Half a century from the day of the first man’s spacewalk
50 years is a considerable time when it comes to technology, progress, science. And even more so about human life. That is how many years today it has been since the day of one of the most important events in the history of world cosmonautics and our country. March 18, 1965 cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first person to go into outer space.
When you watch fantastic movies about space, it rarely leaves a deep sense of reliability and thoroughness of all these spacecraft and stations. There, everything is shown to be very massive: thick, multi-layered plating, automatic doors of multi-centimeter thickness. But when you look at the photographs and drawings of these ships, especially early designs, the hair begins to move on the head. How can you fly on THIS, not like in space? And what courage must one have in order to entrust one’s life to this close, fragile structure? This is how the ship "Voskhod-2" looked like, on which astronauts Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyaev set off to fly:
This silver corrugated cylinder is an inflatable (!) Airlock. You can evaluate for yourself how closely it was in the airlock (internal diameter in the inflated state - 1 meter, length - 2.5 m) and in the ship itself.
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The tightness of both the descent ball-shaped module, in which the astronauts were located, and the gateway, was due to the rigid overall limitations of the launch vehicle. Hence the idea of an inflatable airlock, very compact in the folded state.
Both cosmonauts were dressed in the “Berkut” spacesuits, inside which the pressure of 0.4 atmosphere was maintained:
The first ever spacewalk lasted 12 minutes and 9 seconds. At the same time, Alexey Arkhipovich’s physical well-being left much to be desired: tachycardia began, shallow breathing became more frequent, the temperature rose to +38, and moreover, intense sweating. All this time, Leonov was connected to the ship with a short cable a little more than 5 meters long. In 12 minutes of being in space, Alexey Arkhipovich moved away from the ship five times and returned to him. By the way, the American cosmonaut, who went into space three months after Leonov, did not break away from the ship due to the fear of some state of emergency.
When returning, a problem arose: the spacesuit inflated with internal pressure did not allow penetration into the gateway. Leonov had to reduce the pressure to 0.27 atm to get inside. And since he did this not with his feet, but with his head forward, then he still had to work hard to turn around inside the airlock — and only then managed to return to the ship. After the hatch was closed, the gateway was shot off.
Above, we complained about the external fragility of spacecraft. It was not just a word for wit: after Leonov returned, it turned out that due to thermal deformation the hatch was not closed tightly and the automatic began to supply more oxygen. There is a risk of fire. However, the astronauts were lucky: Leonov accidentally touched the air supply switch from the reserve tanks, the atmospheric pressure in the ship increased and he ... slightly swelled. Like a tin can. Quite a bit, but this was enough to make the gap near the hatch disappear and the depressurization stopped. After that, the automatics returned the oxygen supply to the previous level.
And in this short clip from Roskosmos you can see several excerpts taken by an external camera during Leonov’s stay in space, as well as interesting facts about our future new Orlan-ISS spacesuit.
By the way, that historical flight was the last for the ships of the type "Sunrise", two years later they were replaced by the "Unions".
The case of Leonov saved from death again, in 1971. Then he was appointed commander of the main crew of the Soyuz-11, but before the start it was decided to send the backup crew of Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev. All three died during the descent from orbit.
10 years after his spacewalk, Leonov set off on his second flight. He was the commander of the Soyuz-19. This time was the first in the history of the docking of two spacecraft from different countries, the flight "Soyuz - Apollo".
In addition to his main professional activity, Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov, who turned 80 years old last year, became famous in our country as an artist who propagandizes the conquest of space. In particular, sets of postage stamps were produced three times , for which Leonov created drawings.
When you watch fantastic movies about space, it rarely leaves a deep sense of reliability and thoroughness of all these spacecraft and stations. There, everything is shown to be very massive: thick, multi-layered plating, automatic doors of multi-centimeter thickness. But when you look at the photographs and drawings of these ships, especially early designs, the hair begins to move on the head. How can you fly on THIS, not like in space? And what courage must one have in order to entrust one’s life to this close, fragile structure? This is how the ship "Voskhod-2" looked like, on which astronauts Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyaev set off to fly:
- instrument compartment
- descent vehicle
- airlock in inflated state
- exit camera
- pneumatic air inlet of airlock
- duplicate TDU
This silver corrugated cylinder is an inflatable (!) Airlock. You can evaluate for yourself how closely it was in the airlock (internal diameter in the inflated state - 1 meter, length - 2.5 m) and in the ship itself.
')
The tightness of both the descent ball-shaped module, in which the astronauts were located, and the gateway, was due to the rigid overall limitations of the launch vehicle. Hence the idea of an inflatable airlock, very compact in the folded state.
Both cosmonauts were dressed in the “Berkut” spacesuits, inside which the pressure of 0.4 atmosphere was maintained:
The first ever spacewalk lasted 12 minutes and 9 seconds. At the same time, Alexey Arkhipovich’s physical well-being left much to be desired: tachycardia began, shallow breathing became more frequent, the temperature rose to +38, and moreover, intense sweating. All this time, Leonov was connected to the ship with a short cable a little more than 5 meters long. In 12 minutes of being in space, Alexey Arkhipovich moved away from the ship five times and returned to him. By the way, the American cosmonaut, who went into space three months after Leonov, did not break away from the ship due to the fear of some state of emergency.
When returning, a problem arose: the spacesuit inflated with internal pressure did not allow penetration into the gateway. Leonov had to reduce the pressure to 0.27 atm to get inside. And since he did this not with his feet, but with his head forward, then he still had to work hard to turn around inside the airlock — and only then managed to return to the ship. After the hatch was closed, the gateway was shot off.
Above, we complained about the external fragility of spacecraft. It was not just a word for wit: after Leonov returned, it turned out that due to thermal deformation the hatch was not closed tightly and the automatic began to supply more oxygen. There is a risk of fire. However, the astronauts were lucky: Leonov accidentally touched the air supply switch from the reserve tanks, the atmospheric pressure in the ship increased and he ... slightly swelled. Like a tin can. Quite a bit, but this was enough to make the gap near the hatch disappear and the depressurization stopped. After that, the automatics returned the oxygen supply to the previous level.
And in this short clip from Roskosmos you can see several excerpts taken by an external camera during Leonov’s stay in space, as well as interesting facts about our future new Orlan-ISS spacesuit.
By the way, that historical flight was the last for the ships of the type "Sunrise", two years later they were replaced by the "Unions".
The case of Leonov saved from death again, in 1971. Then he was appointed commander of the main crew of the Soyuz-11, but before the start it was decided to send the backup crew of Dobrovolsky, Volkov and Patsayev. All three died during the descent from orbit.
10 years after his spacewalk, Leonov set off on his second flight. He was the commander of the Soyuz-19. This time was the first in the history of the docking of two spacecraft from different countries, the flight "Soyuz - Apollo".
In addition to his main professional activity, Alexey Arkhipovich Leonov, who turned 80 years old last year, became famous in our country as an artist who propagandizes the conquest of space. In particular, sets of postage stamps were produced three times , for which Leonov created drawings.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/366529/
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