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APOD: 50 Years Ago: Yuri s Planet (2011 Apr 12)

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 4:06 am
by APOD Robot
Image 50 Years Ago: Yuri s Planet

Explanation: On April 12th, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexseyevich Gagarin became the first human in space. His remotely controlled Vostok 1 spacecraft lofted him to an altitude of 200 miles and carried him once around planet Earth. Commenting on the first view from space he reported, "The sky is very dark; the Earth is bluish. Everything is seen very clearly". His view could have resembled this image taken in 2003 from the International Space Station. Alan Shepard, the first US astronaut, would not be launched until almost a month later and then on a comparatively short suborbital flight. Born on March 9, 1934, Gagarin was a military pilot before being chosen for the first group of cosmonauts in 1960. As a result of his historic flight he became an international hero and legend. Killed when his MIG jet crashed during a training flight in 1968, Gagarin was given a hero's funeral, his ashes interred in the Kremlin Wall. Twenty years later, on yet another April 12th, in 1981, NASA launched the first space shuttle.

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Re: APOD: 50 Years Ago: Yuri s Planet (2011 Apr 12)

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 4:24 am
by NoelC
April 12 is certainly a red letter day in space exploration.

Imagine being the first human alive to see that... And a whopping 50 years ago! Man, thinking about these milestones makes me feel old.

-Noel

150 Years Ago: The Battle of Fort Sumter

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 4:46 am
by neufer

Re: APOD: 50 Years Ago: Yuri s Planet (2011 Apr 12)

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 4:59 am
by bystander
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
First Orbit

A real time recreation of Yuri Gagarin's pioneering first orbit, shot entirely in space from on board the International Space Station. The film combines this new footage with Gagarin's original mission audio and a new musical score by composer Philip Sheppard. For more information visit http://www.firstorbit.org/.

Re: APOD: 50 Years Ago: Yuri s Planet (2011 Apr 12)

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 7:42 am
by hstarbuck
Nice space shot of a cumulonimbus anvil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulonimbus_cloud The weather was nicer in space that day :)

Re: APOD: 50 Years Ago: Yuri s Planet (2011 Apr 12)

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:22 pm
by moonstruck
Yeah the anvil is dissipating. Looks like someone is getting some nice scattered showers. Beautiful shot. Wonder what makes the halo?

Re: APOD: 50 Years Ago: Yuri s Planet (2011 Apr 12)

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 1:38 pm
by neufer
hstarbuck wrote:
Nice space shot of a cumulonimbus anvil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulonimbus_cloud
The weather was nicer in space that day :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gagarin wrote:
<<On 27 March 1968, while on a routine training flight from Chkalovsky Air Base, [Yuri Gagarin] and flight instructor Vladimir Seryogin died in a MiG-15UTI crash near the town of Kirzhach. The bodies of Gagarin and Seryogin were cremated and the ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin on Red Square.

Russian documents declassified in March 2003 showed that the KGB had conducted their own investigation of the accident, in addition to one government and two military investigations. The KGB's report dismissed various conspiracy theories, instead indicating that the actions of air base personnel contributed to the crash. The report states that an air traffic controller provided Gagarin with outdated weather information, and that by the time of his flight, conditions had deteriorated significantly. Ground crew also left external fuel tanks attached to the aircraft. Gagarin's planned flight activities needed clear weather and no outboard tanks. The investigation concluded that Gagarin's aircraft entered a spin, either due to a bird strike or because of a sudden move to avoid another aircraft. Because of the out-of-date weather report, the crew believed their altitude to be higher than it actually was, and could not properly react to bring the MiG-15 out of its spin.

In his 2004 book Two Sides of the Moon, Alexey Leonov recounts that he was flying a helicopter in the same area that day when he heard "two loud booms in the distance." Corroborating other theories, his conclusion is that a Sukhoi jet (which he identifies as a Su-15 'Flagon') was flying below its minimum allowed altitude, and "without realizing it because of the terrible weather conditions, he passed within 10 or 20 meters of Yuri and Seregin's plane while breaking the sound barrier." The resulting turbulence would have sent the MiG into an uncontrolled spin. Leonov believes the first boom he heard was that of the jet breaking the sound barrier, and the second was Gagarin's plane crashing.

In April 2011, documents from a 1968 commission setup by the Central Committee of the Communist Party to investigate the accident were declassified. Those documents revealed that the commission's original conclusion was that either Gagarin or Seryogin had maneuvered sharply, likely to avoid a weather balloon, leading the jet into a "super-critical flight regime and to its stalling in complex meteorological conditions". The report also suggested the jet may have been maneuvering sharply to avoid "entry into the upper limit of the first layer of cloud cover".>>

Re: APOD: 50 Years Ago: Yuri s Planet (2011 Apr 12)

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 2:58 pm
by mexhunter
50 years ago, Yuri Gagarin during his orbital flight said: "It is very nice our planet, we must take care". Valid sentence today, so it is very appropriate background image APOD today.
Greetings
César

Re: APOD: 50 Years Ago: Yuri s Planet (2011 Apr 12)

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 4:19 pm
by bystander
30 Years Ago: First Shuttle Flight
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
NASA: STS-1 - http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shutt ... sts-1.html

STS-1: Part 1: Ascent - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv-UtDBb0_c
STS-1: Part 2: Orbit - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbU9qyewGKk
STS-1: Part 3: Landing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I28wytd-IhQ

Lowe earth orbit: April 19, 1861

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 5:30 pm
by neufer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_S._C._Lowe wrote:
Image
Thaddeus Lowe, ca. 1890
<<Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe (August 20, 1832 - January 16, 1913), also known as Professor T. S. C. Lowe, was an American Civil War aeronaut, scientist and inventor, mostly self-educated in the fields of chemistry, meteorology, and aeronautics. Lowe was born August 20, 1832 to Clovis and Alpha Green Lowe in Jefferson Mills, Coos County, New Hampshire. His farm chores only allowed him the three winter months to attend Common School at Jefferson Hills, two miles away. The school had no books, but like Abraham Lincoln Thad would spend his evenings in front of the fireplace reading books loaned from his teacher’s personal library.

By age fourteen Thad had ventured out on his own first to Portland, Maine, then back to Boston where he joined his older brother Joseph in the shoe [parts] cutting trade. At eighteen Thad became quite ill and returned home. While he was still recuperating when his younger brother invited him to attend a chemistry lecture by one Professor Reginald Dinkelhoff featuring the phenomena of lighter-than-air gases, specifically hydrogen. When the Professor requested a volunteer from the audience, an eager Thaddeus jumped to the fore. Dinkelhoff could see the interest in his eyes and after the show offered to take him on the road with him as an assistant. Lowe did so and after two years upon the professor’s retirement bought out the show using the appellation “Thaddeus Sobieski Counlicourt Lowe, Professor of Chemistry.”

The lecture circuit business proved lucrative enough for Lowe to seek out the education he so lacked as a child. He tried studying medicine to fulfill his grandmother's wish, but the boredom redirected him to his first interest, aviation with the use of lighter-than-air gases. American balloonists used coke gas to inflate limp silk bags, as opposed to the original French balloons which were cotton weave over rigid frameworks that were stood over fires to collect hot smoke. By the late 1850s Lowe had become a foremost balloon builder and continued his lucrative business as a showman giving balloon rides to passersby and fairground attendees.

In 1855, at one of his lectures, he was introduced to a pretty Parisian actress, 19-year-old Leontine Augustine Gaschon. (Her father was a palace guard of King Louis Phillipe who fled to the U.S. as a political refugee.) A week later, on February 14, 1855, Thaddeus and Leontine wed. Their union would produce ten children. Lowe continued with his scientific endeavors and the dream of owning his own balloon with the wild idea of making a transatlantic flight via the high winds he observed. He pored over the book of John Wise, A System of Aeronautics which had specific instructions for the construction of aerostats, the cutting, the sewing, the leak proofing. In 1857 Lowe built and piloted his first balloon in tethered flight at a small farm in Hoboken, New Jersey. Thad’s father joined in the balloon making business and had become an accomplished aeronaut himself. In 1858 the Lowes built the larger balloon Enterprise and several others. Lowe espoused the theory of transatlantic flight to many who had stock market interests in Europe. The recently laid transatlantic cable had failed, and sea travel was undependably slow. He amassed supporters from all corners of the business and scientific communities, in particular one Prof. Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution who wrote: "The Smithsonian Institution has long been aware of the work and theories of Professor Lowe and we have found his statements scientifically sound. It is with great pleasure and satisfaction that we welcome proof of his genius. We shall follow the outcome of his plan with interest."

Lowe's latest mammoth balloon, the City of New York, was a massive 103-foot diameter balloon with an 11-1/2 ton lift capacity (on coke gas, 22-1/2 ton on hydrogen), which included a 20-foot diameter, 8-man canvas covered gondola and a suspended lifeboat named for his wife Leontine. It was prepared for a test flight to be launched at Reservoir Square in New York on November 1, 1859. Unfortunately the local gas company was not able to deliver a sufficient supply of gas. Within a week Lowe was invited to Philadelphia by Prof. John C. Cresson of the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Sciences, who also happened to be Chairman of the Board of the Point Breeze Gas Works. They promised a sufficient supply of gas. Lowe renamed his balloon the Great Western, on the advice of newspaperman Horace Greeley, to rival the maiden voyage of the steamship Great Eastern in the spring of 1860. Lowe made the flight successfully on June 28, 1860, from Philadelphia to New Jersey, but on his first attempt at a transatlantic launch on September 7, the Great Western was ripped open by a wind.
Image
Lowe's intended flight from Cincinnati shown in red.
Actual April 19, 1861 flight in blue
.
A second test flight, at the suggestion of Prof. Henry, was made from Cincinnati and was to return him to the eastern seaboard. For this flight he used the smaller balloon Enterprise. His flight took off on the early morning of April 19, 1861, two days after Virginia had seceded from the Union. The flight misdirected him to Unionville, South Carolina where he was put under house arrest as a Yankee spy. Having established his identity as a man of science, he was allowed to return home where he had received word from Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase to come to Washington with his balloon. The American Civil War permanently ended Lowe's attempt at a transatlantic crossing.

On the evening of June 11, 1861 Lowe met President Lincoln and offered to perform a demonstration with the Enterprise and a telegraph set from a height some 500 feet above the White House. In the telegraph message Lowe asserted: “I have the pleasure of sending you this first dispatch ever telegraphed from an aerial station...” Lowe was competing for the position with three other prominent balloonists, John Wise, John LaMountain, and brothers Ezra & James Allen. Wise and LaMountain were old critics of Lowe, but were not able to obtain the assignment so easily.

Lowe's first outing was at the First Battle of Bull Run, with General Irvin McDowell and the Army of Northeastern Virginia. His performance was impressive, though he had the misfortune of having to land behind enemy lines. Fortunately he was found by members of the 31st New York Volunteers before the enemy could discover him, but after landing, he had twisted his ankle and was not able to walk out with them. They returned to Fort Corcoran to report his position. Eventually his wife Leontine, disguised as an old hag, came to his rescue with a buckboard and canvas covers and was able to extract him and his equipment safely.

Word of his exploits got back to the President, who ordered General Winfield Scott to see to Lowe's formation of a balloon corps, with Lowe as Chief Aeronaut. It was almost four months before Lowe received orders and provisions to construct four (eventually seven) balloons equipped with mobile hydrogen gas generators. At the same time he assembled a band of men whom he would instruct in the methodology of military ballooning. The newly formed Union Army Balloon Corps remained a civilian contract organization, never receiving military commissions, a dangerous position lest any one of the men be captured as spies and summarily executed.

Though his work was generally successful, it was not fully appreciated by all members of the military, and disputes over his operations and pay scale forced him to resign in 1863. Lowe returned to the private sector and continued his scientific exploration of hydrogen gas manufacturing. He invented the water gas process by which large amounts of hydrogen gas could be produced from steam and charcoal. His inventions and patents on this process and ice making machines made him a millionaire. In 1887 Lowe moved to Los Angeles and eventually built a 24,000 sq. ft. home in Pasadena. He opened several ice making plants and founded Citizen's Bank of Los Angeles. Lowe was introduced to David J. Macpherson, a civil engineer, who had drawn up plans for a scenic mountain railroad. In 1891 they incorporated the Pasadena & Mount Wilson Railroad Co. and began the construction of what would become the Mount Lowe Railway into the hills above Altadena. The railway opened on July 4, 1893 and was met with quick interest and success. Lowe continued construction toward Oak Mountain, renamed Mount Lowe, at an exhaustive rate, both physically and financially. By 1899 Lowe had gone into receivership and eventually lost the railway to Jared S. Torrance. Lowe's fortunes had been all but lost, and he lived out his remaining days at his daughter's home in Pasadena where he died at age 80.>>

Re: Lowe earth orbit: April 19, 1861

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 6:02 pm
by owlice
I'll take Secretaries of the Treasury for $100, Alex.
AlexNeufer wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_S._C._Lowe wrote: Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase
Who is pictured on the US $10,000 bill?

Re: Lowe earth orbit: April 19, 1861

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:33 pm
by neufer
owlice wrote:
I'll take Secretaries of the Treasury for $100, Alex.
AlexNeufer wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaddeus_S._C._Lowe wrote: Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase
Who is pictured on the US $10,000 bill?
What is on second:
"Who" is on the Athenian tetradrachm:
Image
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_denominations_of_United_States_currency wrote:
<<To honor Chase for introducing the modern system of banknotes, he was depicted on the $10,000 bill printed from 1928 to 1946. Chase was instrumental in placing the phrase "In God We Trust" on United States coins. Although they are still technically legal tender in the United States, high-denomination bills were last printed in 1945 and officially discontinued on July 14, 1969, by the Federal Reserve System. The $5,000 and $10,000 effectively disappeared well before then. Of the $10,000 bills, 100 were preserved for many years by Benny Binion, the owner of Binion's Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas where they were displayed encased in acrylic. The display has since been dismantled and the bills sold to private collectors.>>
ImageImage

Re: Lowe earth orbit: April 19, 1861

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 8:37 pm
by owlice
neufer wrote:"Who" is on the Athenian tetradrachm:
Image
Glaucus, who is also on the Greek one Euro coin. Such a cute owl!!

Re: Lowe earth orbit: April 19, 1861

Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 9:19 pm
by neufer
Image
owlice wrote:
Glaucus, who is also on the Greek one Euro coin. Such a cute owl!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaucus_%28owl%29 wrote:
<<In Greek and Roman mythology, Glaucus (Greek: Γλαῦκος, Glaukos, "glaring (eyes)" :shock: ; compare Greek glaux, owl, of the same origin) is the symbolic owl of Athena or Minerva, respectively. Often referred to as the "owl of Athena" or "owl of Minerva", it accompanies Minerva in Roman myths, seen as a symbol of wisdom because the owl is capable of seeing even in the dark and of vigilance because the owl is awake at night.

The nineteenth-century idealist philosopher G.W.F. Hegel famously noted that "the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk"—meaning that philosophy comes to understand a historical condition just as it passes away. Philosophy cannot be prescriptive because it understands only in hindsight.

One more word about giving instruction as to what the world ought to be. Philosophy in any case always comes on the scene too late to give it... When philosophy paints its gloomy picture then a form of life has grown old. It cannot be rejuvenated by the gloomy picture, but only understood. Only when the dusk starts to fall does the owl of Minerva spread its wings and fly.
—G.W.F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right (1820), "Preface">>
_______ Finnegans Wake: Page 179

This explains the litany of septuncial lettertrumpets honorific,
highpitched, erudite, neoclassical,which he so loved
as patricianly to manuscribe after his name.
It would have diverted, if ever seen, the shuddersome spectacle
of this semidemented zany amid the inspissated grime of his
glaucous den making believe to read his usylessly unreadable
Blue Book of Eccles, �dition de t�n�bres, (even yet sighs the
Most Different, Dr. Poindejenk, authorised bowdler and censor,
it can't be repeated!) turning over three sheets at a wind,

Re: Lowe earth orbit: April 19, 1861

Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:30 am
by NoelC
owlice wrote:Glaucus, who is also on the Greek one Euro coin. Such a cute owl!!
Image

-Noel