Dziś mija 55 lat o czasu kiedy 5 maja 1961 o 14:34:13,48 UT z wyrzutni LC-5 na Cape Canaveral wystartował do suborbitalnego załogowego lotu Freedom 7. Na pokładzie znalazł się pierwszy Amerykanin, który przekroczył granicę linii Karmana.
Lot trwał 15 minut i 22 sekund. Udany lot Alana Sheparda poprawił humor Ameryki po triumfalnym locie orbitalnym Jurija Gagarina niespełna miesiąc wcześniej.
Parametry lotu:
• Czas trwania misji: 15 min 22 s
• Osiągnięta wysokość: 187,4 km
• Pokonana odległość: 487,26 km
• Maksymalna prędkość: 8277 km/h
• Liczba okrążeń Ziemi: lot suborbitalny
• Maksymalne przyspieszenie: 11 g
Pierwsza część artykułu:
Shepard’s pulse quickened from 80 to 126 beats per minute. His hand tightened on the capsule’s abort handle and in his mind he repeated, over and over, an early incarnation of “The Astronaut’s Prayer”: God help you if you screw up. He had been inside Freedom 7 for over four hours and the delays alone had cost three and a half hours—long enough to have flown his mission, 14 times over—but now it seemed that all was ready. The jolt of liftoff was not what he had expected. Rather than a harsh acceleration, he experienced something “extremely smooth … a subtle, gentle, gradual rise off the ground.”
At 9:34 a.m., with 45 million Americans watching or listening in person, on TV, on the radio, or over loudspeakers, the Redstone roared aloft, prompting Shepard to activate the on-board timer and radio: “Liftoff … and the clock is started!” The nation could breathe an enormous, collective sigh of relief as their first astronaut speared for the heavens. Yet, as evidenced by a handful of disaster statements, prepared in advance by NASA’s public affairs officer, John “Shorty” Powers, the mission could not be termed a success until Shepard was home, safe, and aboard the recovery ship, USS Lake Champlain. The 15 minutes and 28 seconds between launch and splashdown would prove heart-stopping.
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=93110Druga część :
“Weightlessness” came as a peculiar surprise, as Shepard’s body gently floated from his couch and against his shoulder harnesses. Flecks of dust drifted past his face, together with a steel washer, which quickly vanished from view. Nearing the apex of his upward arc from Earth, he glanced through Freedom 7’s periscope to behold the splendor of Earth. Unfortunately, during the morning’s lengthy delays, to prevent sunlight from blinding him he had flipped a switch to cover the lens with a grey filter and had forgotten to remove it. Now he could only see a grey-colored blob on the screen. He tried to reach across the cabin to flick off the filter, but his wrist inadvertently touched the abort handle and he thought it best to leave it well alone.
His words—“What a beautiful view!”—were doubtless sincere, but certainly were not accompanied by full color. Still, he was able to see quite “remarkable” things, including Lake Okeechobee, on the northern edge of the Everglades, as well as Andros Island, shoals off Bimini, and cloud cover over the Bahamas. Later, he would tell a journalist for Life magazine that he saw “brilliantly clear” colors, but admitted privately that the grey filter obliterated most of the color. When questioned by fellow astronaut Wally Schirra, his response was simple. “Shit,” he said, “I had to say something for the people!”
http://www.americaspace.com/?p=93113EDIT:
https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1939.html
Wątek: Kalendarium historycznych wydarzeń (Przeczytany 232897 razy)