Alexei Leonov, the First Human To Walk In Space, Has Died At Age 85 (cbsnews.com) 22
The Russian space agency confirmed Friday that legendary cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first human to walk in space and later the commander of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that docked with a NASA Apollo capsule, has died after a long illness. CBS News reports: An accomplished amateur artist and a widely respected statesman in the international space community, Leonov remained a lifelong friend of his Apollo-Soyuz Test Project crewmates and a source of inspiration to a younger generation of cosmonauts who carried his photo to the International Space Station and marked his 85th birthday during a spacewalk in May. "Leonov was certainly a cosmonaut's cosmonaut, he was stout of mind, body and heart," James Oberg, an expert on the Russian space program, said in an interview with CBS Radio. "He came through as a real tough guy who could handle problems, including almost being killed on his first spacewalk. But he also was a very decent human being."
Speaking to the NASA interviewer 50 years later, Leonov said "I really don't know how I managed to turn and go with my legs first. I was running a fever, I was sweating, I could not see much because of the sweat." Oberg said Leonov "always regretted and apologized in later years that he had been given written statements to give the press about how easy it was and how their training was perfect when, in fact, he said, it was just the opposite. He nearly died." Leonov and Belyayev returned to Earth on March 19, 1965, landing nearly 240 miles off course after their Soyuz descent module did not properly separate from from an upper compartment. Compared to the pinpoint landings Soyuz spacecraft make today returning from the International Space Station, Leonov's landing reads like an action adventure.
Speaking to the NASA interviewer 50 years later, Leonov said "I really don't know how I managed to turn and go with my legs first. I was running a fever, I was sweating, I could not see much because of the sweat." Oberg said Leonov "always regretted and apologized in later years that he had been given written statements to give the press about how easy it was and how their training was perfect when, in fact, he said, it was just the opposite. He nearly died." Leonov and Belyayev returned to Earth on March 19, 1965, landing nearly 240 miles off course after their Soyuz descent module did not properly separate from from an upper compartment. Compared to the pinpoint landings Soyuz spacecraft make today returning from the International Space Station, Leonov's landing reads like an action adventure.
Space, the final frontier (Score:1)
Re:Clarke failed (Score:4, Interesting)
Clarke's much bigger error was assuming, as most did back then, that communism would keep up with capitalism in economic might. Hence the ridiculously big and advanced space ship.
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we're still burning fuel, how pathetic. we've known how to make much more powerful propulsion systems for decades
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No, you can't build a colony with the wimpy SpaceX rockets though. A time limited manned mission with people in a tin can is all it can do. A drastic improvement in propulsion and payload by an order of magnitude at least is needed.
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we're still burning fuel, how pathetic. we've known how to make much more powerful propulsion systems for decades
Yeah, sure, we know what happens when that propulsion system is tested in the atmosphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] I am not keen on it being used anywhere closer than high earth orbit so for the time being let's continue burning fuel.
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It is true that rockets have not progressed nearly as fast as we were hoping in the 1960s, but the rate of progress in the last decade has been rapid, far more rapid than it was previously.
In some ways, yes... in others not so much. In 2009 there were 75 orbital launches, in 2019 we're at 67 and counting so while costs have gone down the market hasn't really expanded much at all. I'm hoping that with a fully reusable BFR and Starlink they'll find a bigger market but for now it's mostly the same old customers paying lower prices.
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Clarke's much bigger error was assuming, as most did back then, that communism would keep up with capitalism in economic might.
The USSR failed due to internal corruption and the US faces exactly the same problem. To not learn the lessons of the USSR is invite the possibility of failing the same way. Corruption is the cancer of any society because it allows crimes that rot a nation from within as prevents it from making adjustments to its culture that allows it to adapt to the present.
That failure of being able to adapt and correct structural weaknesses is what made the USSR down collapse under the weight of its own corruption.
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The USSR failed due to internal corruption and the US faces exactly the same problem..
No. I had an interesting conversation on this over coffee this summer with one of the deputies directors of an Eastern European country central bank from those days.
The failure of USSR and the Soviet Block was unsustainable debt.
Up to the early 70-es, the whole Soviet block borrowed only based on actual economic results, not on projected. At some point the Grey Cardinal (Suslov) who was responsible for all things ideological in the Soviet block noticed that in one of the reports to the CK. The bankers w
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we all know that what is in the plan was bollocks.
and that is corruption no? Writing and enforcing unrealistic plans for political gains?
Not as straightforward as direct theft of tax money, but corruption nonetheless.
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Not that uncommon (Score:2)
There have been a fair number of similar failures on Vostok and Soyuz, where the modules failed to separate. Also a fair number o
Thank you Leonov (Score:2)
And thanks to all the cosmonauts that were sacrificed solving the issues the Soviet space program had.
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The reason why he took the job of overseeing the whole human aspect of their programme was to ensure that there is as little of that as possible.
It is a statement of the fact - the level to which Soyuz is over-engineered and the safeties on that are unrivalled. No American system could and can abort under the conditions which happened to Soyuz MS10 last year or land under the conditions of Soyuz 33. Or one of Leonov's own missions for that matter - Voshod 2 (the spacewalk mission) was landed on manual in th
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I have seen you on the guardian.
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