One of the first areas of application of images of the earth's surface was cartography. In the pre-satellite era, maps of many areas, even in developed areas of the world, were drawn inaccurately. Landsat images have helped correct and update some existing US maps. In the USSR, images obtained from the Salyut station turned out to be indispensable for calibrating the BAM railway line.

In the mid-70s, NASA and the US Department of Agriculture decided to demonstrate the capabilities of the satellite system in forecasting the most important agricultural crop, wheat. Satellite observations, which turned out to be extremely accurate, were later extended to other crops. Around the same time, in the USSR, observations of agricultural crops were carried out from satellites of the Cosmos, Meteor, Monsoon series and Salyut orbital stations.

The use of satellite information has revealed its undeniable advantages in estimating the volume of timber in vast areas of any country. It has become possible to manage the process of deforestation and, if necessary, make recommendations on changing the contours of the deforestation area from the point of view of the best preservation of the forest. Thanks to satellite images, it has also become possible to quickly assess the boundaries of forest fires, especially “crown-shaped” ones, characteristic of the western regions of North America, as well as the regions of Primorye and the southern regions of Eastern Siberia in Russia.

Of great importance for humanity as a whole is the ability to observe almost continuously the vastness of the World Ocean, this “forge” of weather. It is above the layers of ocean water that monstrous hurricanes and typhoons arise, causing numerous casualties and destruction for coastal residents. Early warning to the public is often critical to saving the lives of tens of thousands of people. Determining the stocks of fish and other seafood is also of great practical importance. Ocean currents often bend, change course and size. For example, El Nino, a warm current in a southerly direction off the coast of Ecuador in some years can spread along the coast of Peru up to 12 degrees. S . When this happens, plankton and fish die in huge quantities, causing irreparable damage to the fisheries of many countries, including Russia. Large concentrations of single-celled marine organisms increase fish mortality, possibly due to the toxins they contain. Satellite observations help reveal the vagaries of such currents and provide useful information to those who need it. According to some estimates by Russian and American scientists, fuel savings, combined with the “additional catch” due to the use of satellite information obtained in the infrared range, gives an annual profit of $2.44 million. The use of satellites for survey purposes has made the task of plotting the course of sea vessels easier . Satellites also detect icebergs and glaciers that are dangerous for ships. Accurate knowledge of snow reserves in the mountains and the volume of glaciers is an important task of scientific research, because as arid territories are developed, the need for water increases sharply.

The cosmonauts' help was invaluable in creating the largest cartographic work - the Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources of the World.

Also, with the help of satellites, oil pollution, air pollution, and minerals are found.

space study hole satellite

Space Science

Within a short period of time since the beginning of the space age, man has not only sent robotic space stations to other planets and set foot on the surface of the Moon, but has also brought about a revolution in space science unmatched in the entire history of mankind. Along with great technical advances brought about by the development of astronautics, new knowledge was gained about planet Earth and neighboring worlds. One of the first important discoveries, made not by traditional visual, but by another method of observation, was the establishment of the fact of a sharp increase with height, starting from a certain threshold height, in the intensity of cosmic rays previously considered isotropic. This discovery belongs to the Austrian W.F. Hess, who launched a gas balloon with equipment to high altitudes in 1946.

In 1952 and 1953 Dr. James Van Allen conducted research on low-energy cosmic rays during launches of small rockets to an altitude of 19-24 km and high-altitude balloons in the area of the Earth's north magnetic pole. After analyzing the results of the experiments, Van Allen proposed placing cosmic ray detectors that were fairly simple in design on board the first American artificial Earth satellites.

With the help of the Explorer 1 satellite, launched by the United States into orbit on January 31, 1958, a sharp decrease in the intensity of cosmic radiation was discovered at altitudes above 950 km. At the end of 1958, the Pioneer-3 AMS, which covered a distance of over 100,000 km in one day of flight, recorded, using the sensors on board, a second, located above the first, Earth’s radiation belt, which also encircles the entire globe.

In August and September 1958, three atomic explosions were carried out at an altitude of more than 320 km, each with a power of 1.5 kt. The purpose of the tests, codenamed "Argus", was to study the possibility of loss of radio and radar communications during such tests. The study of the Sun is the most important scientific task, to the solution of which many launches of the first satellites and spacecraft are devoted.

The American Pioneer 4 - Pioneer 9 (1959-1968) from near-solar orbits transmitted by radio to Earth the most important information about the structure of the Sun. At the same time, more than twenty satellites of the Intercosmos series were launched to study the Sun and circumsolar space.

Black holes

Black holes were discovered in the 1960s. It turned out that if our eyes could only see x-rays, the starry sky above us would look completely different. True, X-rays emitted by the Sun were discovered even before the birth of astronautics, but they were not even aware of other sources in the starry sky. We came across them by accident.

In 1962, the Americans, having decided to check whether X-ray radiation was emanating from the surface of the Moon, launched a rocket equipped with special equipment. It was then that, when processing the observation results, we became convinced that the instruments had detected a powerful source of X-ray radiation. It was located in the constellation Scorpio. And already in the 70s, the first 2 satellites, designed to search for research into sources of X-rays in the universe, went into orbit - the American Uhuru and the Soviet Cosmos-428.

By this time, things had already begun to become clear. Objects emitting X-rays have been linked to barely visible stars with unusual properties. These were compact clots of plasma of insignificant, of course by cosmic standards, sizes and masses, heated to several tens of millions of degrees. Despite their very modest appearance, these objects possessed a colossal power of X-ray radiation, several thousand times greater than the full compatibility of the Sun.

These are tiny, about 10 km in diameter. , the remains of completely burnt out stars, compressed to a monstrous density, had to somehow make themselves known. That is why neutron stars were so readily “recognized” in X-ray sources. And everything seemed to fit. But the calculations refuted expectations: newly formed neutron stars should have immediately cooled down and stopped emitting, but these ones emitted x-rays.

Using launched satellites, researchers discovered strictly periodic changes in the radiation fluxes of some of them. The period of these variations was also determined - usually it did not exceed several days. Only two stars rotating around themselves could behave this way, one of which periodically eclipsed the other. This has been proven by observation through telescopes.

Where do X-ray sources get their colossal radiation energy? The main condition for the transformation of a normal star into a neutron star is considered to be the complete damping of the nuclear reaction in it. Therefore nuclear energy is excluded. Then maybe this is the kinetic energy of a rapidly rotating massive body? Indeed, it is great for neutron stars. But it only lasts for a short time.

Most neutron stars do not exist alone, but in pairs with a huge star. In their interaction, theorists believe, the source of the mighty power of cosmic X-rays is hidden. It forms a disk of gas around the neutron star. At the magnetic poles of the neutron ball, the substance of the disk falls onto its surface, and the energy acquired by the gas is converted into X-ray radiation.

Cosmos-428 also presented its own surprise. His equipment registered a new, completely unknown phenomenon - X-ray flashes. In one day, the satellite detected 20 bursts, each of which lasted no more than 1 second. , and the radiation power increased tens of times. Scientists called the sources of X-ray flares BURSTERS. They are also associated with binary systems. The most powerful flares in terms of energy fired are only several times inferior to the total radiation of hundreds of billions of stars located in our galaxy.

Theorists have proven that “black holes” that are part of binary star systems can signal themselves with X-rays. And the reason for its occurrence is the same - gas accretion. True, the mechanism in this case is somewhat different. The internal parts of the gas disk settling into the “hole” should heat up and therefore become sources of X-rays.

By transitioning to a neutron star, only those luminaries whose mass does not exceed 2-3 solar ones end their “life”. Larger stars suffer the fate of a “black hole”.

X-ray astronomy told us about the last, perhaps the most turbulent, stage in the development of stars. Thanks to her, we learned about powerful cosmic explosions, about gas with temperatures of tens and hundreds of millions of degrees, about the possibility of a completely unusual superdense state of substances in “black holes.”

What else does space give us?

For a long time now, television programs have not mentioned that the transmission is carried out via satellite. This is further evidence of the enormous success in the industrialization of space, which has become an integral part of our lives. Communication satellites literally entangle the world with invisible threads. The idea of creating communication satellites was born shortly after the Second World War, when A. Clark in the October 1945 issue of Wireless World magazine. presented his concept of a communications relay station located at an altitude of 35,880 km above the Earth.

Clark's merit was that he determined the orbit in which the satellite is stationary relative to the Earth. This orbit is called geostationary or Clarke orbit. When moving in a circular orbit at an altitude of 35880 km, one revolution is completed in 24 hours, i.e. during the period of the Earth's daily rotation. A satellite moving in such an orbit will constantly be above a certain point on the Earth's surface.

The first communications satellite, Telstar-1, was launched into low Earth orbit with parameters of 950 x 5630 km; this happened on July 10, 1962. Almost a year later, the Telstar-2 satellite was launched. The first telecast showed the American flag in New England with the Andover station in the background. This image was transmitted to Great Britain, France and to the American station in the state. New Jersey 15 hours after satellite launch. Two weeks later, millions of Europeans and Americans watched negotiations between people on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. They not only talked but also saw each other, communicating via satellite. Historians can consider this day the birth date of space TV. The world's largest state satellite communications system was created in Russia. It began in April 1965. the launch of Molniya series satellites, placed into highly elongated elliptical orbits with an apogee over the Northern Hemisphere. Each series includes four pairs of satellites orbiting at an angular distance from each other of 90 degrees.

The first long-distance space communications system, Orbita, was built on the basis of the Molniya satellites. In December 1975 The family of communications satellites was replenished with the Raduga satellite operating in geostationary orbit. Then the Ekran satellite appeared with a more powerful transmitter and simpler ground stations. After the first development of satellites, a new period began in the development of satellite communications technology, when satellites began to be placed into a geostationary orbit in which they move synchronously with the rotation of the Earth. This made it possible to establish round-the-clock communication between ground stations using new generation satellites: the American Sinkom, Airlie Bird and Intelsat, and the Russian Raduga and Horizon satellites.

A great future is associated with the placement of antenna complexes in geostationary orbit.

On June 17, 1991, the ERS-1 geodetic satellite was launched into orbit. The satellites' primary mission would be to observe the oceans and ice-covered land masses to provide climatologists, oceanographers, and environmental groups with data on these little-explored regions. The satellite was equipped with the most modern microwave equipment, thanks to which it is ready for any weather: its radar "eyes" penetrate through fog and clouds and provide a clear image of the Earth's surface, through water, through land - and through ice. ERS-1 was aimed at developing ice maps, which would subsequently help avoid many disasters associated with collisions of ships with icebergs, etc.

With all that, the development of shipping routes is, figuratively speaking, only the tip of the iceberg, if we only remember the decoding of ERS data on the oceans and ice-covered spaces of the Earth. We are aware of alarming forecasts of the overall warming of the Earth, which will lead to the melting of the polar caps and rising sea levels. All coastal areas will be flooded, millions of people will suffer.

But we do not know how correct these predictions are. Long-term observations of the polar regions by ERS-1 and its subsequent ERS-2 satellite in late autumn 1994 provide data from which inferences can be made about these trends. They are creating an "early detection" system in the case of melting ice.

Thanks to the images that the ERS-1 satellite transmitted to Earth, we know that the ocean floor with its mountains and valleys is, as it were, “imprinted” on the surface of the waters. This way, scientists can get an idea of whether the distance from the satellite to the sea surface (measured to within ten centimeters by satellite radar altimeters) is an indication of rising sea levels, or whether it is the “imprint” of a mountain on the bottom.

Although the ERS-1 satellite was originally designed for ocean and ice observations, it quickly proved its versatility over land. In agriculture, forestry, fisheries, geology and cartography, specialists work with data provided by satellites. Since ERS-1 is still operational after three years of its mission, scientists have a chance to operate it together with ERS-2 for shared missions, as a tandem. And they are going to obtain new information about the topography of the earth's surface and provide assistance, for example, in warning about possible earthquakes.

The ERS-2 satellite is also equipped with the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment Gome measuring instrument, which takes into account the volume and distribution of ozone and other gases in the Earth's atmosphere. Using this device, you can observe the dangerous ozone hole and the changes that occur. At the same time, according to ERS-2 data, it is possible to divert UV-B radiation close to the ground.

Given the many global environmental problems that both ERS-1 and ERS-2 must provide fundamental information to address, planning shipping routes appears to be a relatively minor output of this new generation of satellites. But this is one of the areas where the potential for commercial use of satellite data is being exploited particularly intensively. This helps in funding other important tasks. And this has an effect on environmental protection that is difficult to overestimate: faster shipping routes require less energy consumption. Or let’s remember the oil tankers that ran aground during storms or broke up and sank, losing their environmentally hazardous cargo. Reliable route planning helps avoid such disasters.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is fair to say that the twentieth century is rightly called the “age of electricity”, “atomic age”, “age of chemistry”, “age of biology”. But the most recent and, apparently, also fair name is “space age”. Humanity has embarked on a path leading to mysterious cosmic distances, conquering which it will expand the scope of its activities. The space future of humanity is the key to its continuous development on the path of progress and prosperity, which was dreamed of and created by those who worked and are working today in the field of astronautics and other sectors of the national economy.

References

1. “Space technology” edited by K. Gatland. 1986 Moscow.

2. “SPACE, far and near” A.D. Koval V.P. Senkevich. 1977

3. “Space exploration in the USSR” V.L. Barsukov 1982

To prepare this work, materials were used from the site http://goldref.ru/

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This is important for state security

The world's leading nations must detect and prevent hostile intent or terrorist groups that could deploy weapons in space or attack navigation, communications and surveillance satellites. And although the United States, Russia and China signed an agreement on the inviolability of territory in space in 1967, other countries may covet it. And it is not a fact that past treaties can be revised.

Even if these leading nations do largely explore near-term space, they will need to be confident that companies can mine the Moon or asteroids without fear of being terrorized or usurped. It is very important to set up diplomatic channels in space, with possible military use.

We need space raw materials

There is gold, silver, platinum and other valuable substances in space. Asteroid mining efforts by private companies have received a lot of attention, but space miners won't have to look far to find rich resources.

The Moon, for example, is a potentially profitable source of helium-3 (used for MRI and as a potential fuel for nuclear power plants). On Earth, helium-3 is so rare that its price reaches $5,000 per liter. The Moon could also be potentially rich in rare earth elements like europium and tantalum, which are in high demand for use in electronics, solar panels and other advanced devices.

States can work together peacefully

We have previously mentioned the ominous threat of international conflict in space. But everything can be peaceful if we remember the cooperation of different countries on the International Space Station. The US space program, for example, allows other countries, large and small, to join forces in space exploration.

International cooperation in the space field will be exclusively mutually beneficial. On the one hand, large costs would be shared by everyone. On the other hand, this would help establish close diplomatic relations between the countries and create new jobs for both sides.

It would help answer the big question

Almost half of the people on Earth believe that there is life somewhere in space. A quarter of them think that aliens have already visited our planet.

However, all attempts to find signs of other creatures in the sky proved fruitless. Perhaps because the earth's atmosphere prevents messages from reaching us. That's why those involved in the search for extraterrestrial civilizations are ready to deploy even more orbital observatories like . The satellite will be launched in 2018 and will be able to search for chemical signatures of life in the atmospheres of distant planets beyond our solar system. This is just the beginning. Perhaps more space efforts will help us finally answer the question of whether we are alone.

People need to quench their thirst for exploration.

Our primitive ancestors spread from East Africa across the planet, and we haven't stopped moving since then. We seek fresh territory beyond Earth, so the only way to satisfy this primal desire is to embark on multi-generational interstellar travel.

In 2007, former NASA administrator Michael Griffin (pictured above) distinguished between "acceptable reasons" and "real reasons" for space exploration. Acceptable reasons might include economic and national benefits. But the real reasons will include concepts like curiosity, competition, and creating a legacy.

“Who among us is not familiar with that wonderful magical thrill when we see something new, even on television, that we have never seen before? - said Griffin. “When we do things for real reasons, without settling for acceptable ones, we produce our best achievements.”

We need to colonize space to survive

Our ability to launch satellites into space helps us observe and combat pressing problems on Earth, from wildfires and oil spills to the depletion of aquifers that people need to supply drinking water.

But our population growth, greed and carelessness are causing serious environmental consequences and damage to our planet. Estimates in 2012 said that the Earth could support between 8 and 16 billion people - and its population had already crossed the 7 billion mark. Perhaps we need to be prepared to colonize another planet, and the sooner the better.

The history of space exploration is the most striking example of the triumph of the human mind over rebellious matter in the shortest possible time. From the moment a man-made object first overcame Earth's gravity and developed sufficient speed to enter Earth's orbit, only a little over fifty years have passed - nothing by the standards of history! Most of the planet's population vividly remembers the times when a flight to the moon was considered something out of science fiction, and those who dreamed of piercing the heavenly heights were considered, at best, crazy people not dangerous to society. Today, spaceships not only “travel the vast expanse”, successfully maneuvering in conditions of minimal gravity, but also deliver cargo, astronauts and space tourists into Earth orbit. Moreover, the duration of a space flight can now be as long as desired: the shift of Russian cosmonauts on the ISS, for example, lasts 6-7 months. And over the past half century, man has managed to walk on the Moon and photograph its dark side, blessed Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury with artificial satellites, “recognized by sight” distant nebulae with the help of the Hubble telescope, and is seriously thinking about colonizing Mars. And although we have not yet succeeded in making contact with aliens and angels (at least officially), let us not despair - after all, everything is just beginning!

Dreams of space and attempts at writing

For the first time, progressive humanity believed in the reality of flight to distant worlds at the end of the 19th century. It was then that it became clear that if the aircraft was given the speed necessary to overcome gravity and maintained it for a sufficient time, it would be able to go beyond the Earth’s atmosphere and gain a foothold in orbit, like the Moon, revolving around the Earth. The problem was in the engines. The existing specimens at that time either spat extremely powerfully but briefly with bursts of energy, or worked on the principle of “gasp, groan and go away little by little.” The first was more suitable for bombs, the second - for carts. In addition, it was impossible to regulate the thrust vector and thereby influence the trajectory of the apparatus: a vertical launch inevitably led to its rounding, and as a result the body fell to the ground, never reaching space; the horizontal one, with such a release of energy, threatened to destroy all living things around (as if the current ballistic missile were launched flat). Finally, at the beginning of the 20th century, researchers turned their attention to a rocket engine, the operating principle of which has been known to mankind since the turn of our era: fuel burns in the rocket body, simultaneously lightening its mass, and the released energy moves the rocket forward. The first rocket capable of launching an object beyond the limits of gravity was designed by Tsiolkovsky in 1903.

View of Earth from the ISS

First artificial satellite

Time passed, and although two world wars greatly slowed down the process of creating rockets for peaceful use, space progress still did not stand still. The key moment of the post-war period was the adoption of the so-called package rocket layout, which is still used in astronautics today. Its essence is the simultaneous use of several rockets placed symmetrically with respect to the center of mass of the body that needs to be launched into Earth orbit. This provides a powerful, stable and uniform thrust, sufficient for the object to move at a constant speed of 7.9 km/s, necessary to overcome gravity. And so, on October 4, 1957, a new, or rather the first, era in space exploration began - the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, like everything ingenious, simply called “Sputnik-1”, using the R-7 rocket, designed under the leadership of Sergei Korolev. The silhouette of the R-7, the ancestor of all subsequent space rockets, is still recognizable today in the ultra-modern Soyuz launch vehicle, which successfully sends “trucks” and “cars” into orbit with astronauts and tourists on board - the same four “legs” of the package design and red nozzles. The first satellite was microscopic, just over half a meter in diameter and weighed only 83 kg. It completed a full revolution around the Earth in 96 minutes. The “star life” of the iron pioneer of astronautics lasted three months, but during this period he covered a fantastic path of 60 million km!

The first living creatures in orbit

The success of the first launch inspired the designers, and the prospect of sending a living creature into space and returning it unharmed no longer seemed impossible. Just a month after the launch of Sputnik 1, the first animal, the dog Laika, went into orbit on board the second artificial Earth satellite. Her goal was honorable, but sad - to test the survival of living beings in space flight conditions. Moreover, the return of the dog was not planned... The launch and insertion of the satellite into orbit was successful, but after four orbits around the Earth, due to an error in the calculations, the temperature inside the device rose excessively, and Laika died. The satellite itself rotated in space for another 5 months, and then lost speed and burned up in dense layers of the atmosphere. The first shaggy cosmonauts to greet their “senders” with a joyful bark upon their return were the textbook Belka and Strelka, who set off to conquer the heavens on the fifth satellite in August 1960. Their flight lasted just over a day, and during this time the dogs managed to fly around the planet 17 times. All this time, they were watched from monitor screens in the Mission Control Center - by the way, it was precisely because of the contrast that white dogs were chosen - because the image was then black and white. As a result of the launch, the spacecraft itself was also finalized and finally approved - in just 8 months, the first person will go into space in a similar apparatus.

In addition to dogs, both before and after 1961, monkeys (macaques, squirrel monkeys and chimpanzees), cats, turtles, as well as all sorts of little things - flies, beetles, etc., were in space.

During the same period, the USSR launched the first artificial satellite of the Sun, the Luna-2 station managed to softly land on the surface of the planet, and the first photographs of the side of the Moon invisible from Earth were obtained.

The day of April 12, 1961 divided the history of the exploration of space into two periods - “when man dreamed of the stars” and “since man conquered space.”

Man in space

The day of April 12, 1961 divided the history of the exploration of space into two periods - “when man dreamed of the stars” and “since man conquered space.” At 9:07 Moscow time, the Vostok-1 spacecraft with the world's first cosmonaut on board, Yuri Gagarin, was launched from launch pad No. 1 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Having made one revolution around the Earth and traveled 41 thousand km, 90 minutes after the start, Gagarin landed near Saratov, becoming for many years the most famous, revered and beloved person on the planet. His “let’s go!” and “everything can be seen very clearly - space is black - earth is blue” were included in the list of the most famous phrases of humanity, his open smile, ease and cordiality melted the hearts of people around the world. The first manned space flight was controlled from Earth; Gagarin himself was more of a passenger, albeit an excellently prepared one. It should be noted that the flight conditions were far from those that are now offered to space tourists: Gagarin experienced eight to ten times overload, there was a period when the ship literally tumbled, and behind the windows the skin was burning and the metal was melting. During the flight, several failures occurred in various systems of the ship, but fortunately, the astronaut was not injured.

Following Gagarin's flight, significant milestones in the history of space exploration fell one after another: the world's first group space flight was completed, then the first female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova went into space (1963), the first multi-seat spacecraft flew, Alexey Leonov became the first a man who performed a spacewalk (1965) - and all these grandiose events are entirely the merit of the Russian cosmonautics. Finally, on July 21, 1969, the first man landed on the Moon: American Neil Armstrong took that “small, big step.”

Best View in the Solar System

Cosmonautics - today, tomorrow and always

Today, space travel is taken for granted. Hundreds of satellites and thousands of other necessary and useless objects fly above us, seconds before sunrise from the bedroom window you can see the planes of the solar panels of the International Space Station flashing in rays still invisible from the ground, space tourists with enviable regularity set off to “surf the open spaces” (thereby embodying the ironic phrase “if you really want to, you can fly into space”) and the era of commercial suborbital flights with almost two departures daily is about to begin. The exploration of space by controlled vehicles is absolutely amazing: there are pictures of stars that exploded long ago, and HD images of distant galaxies, and strong evidence of the possibility of the existence of life on other planets. Billionaire corporations are already coordinating plans to build space hotels in Earth’s orbit, and projects for the colonization of our neighboring planets no longer seem like an excerpt from the novels of Asimov or Clark. One thing is obvious: once having overcome earth's gravity, humanity will again and again strive upward, to the endless worlds of stars, galaxies and universes. I would only like to wish that the beauty of the night sky and myriads of twinkling stars, still alluring, mysterious and beautiful, as in the first days of creation, never leaves us.

Space reveals its secrets

Academician Blagonravov dwelled on some new achievements of Soviet science: in the field of space physics.

Beginning on January 2, 1959, each flight of Soviet space rockets conducted a study of radiation at large distances from the Earth. The so-called outer radiation belt of the Earth, discovered by Soviet scientists, was subjected to detailed study. Studying the composition of particles in radiation belts using various scintillation and gas-discharge counters located on satellites and space rockets made it possible to establish that the outer belt contains electrons of significant energies up to a million electron volts and even higher. When braking in the shells of spacecraft, they create intense piercing X-ray radiation. During the flight of the automatic interplanetary station towards Venus, the average energy of this X-ray radiation was determined at distances from 30 to 40 thousand kilometers from the center of the Earth, amounting to about 130 kiloelectronvolts. This value changed little with the distance, which allows one to judge that the energy spectrum of electrons in this region is constant.

Already the first studies showed the instability of the outer radiation belt, movements of maximum intensity associated with magnetic storms caused by solar corpuscular flows. The latest measurements from an automatic interplanetary station launched towards Venus showed that although changes in intensity occur closer to Earth, the outer boundary of the outer belt, with a quiet state of the magnetic field, remained constant for almost two years both in intensity and in spatial location. Research in recent years has also made it possible to construct a model of the Earth's ionized gas shell based on experimental data for a period close to the maximum solar activity. Our studies have shown that at altitudes of less than a thousand kilometers, the main role is played by atomic oxygen ions, and starting from altitudes lying between one and two thousand kilometers, hydrogen ions predominate in the ionosphere. The extent of the outermost region of the Earth's ionized gas shell, the so-called hydrogen “corona,” is very large.

Processing of the results of measurements carried out on the first Soviet space rockets showed that at altitudes from approximately 50 to 75 thousand kilometers outside the outer radiation belt, electron flows with energies exceeding 200 electron volts were detected. This allowed us to assume the existence of a third outermost belt of charged particles with a high flux intensity, but lower energy. After the launch of the American space rocket Pioneer V in March 1960, data were obtained that confirmed our assumptions about the existence of a third belt of charged particles. This belt is apparently formed as a result of the penetration of solar corpuscular flows into the peripheral regions of the Earth's magnetic field.

New data were obtained regarding the spatial location of the Earth's radiation belts, and an area of increased radiation was discovered in the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, which is associated with a corresponding terrestrial magnetic anomaly. In this area, the lower boundary of the Earth's internal radiation belt drops to 250 - 300 kilometers from the Earth's surface.

The flights of the second and third satellites provided new information that made it possible to map the distribution of radiation by ion intensity over the surface of the globe. (The speaker demonstrates this map to the audience).

For the first time, currents created by positive ions included in solar corpuscular radiation were recorded outside the Earth's magnetic field at distances of the order of hundreds of thousands of kilometers from the Earth, using three-electrode charged particle traps installed on Soviet space rockets. In particular, on the automatic interplanetary station launched towards Venus, traps were installed oriented towards the Sun, one of which was intended to record solar corpuscular radiation. On February 17, during a communication session with the automatic interplanetary station, its passage through a significant flow of corpuscles (with a density of about 10 9 particles per square centimeter per second) was recorded. This observation coincided with the observation of a magnetic storm. Such experiments open the way to establishing quantitative relationships between geomagnetic disturbances and the intensity of solar corpuscular flows. On the second and third satellites, the radiation hazard caused by cosmic radiation outside the Earth's atmosphere was studied in quantitative terms. The same satellites were used to study the chemical composition of primary cosmic radiation. The new equipment installed on the satellite ships included a photoemulsion device designed to expose and develop stacks of thick-film emulsions directly on board the ship. The results obtained are of great scientific value for elucidating the biological influence of cosmic radiation.

Flight technical problems

Next, the speaker focused on a number of significant problems that ensured the organization of human space flight. First of all, it was necessary to resolve the issue of methods for launching a heavy ship into orbit, for which it was necessary to have powerful rocket technology. We have created such a technique. However, it was not enough to inform the ship of a speed exceeding the first cosmic speed. High precision of launching the ship into a pre-calculated orbit was also necessary.

It should be borne in mind that the requirements for the accuracy of orbital movement will increase in the future. This will require movement correction using special propulsion systems. Related to the problem of trajectory correction is the problem of maneuvering a directional change in the flight trajectory of a spacecraft. Maneuvers can be carried out with the help of impulses transmitted by a jet engine in individual specially selected sections of trajectories, or with the help of thrust that lasts for a long time, for the creation of which electric jet engines (ion, plasma) are used.

Examples of maneuvers include transition to a higher orbit, transition to an orbit entering the dense layers of the atmosphere for braking and landing in a given area. The latter type of maneuver was used when landing Soviet satellite ships with dogs on board and when landing the Vostok satellite.

To carry out a maneuver, perform a number of measurements and for other purposes, it is necessary to ensure stabilization of the satellite ship and its orientation in space, maintained for a certain period of time or changed according to a given program.

Turning to the problem of returning to Earth, the speaker focused on the following issues: speed deceleration, protection from heating when moving in dense layers of the atmosphere, ensuring landing in a given area.

The braking of the spacecraft, necessary to dampen the cosmic speed, can be carried out either using a special powerful propulsion system, or by braking the apparatus in the atmosphere. The first of these methods requires very large reserves of weight. Using atmospheric resistance for braking allows you to get by with relatively little additional weight.

The complex of problems associated with the development of protective coatings during braking of a vehicle in the atmosphere and the organization of the entry process with overloads acceptable for the human body represents a complex scientific and technical problem.

The rapid development of space medicine has put on the agenda the issue of biological telemetry as the main means of medical monitoring and scientific medical research during space flight. The use of radio telemetry leaves a specific imprint on the methodology and technology of biomedical research, since a number of special requirements are imposed on the equipment placed on board spacecraft. This equipment should have very light weight and small dimensions. It should be designed for minimal energy consumption. In addition, the onboard equipment must operate stably during the active phase and during descent, when vibrations and overloads are present.

Sensors designed to convert physiological parameters into electrical signals must be miniature and designed for long-term operation. They should not create inconvenience for the astronaut.

The widespread use of radio telemetry in space medicine forces researchers to pay serious attention to the design of such equipment, as well as to matching the volume of information necessary for transmission with the capacity of radio channels. Since the new challenges facing space medicine will lead to further deepening of research and the need to significantly increase the number of recorded parameters, the introduction of systems that store information and coding methods will be required.

In conclusion, the speaker dwelled on the question of why the option of orbiting the Earth was chosen for the first space travel. This option represented a decisive step towards the conquest of outer space. They provided research into the issue of the influence of flight duration on a person, solved the problem of controlled flight, the problem of controlling the descent, entering the dense layers of the atmosphere and safely returning to Earth. Compared to this, the flight recently carried out in the USA seems of little value. It could be important as an intermediate option for checking a person’s condition during the acceleration stage, during overloads during descent; but after Yu. Gagarin’s flight there was no longer a need for such a check. In this version of the experiment, the element of sensation certainly prevailed. The only value of this flight can be seen in testing the operation of the developed systems that ensure entry into the atmosphere and landing, but, as we have seen, testing of similar systems developed in our Soviet Union for more difficult conditions was reliably carried out even before the first human space flight. Thus, the achievements achieved in our country on April 12, 1961 cannot be compared in any way with what has been achieved so far in the United States.

And no matter how hard, the academician says, people abroad who are hostile to the Soviet Union try to belittle the successes of our science and technology with their fabrications, the whole world evaluates these successes properly and sees how much our country has moved forward along the path of technical progress. I personally witnessed the delight and admiration that was caused by the news of the historic flight of our first cosmonaut among the broad masses of the Italian people.

The flight was extremely successful

Academician N. M. Sissakyan made a report on the biological problems of space flights. He described the main stages in the development of space biology and summed up some of the results of scientific biological research related to space flights.

The speaker cited the medical and biological characteristics of Yu. A. Gagarin's flight. In the cabin, barometric pressure was maintained within 750 - 770 millimeters of mercury, air temperature - 19 - 22 degrees Celsius, relative humidity - 62 - 71 percent.

In the pre-launch period, approximately 30 minutes before the launch of the spacecraft, the heart rate was 66 per minute, the respiratory rate was 24. Three minutes before the launch, some emotional stress manifested itself in an increase in the pulse rate to 109 beats per minute, breathing continued to remain even and calm.

At the moment the spacecraft took off and gradually gained speed, the heart rate increased to 140 - 158 per minute, the respiratory rate was 20 - 26. Changes in physiological indicators during the active phase of the flight, according to telemetric recordings of electrocardiograms and pneimograms, were within acceptable limits. By the end of the active section, the heart rate was already 109, and the respiration rate was 18 per minute. In other words, these indicators reached the values characteristic of the moment closest to the start.

During the transition to weightlessness and flight in this state, the indicators of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems consistently approached the initial values. So, already in the tenth minute of weightlessness, the pulse rate reached 97 beats per minute, breathing - 22. Performance was not impaired, movements retained coordination and the necessary accuracy.

During the descent section, during braking of the apparatus, when overloads arose again, short-term, rapidly passing periods of increased breathing were noted. However, already upon approaching the Earth, breathing became even, calm, with a frequency of about 16 per minute.

Three hours after landing, the heart rate was 68, breathing was 20 per minute, i.e., values characteristic of the calm, normal state of Yu. A. Gagarin.

All this indicates that the flight was extremely successful, the health and general condition of the cosmonaut during all parts of the flight was satisfactory. Life support systems were working normally.

In conclusion, the speaker focused on the most important upcoming problems of space biology.

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Humanity originated in Africa. But not all of us remained there; for more than a thousand years, our ancestors spread throughout the continent and then left it. When they reached the sea, they built boats and sailed vast distances to islands they may not have known existed. Why?

Probably for the same reason why we and the stars say: “What is happening there? Could we get there? Perhaps we could fly there.”

Space is, of course, more hostile to human life than the surface of the sea; escaping Earth's gravity involves a lot more work and expense than taking a boat offshore. But then boats were the cutting-edge technology of their time. Travelers carefully planned their dangerous journeys, and many died trying to discover what was beyond the horizon.

The conquest of space in order to find a new habitat is a grandiose, dangerous, and perhaps impossible project. But that has never stopped people from trying.

1. Takeoff

Gravity Resistance

Powerful forces are conspiring against you - gravity in particular. If an object above the Earth's surface wants to fly freely, it must literally shoot upward at speeds in excess of 43,000 km per hour. This entails large financial costs.

For example, it took almost $200 million to launch the Curiosity rover to Mars. And if we talk about a mission with crew members, the amount will increase significantly.

The reusable use of flying ships will help save money. Rockets, for example, were designed to be reusable, and as we know, there have already been attempts to land successfully.

2. Flight

Our ships are too slow

Flying through space is easy. It is a vacuum, after all; nothing slows you down. But when launching a rocket, difficulties arise. The greater the mass of an object, the more force is needed to move it, and rockets have enormous mass.

Chemical rocket fuel is great for the initial boost, but the precious kerosene burns out in minutes. Pulse acceleration will make it possible to reach Jupiter in 5-7 years. That's a hell of a lot of in-flight movies. We need a radical new method for developing airspeed.

Congratulations! You have successfully launched a rocket into orbit. But before you break out into space, out of nowhere a piece of an old satellite appears and crashes into your fuel tank. That's it, the rocket is gone.

It's a space debris problem, and it's very real. The US Space Surveillance Network has discovered 17,000 objects - each the size of a ball - racing around the Earth at speeds of more than 28,000 km per hour; and almost 500,000 more pieces smaller than 10 cm. Trigger adapters, lens caps, even a spot of paint can crater critical systems.

Whipple shields - layers of metal and Kevlar - can protect against tiny parts, but nothing can save you from an entire satellite. There are about 4,000 of them in Earth's orbit, most of whom died in the air. Flight control helps you avoid dangerous paths, but it's not perfect.

It's not realistic to push them out of orbit - it would take an entire mission to get rid of just one dead satellite. So now all satellites will fall from orbit on their own. They would jettison extra fuel and then use rocket boosters or a solar sail to fly down toward Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

4. Navigation

There is no GPS for space

The “Open Space Network,” antennas in California, Australia, and Spain, are the only navigation tool for space. Everything that is launched into space, from student project satellites to the New Horizons probe wandering through the Copeyre Belt, depends on them.

But with more missions, the network becomes crowded. The switch is often busy. So in the near future, NASA is working to lighten the load. Atomic clocks on the ships themselves would cut transmission times in half, allowing distances to be calculated with a single transmission of information from space. And the increased bandwidth of lasers will handle larger packets of data, such as photos or video messages.

But the further the rockets move away from Earth, the less reliable this method becomes. Of course, radio waves travel at the speed of light, but transmissions into deep space still take several hours. And the stars can show you the direction, but they are too far away to show you where you are.

Deep space navigation expert Joseph Ginn wants to design an autonomous system for future missions that would collect images of targets and nearby objects and use their relative locations to triangulate spacecraft coordinates without requiring any ground control.

It will be like GPS on Earth. You install a GPS receiver on your car and the problem is solved.

5. Radiation

Space will turn you into a bag of cancer

Outside the safe cocoon of Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field, cosmic radiation awaits you, and it's deadly. Besides cancer, it can also cause cataracts and possibly Alzheimer's disease.

When subatomic particles hit the aluminum atoms that make up the spacecraft's body, their nuclei explode, releasing more ultra-fast particles called secondary radiation.

Solution to the problem? One word: plastic. It is light and strong, and it is full of hydrogen atoms, whose small nuclei do not produce much secondary radiation. NASA is testing a plastic that could mitigate radiation in spacecraft or space suits.

Or how about this word: magnets. Scientists on the space radiation project “Superconductivity Shield” are working on magnesium diboride – a superconductor that would deflect charged particles away from the ship.

6. Food and water

There are no supermarkets on Mars

Last August, astronauts on ISS ate some lettuce they grew in space for the first time. But large-scale landscaping in zero gravity is difficult. Water floats around in bubbles instead of seeping through the soil, so engineers invented ceramic pipes to direct water down to plant roots.

Some vegetables are already quite space-efficient, but scientists are working on a genetically modified dwarf plum that is less than a meter tall. Proteins, fats and carbohydrates can be replenished by eating more varied crops - like potatoes and peanuts.

But it will all be in vain if you run out of water. (The ISS's urine and water recycling system requires periodic repairs, and interplanetary crews won't be able to rely on restocking new parts.) GMOs can help here, too. Michael Flynn, an engineer at NASA Research Center, is working on a water filter made from genetically modified bacteria. He compared it to the way the small intestine processes what you drink. Basically you are a water recycling system with a useful life of 75 or 80 years.

7. Muscles and bones

Zero gravity turns you into mush

Weightlessness wreaks havoc on the body: certain immune cells are unable to do their jobs and red blood cells explode. It promotes kidney stones and makes your heart lazy.

Astronauts on ISS train to combat muscle atrophy and bone loss, but they still lose bone mass in space, and those spinning cycles of zero gravity don't help other problems. Artificial gravity would fix all this.

In his laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, former astronaut Lawrence Young conducts tests on a centrifuge: subjects lie on their sides on a platform and pedal with their feet on a stationary wheel, while the entire structure gradually spins around its axis. The resulting force acts on the astronauts' legs, vaguely reminiscent of gravitational influence.

Yang's simulator is too limited, it can be used for more than an hour or two a day, for constant gravity, the entire spacecraft would have to become a centrifuge.

8. Mental health

Interplanetary travel is a direct path to madness

When a person has a stroke or heart attack, doctors sometimes lower the patient's temperature, slowing their metabolism to reduce the damage from lack of oxygen. This is a trick that could work for astronauts too. Traveling interplanetary for a year (at least), living in a cramped spaceship with bad food and zero privacy is a recipe for space madness.

This is why John Bradford says we should sleep during space travel. President of engineering firm SpaceWorks and co-author of a report for NASA on long missions, Bradford believes that cryogenically freezing crews would cut down on food, water, and prevent crew mental breakdown.

9. Landing

Probability of accident

Hello planet! You have been in space for many months or even several years. The distant world is finally visible through your porthole. All you have to do is land. But you're careening through frictionless space at 200,000 miles per hour. Oh yeah, and then there's the planet's gravity.

The landing problem is still one of the most pressing that engineers have to solve. Remember the unsuccessful one to Mars.

10. Resources

You can't take a mountain of aluminum ore with you

When spaceships go on a long journey, they will take supplies with them from Earth. But you can't take everything with you. Seeds, oxygen generators, perhaps a few machines for infrastructure construction. But the settlers will have to do the rest themselves.

Luckily, space is not completely barren. “Every planet has all the chemical elements, although the concentrations differ,” says Ian Crawford, a planetary scientist at Birkbeck, University of London. The moon has a lot of aluminum. Mars has quartz and iron oxide. Nearby asteroids are a big source of carbon and platinum ores - and water, once pioneers figure out how to explode matter in space. If the fuses and drillers are too heavy to carry on the ship, they will have to extract the fossils by other methods: melting, magnets or metal-digesting microbes. And NASA is exploring a 3D printing process to print entire buildings - and there will be no need to import special equipment.

11. Research

We can't do everything ourselves

Dogs helped humans colonize the Earth, but they wouldn't have survived on Earth. To spread into the new world, we will need a new best friend: a robot.

Colonizing a planet requires a lot of hard work, and robots can dig all day long without having to eat or breathe. Current prototypes are large and bulky and have difficulty moving on the ground. So the robots would have to be different from us; it could be a lightweight, steerable bot with backhoe-shaped claws, designed by NASA to dig up ice on Mars.

However, if the work requires dexterity and precision, then human fingers are indispensable. Today's space suit is designed for weightlessness, not for walking on an exoplanet. NASA's Z-2 prototype has flexible joints and a helmet that gives a clear view of any fine-grained wiring needs.

12. Space is huge

Warp drives still don't exist

The fastest thing humans have ever built is a probe called Helios 2. It is no longer operational, but if there was sound in space, you would hear it scream as it still orbits the sun at speeds greater than 157,000 miles per hour. That's nearly 100 times faster than a bullet, but even at that speed it would take approximately 19,000 years to reach our closest star, Alpha Centauri. During such a long flight, thousands of generations would change. And hardly anyone dreams of dying of old age in a spaceship.

To beat time we need energy - a lot of energy. Perhaps you could get enough helium 3 on Jupiter for fusion (after we invent fusion engines, of course). Theoretically, near-light speeds can be achieved using the energy of annihilation of matter and antimatter, but doing this on Earth is dangerous.

“You would never want to do this on Earth,” says Les Johnson, a NASA technician who works on crazy Starship ideas. “If you do it in outer space and something goes wrong, you don't destroy the continent.” Too much? What about solar energy? All you need is a sail the size of Texas.

A much more elegant solution to cracking the source code of the universe is using physics. Miguel Alcubierre's theoretical drive would compress spacetime in front of your ship and expand it behind it, so you could travel faster than the speed of light.

Humanity will need a few more Einsteins working in places like the Large Hadron Collider to untangle all the theoretical knots. It is quite possible that we will make some discovery that will change everything, but this breakthrough is unlikely to save the current situation. If you want more discoveries, you have to invest more money in them.

13. There is only one Earth

We must have the courage to stay

A couple of decades ago, science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson sketched out a future utopia on Mars, built by scientists from an overpopulated, overextended Earth. His “Mars Trilogy” made a powerful push for colonization. But, in fact, besides science, why do we strive for space?

The need to explore is embedded in our genes, this is the only argument - the pioneering spirit and the desire to find out our purpose. “A few years ago, dreams of conquering space occupied our imagination,” recalls NASA astronomer Heidi Hummel. - We spoke the language of brave space explorers, but everything changed after the New Horizons station in July 2015. The whole diversity of worlds in the solar system has opened up before us.”

What about the fate and purpose of humanity? Historians know better. The expansion of the West was a land grab, and the great explorers were mainly in it for resources or treasure. Human wanderlust is expressed only in the service of political or economic desire.

Of course, the impending destruction of the Earth may be an incentive. Exhaust the planet's resources, change the climate, and space will become the only hope for survival.

But this is a dangerous line of thinking. This creates moral hazard. People think that if we do, we can start from scratch somewhere on Mars. This is a wrong judgment.

As far as we know, Earth is the only habitable place in the known universe. And if we are going to leave this planet, then this should be our desire, and not the result of a hopeless situation.