The Complete Book of Spaceflight , livre ebook

The Complete Book of Spaceflight
From A pollo 1 to Z ero Gravity
David Darling
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Copyright 2003 by David Darling. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
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ISBN 0-471-05649-9
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments

Introduction

How to Use This Book

Exponential Notation

Orbits

Units

Spaceflight Entries A to Z

Acronyms and Abbreviations

References

Web Sites

Category Index
Acknowledgments
A book of this size and scope isn t a one-man enterprise. Dozens of individuals at space agencies, government laboratories, military bases, aerospace companies, and universities generously provided information and illustrations. At John Wiley, I m particulary grateful to my editor, Jeff Golick, and to Marcia Samuels, senior managing editor, for their excellent suggestions and attention to detail. Any mistakes and inaccuracies that remain are my responsibility alone. As always, my thanks go to my very special agent, Patricia van der Leun, for finding the book a home and providing support along the way. Finally and foremost, my love and gratitude go to my family-my parents, my wife, Jill, and my now-grownup children, Lori-An and Jeff-for making it all possible.
Introduction
It is astonishing to think that there are people alive today from the time when man first flew in an engine-powered, heavier-than-air plane. In the past century, we have learned not only to fly, but to fly to the Moon, to Mars, and to the very outskirts of the Solar System. Look up at the right time and place on a clear night and you can see the International Space Station glide across the sky and know that not all of us are now confined to Earth: always there are a handful of us on the near edge of this new and final frontier of space.
Our first steps beyond our home planet have been hesitant and hazardous. There are some who say, Why bother? Why expend effort and money, and risk lives, when there are so many problems to be resolved back on this world? In the end, the answer is simple. We can point to the enormous value of Earth resources satellites in monitoring the environment, or to the benefits of spacecraft that help us communicate among continents or predict the weather or gaze with clear sight across the light-years. We can extol the virtues of mining the Moon or the asteroid belt, or learning about our origins in cometary dust, or the things that can be made or gleaned from a laboratory in zero-g. But these reasons are not at the core of why we go-why we must go-on a voyage that will ultimately take us to the stars. Our reason for spaceflight is just this: we are human, and to be human is to be inquisitive. At heart, we are explorers with a universe of billions of new worlds before us.
This book is intended as a companion to the human journey into space. Of course, it has many facts and figures-and acronyms!-as all books on this subject do. But beyond the technical details of rockets and orbits, it tries to capture something of the drama of the quest, the human thread-in a word, the culture of space exploration. I hope that many readers will use it to wander from reference to reference and so create their own unique paths through this most unique of adventures. Enjoy the ride!
How to Use This Book
Entries range from simple definitions to lengthy articles on subjects of central importance or unusual interest, and are extensively cross-referenced. Terms that are in bold type have their own entries. Numbers that appear as superscripts in the text are references to books, journal articles, and so on, listed alphabetically by author at the back of the book. A list of web sites on subjects dealt with in the text is also provided.
Entries are arranged alphabetically according to the first word of the entry name. So, for example, anti-g suit precedes antigravity. Where names are also known by their acronyms or abbreviations, as happens frequently in the language of spaceflight, the definition appears under the form most commonly used. For example, the headwords NASA and TIROS are preferred to National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Television Infrared Observations System. On the other hand, Hubble Space Telescope and Goddard Space Flight Center are preferred to HST and GSFC. The alternative form is always given in parentheses afterward. In addition, the Acronyms and Abbreviations section in the back of the book lists all of the alternative forms for easy reference.
Metric units are used throughout, unless it is more appropriate, for historical reasons, to do otherwise. See the Units section below for conversion factors.
Exponential Notation
In the interest of brevity, exponential notation is used in this book to represent large and small numbers. For example, 300,000,000 is written as 3 10 8 , the power of 10 indicating how many places the decimal point has been moved to the left from the original number (or, more simply, the number of zeroes). Small numbers have negative exponents, indicating how many places the point has been shifted to the left. For example, 0.000049 is written as 4.9 10 -5 .
Orbits
Orbits of satellites are given in the form:
perigee apogee inclination
For example, the Japanese Ohzora satellite is listed as having an orbit of 247 331 km 75 . This means that the low and high points of the orbit were 247 km and 331 km, respectively, above Earth s surface, and that the orbit was tilted by 75 with respect to Earth s equator.
Units
Distance
1 kilometer (km) = 0.62 mile
1 meter (m) = 3.28 feet (ft) = 39.37 inches (in.)
1 centimeter (cm) = 0.39 in.
1 km =1,000 m
1 m = 100 cm = 1,000 millimeters (mm)
1 mm = 10 3 microns ( m) = 10 6 nanometers (nm)
1 astronomical unit (AU) = 1.50 10 8 km
1 light-year = 63,240 AU = 9.46 10 12 km
Area
1 hectare =2.47 acres
1 square meter (m 2 )=10.76 square feet (ft 2 )
Volume
1 cubic meter (m 3 ) = 35.31 cubic feet (ft 3 )
Speed
1 km/s = 2,240 mph
Acceleration
1g (one-gee) = 9.81 m/s 2 = 32.19 ft/s 2
Mass
1 kilogram (kg) = 2.21 pounds (lb)
1 kg = 1,000 grams (g)
1 g = 10 3 milligrams (mg) = 10 9 nanograms (ng)
1 metric ton = 1,000 kg = 2,205 lb = 0.98 long ton
Note: In this book, tons refers to metric tons.
Energy
1 joule (J) = 9.48 10 4 British thermal unit (Btu)
1 electron-volt (eV) = 1.60 10 19 J
1 GeV = 10 3 MeV = 10 6 keV = 10 9 eV
Note: Electron-volts are convenient units for measuring the energies of particles and electromagnetic radiation. In the case of electromagnetic radiation, it is customary to measure longer-wavelength types in terms of their wavelength (in units of cm, m, etc.) and shorter-wavelength types, especially X-rays and gamma-rays in terms of their energy (in units of keV, MeV, etc.). The wavelength associated with electromagnetic waves of energy 1 keV is 0.124 nm.
Force
1 newton (N) = 0.22 pounds-force (lbf) = 0.102 kilograms-force (kgf)
1 kilonewton (kN) = 1,000 N
Power
1 watt (W) = 0.74 ft-lbf/s = 0.0013 horsepower (hp)
1 kilowatt (kW) = 1,000 W
Temperature
C = (F 32)
F = C + 32
A
A series of German rockets
A family of liquid-propellant rockets built by Nazi Germany immediately before and during World War II. With the A (Aggregate) rockets came technology that could be used either to bomb cities or to begin the exploration of space. Key to this development was Wernher von Braun and his team of scientists and engineers. The series began with the small A-1, which, in common with all of the A rockets, used alcohol as a fuel and liquid oxygen as an oxidizer. Built and tested mostly on the ground at Kummersdorf, it enabled various design problems to be identified. A reconfigured version, known as the A-2, made two successful flights in December 1934 from the North Sea island of Borkum, reaching a height of about 2 km. The development effort then shifted to Peenem nde. In 1937, the new A-3 rocket was launched from an island in the Baltic Sea. Measuring 7.6 m in length and weighing 748 kg, it was powered by an engine that produced 14,700 newtons (N) of thrust. Three flights were made, n