Flying to the moon in the movies and in reality. Part one
In the distant 1902 year, Georges Méliès, the founder of the world's first film studio, the first to use special effects, the first to use the storyboard, shot the world's first fantastic 14-minute film "Journey to the Moon", in fact, presenting the world's first space adventure on people A moon that was funny enough, but not convincing enough.
In 1968, Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001 Year: A Space Odyssey” was released, becoming the same epochal event in cinema as Georges Méliès film, once already far behind in its entertainment technique. The technique of Kubrick's shooting brought the perception of fiction closer to reality, becoming a new starting point in the increased possibilities of Hollywood. So cinema for humanity became not only a spectacle, but also a kind of eraser, erasing the face of the real and the fictional, and it turned out that it was Stanley Kubrick who tried to return this facet in his sensational confession.
So, Stanley Kubrick was a famous director, but he attracted the most attention shortly before his death. The director didn’t become 9 March 1999, Kubrick died suddenly (allegedly from a heart attack) in his English estate near Hertfordshire, but many assume that the director was killed. The fact is that Stanley Kubrick confessed before his death that all the manned trips of Americans to the moon were a grandiose falsification, in which he was directly involved in the film. That is, according to Kubrick, all the achievements of the United States on the landing on the Moon are, to a large extent, only the spectacular achievements of Hollywood's capabilities in the most important art, and not the scientific and technical breakthrough of the United States in space.
Let us leave aside the fact that many times already been criticized and explained, justified, be it the American flag swaying in the airless environment on the Moon, the absence of a starry sky, ridiculous shadows, and much more that could, indeed, be filmed at a film studio. In principle, this possibility itself is not denied, in fact, some of the NASA materials could be captured in pavilions to enhance and supplement the image from the moon. In particular, such a version was voiced by cosmonaut Georgy Grechko after the recognition of Kubrick, in one of his interviews in December 2000 of the year. However, there is a big difference between staged photography, complementary and illustrating real events, and the complete replacement of real events with a fabricated fake, deliberate falsification.
Immediately you need to agree "ashore" that this article is only thoughts on Kubrick's statement, personal opinion, not a verdict, no claim to ultimate truth. Moreover, no one has to prove anything for the Americans, if we talk about the declared landing on the moon. Here, as in the defense of a thesis, first of all we need indisputable evidence from the applicant himself. There were Americans on the moon, great, but as they say, what is your evidence? If there is no absolute evidence, there are inconsistencies and drawn explanations, reasonable objections and doubts remain, then the defense of such a “dissertation” can be considered failed, the “theorem” - unproved. Let's try to figure it out.
To begin with, let us remember how it all began, what was the forerunner of American triumph, what, in fact, prerequisites for it, and why some remained staunch supporters of US superiority over the Soviet Union, while others only increased their skepticism regarding the flight of Americans, including after the statement of Kubrick.
In the summer of 1955, the Soviet Union and the United States almost simultaneously announced that they would launch a spacecraft in the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958).
It began what was called the “Space Race” (Space Race), so in the United States he named the events that had taken shape in space exploration from the late fifties to the late sixties, in rivalry with the Soviet Union.
In the unfolding space race on priority objectives (the first launch of a spacecraft into space, the first conclusion of a spacecraft into space with a man on board), the USA lost completely. The first Soviet satellite and “Hurray, Yura in Space!” Became the victories of the Soviet Union, the victories of the socialist path of social development.
America needed not just revenge, but success, unattainable for the Soviet Union, a victory proving the complete superiority of the United States in all spheres of development. For this was chosen an impressive goal - the conquest of the moon. New US President John F. Kennedy, speaking before the 25 Congress in May 1961, announced these ambitions in landing on the moon.
There were three main conditions.
First, the event should have become more significant, to be more spectacular than all previous achievements in space and turn all previous Soviet successes into secondary ones.
Secondly, the United States had to demonstrate its superiority in solving a very difficult goal.
Well, and thirdly, such a goal must be poorly achievable or even generally unrealistic for the Soviet Union, for the socialist model of the economy.
Such a goal was to be a manned flight to the Moon, which would have been the triumph of the United States, once and for all returning the United States lost positions in space, making it the undisputed leader and winner not only of the space race, but also demonstrating the complete superiority of capitalism, the United States as leader of the capitalist system. Naturally, the priority in this program received more political factors than the scientific one, and, first of all, for the wounded prestige of the US leadership, where the Americans on the landing of a man on the moon must necessarily have outstripped the USSR.
Landing a man on the moon. What did the United States and the USSR have before such a grand program of manned flight, who had a better chance of success?
At once, we say that in the study of the moon, the United States also lagged behind on all counts from the USSR, acting as a follower.
The Soviet Union had its lunar program, moreover, the USSR was the first in this regard, ahead of the Americans: as early as 1959, the Soviet stations reached the moon and even photographed its opposite side. In 1966, the world's first automatic stationary Luna-9 was delivered to the moon. In 1968, the automated probe Zond-5 reached the moon for seven days, flew around it and returned safely to Earth.
The study of the moon in the USSR was consistent and phased. After the landing on the moon, declared by the Americans, the Soviet automatic station Luna-16 (in September 1970) landed on the moon, took a sample of the ground, and, taking off from the surface of the moon, delivered the lunar soil to the earth.
Total Soviet spacecraft delivered to Earth from the moon about 300 grams of real lunar soil. Finally, we must not forget that the 17 of the year 1970 was already launched on the Moon on November 1, the world's first movable automatic apparatus, the Soviet Lunokhod-1, began work. Further, January 16 1973, the moon exploration continued the "Lunokhod-2", becoming an improved development of the "Lunokhod-1".
In order not to endanger the lives of astronauts, in the Soviet Union, a new spacecraft, the Soyuz-7K-L1, was tested in an unmanned automatic version. Its unmanned version was called the Zond (structurally made on the basis of the manned spacecraft Soyuz, but without a domestic compartment). The devices of the probe series were intended for the development of subsequent manned flybys of the moon as part of the Soviet manned lunar program.
Now let's see what the Americans had with their stated “priority” on the Moon, what they had in mastering the technique of flying to the Moon, on what development the USA was, to be confident in the success of a manned flight, what technologies and developments they had .
It makes no sense to argue with the fact that after the Second World War, the United States has become and remains the first technological power. But not always and not everywhere the United States was in the lead, and this is exactly what happened with the conquest of outer space.
For a variety of reasons, including an incorrect assessment of the importance of rockets, the United States lagged behind the USSR, including in the study of the Moon, without having worked out a number of important technologies in automatic mode. First of all, circling the moon and returning to Earth, and the more soft landing on the surface of the moon with a reverse start and return to Earth. The United States did not have any heavy launch vehicles either.
The amazing appearance of the “Saturn-5” with fantastic reliability after hasty and incomplete tests and a record to date, carrying capacity - a separate topic, to which we come back later.
To begin with, we note one very important detail, which is directly interconnected with the presence or absence of a heavy launch vehicle in the period of the start of launches of the inhabited apparatuses of the USSR and the USA into near-earth orbit. If our cosmonauts were provided for breathing air, the Americans used pure oxygen, an extremely dangerous option, fraught with fire and an explosion from any spark.
Of the many accidents with the use of oxygen, the death of the Apollo-1 crew is most known. The fire occurred on January 27 1967 of the year during ground tests at the launch complex of the Kennedy Space Center. The astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were burned alive in the fire. Oxygen is an extremely hazardous environment where the slightest spark can cause an explosion and a fire. In oxygen, not only steel, but even ceramics easily burns. Oxygen was used to maximize the relief of US space capsules, precisely because of the absence of a heavy launch vehicle in the United States.
The size of the US manned spacecraft, intended for withdrawal into near-Earth space, differed incredibly tightness - and also because of weight savings. So, the total volume for two people in “Gemini” was 2,6 cubic meters, in “Apollo” the total volume was for three 6 cubic meters. For comparison: "Soyuz" had a total volume of two 8,5 astronauts cubic meters.
The Americans themselves noted that the Soviet Union began its space program in spacecraft, which could be 50 times heavier than those that the United States launched six months later. The Soviet vehicles, resembling compressed air tanks, were much more adapted to flying than the American "space shells", having sufficient strength to withstand the normal atmospheric pressure inside, and to resist the external vacuum.
Not having powerful rockets capable of raising such a mass, the United States could not afford this and had to build light capsules with an oxygen medium to at least somehow respond to the Soviet Union.
The difference between normal atmospheric pressure (in 1 atmosphere) and vacuum implies a load on the inner walls of the capsule, equal to 144 atmospheres, so a relatively heavy and durable material is needed for the skeleton and the spacecraft shell to be at normal pressure. The large lifting force of Soviet missiles made it possible to use a breathing mixture consisting of 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen, which is the equivalent of normal air. On board, this mixture was stored as liquids in low-temperature tanks. The supply of nitrogen was less, because this gas is inert for the human body and is only required to restore the internal pressure of the capsule after sealing. Oxygen tanks were much more voluminous, as it was converted by means of respiration into carbon dioxide, which was instantly removed from the cabin with the help of chemicals. A large amount of oxygen was also consumed during depressurization when opening the cabin.
Without having thick-walled capsules at its disposal, NASA decided from the outset to use a mixture of 50% oxygen and 50% nitrogen at a pressure in the 0,5 atmosphere. In August, 1962, this requirement was reduced to the use of pure oxygen at a pressure in the 0,3 atmosphere.
The fact is that you can breathe pure oxygen only for a limited time, but a glut of oxygen in the body has its own medical term, “hyperoxia” (oxygen poisoning). You can breathe pure oxygen at normal atmospheric pressure for no more than 4 hours.
If you put a person in a pressure chamber filled with pure oxygen, it will be hard for him to breathe, and after a while he will show signs of significant impairment of life and poisoning.
However, as it turned out, as the atmospheric pressure decreases, the human body tolerates the presence of a large amount of oxygen, and at atmospheric pressure 0,2, the pressure chamber can be filled with pure oxygen without any particular harm. The experiments were carried out with the pilots of jet aircraft, placing them in the pressure chambers of two people, the results were positive. Nevertheless, it was noted that almost all the pilots who underwent the experiment began to suffer disorders typical of oxygen poisoning. They felt pain in the chest, ears, teeth, muscles, they felt tired, nauseous, impaired visual perception. All of these symptoms completely disappeared only within 7 — 10 days after leaving the pressure chamber.
That is, with appropriate training under reduced pressure in an oxygen environment, it can be quite a long time. Another issue is that a long stay in the close cabin of a spacecraft and without the complications associated with a decrease in pressure and oxygen supply (pressure chamber function) creates a lot of difficulties for the human body and it is unlikely that they should be aggravated. More from oxygen poisoning (hyperoxia) to oxygen starvation (hypoxia) with increasing or decreasing atmospheric pressure will depend on the partial pressure of oxygen.
Climbers and divers will understand this better, but I will limit myself to the fact that the partial pressure of oxygen is of particular importance for the physiological state of a person, since it determines the process of gas exchange in the body. If the barometric pressure of air falls, then the pressure of each component of the air falls separately, that is, the partial pressure of oxygen, nitrogen and other gases that make up the air falls.
For example, at atmospheric pressure 760 millimeters of mercury (at sea level), the partial pressure of oxygen will be within 150 millimeters of mercury. The rate of penetration of oxygen to the blood vessels by diffusion is not determined by its percentage in the air, but by partial pressure.
To safely switch to breathing pure oxygen under reduced pressure, you must first remove the nitrogen from the body. This prevents the formation of bubbles in the body that expand from reduced pressure. So, in order to avoid deadly danger, astronauts need to spend a period of time breathing pure oxygen at normal atmospheric pressure.
What is the passage above? Yes, not everything is so simple with the use of pure oxygen in space, from start, flight and landing, as it seems at first glance. So far, there are no convincing arguments for multi-day spaceflight in thin-walled American capsules, far from oxygen pressure chambers, there is no way to the Moon and back.
For comparison: the air pressure on the ISS is normally equal to the atmospheric pressure at sea level, that is, 760 millimeters of mercury. Sometimes the pressure may drop slightly.
The critical level, below which individual components may fail, is 672 mm Hg, that is, equipment fails at lower pressure.
As stated by the Americans, the reduced pressure was used to save weight on the American Apollo ships, as well as on the US’s only Skylab orbital station, where the pressure was a little over a third atmospheric.
By the way, here we are surprised at a very strange fact: how can you create a super-heavy Saturn-5 rocket and at the same time not develop new habitable spacecraft for it, moving away from dangerous technologies with an oxygen environment and thin-walled close capsules?
On the ISS, which was built on the basis of the Soviet experience of creating orbital stations, the pressure is equal to the 1 atmosphere, as it was at the Salyut and Mir stations; moreover, all manned flights are now performed using air rather than oxygen. The United States went on the air when they were finally able to master their Space Shuttle program.
So how did the Americans fly to the moon (even for a long time into Earth orbit), if in one case there is oxygen poisoning, and under reduced pressure inside the capsule - equipment failures, a huge risk from an explosion and a fire with the slightest spark? It is much more interesting than the explanation of the diapers in flight.
For American pilots in Gemini's suborbital jumps on 15 minutes, this may be acceptable and acceptable, but for being in space for many days? How can we make a pressure chamber in the conditions of launch and exit into space? How can we adapt to the oxygen environment with low pressure from the earth's atmosphere in a short time?
The American “experts” from NASA have always found any explanations or excuses for the public. For example, such information that the life support system for the crew of the Apollo spacecraft was designed and manufactured by Airsearch (USA). The system was supposed to maintain in the ship's cabin temperatures ranging from 21 to 27 ° C, humidity from 40 to 70% and pressure 0,35 kg / cm2. In preparation for the launch and at the start, the atmosphere in the cockpit consisted of 60% oxygen and 40% nitrogen; in flight, this mixture was etched and replaced with pure oxygen. The system was designed to increase the duration of the flight beyond the estimated time of four days required for the expedition to the moon, and therefore provided the possibility of adjustment and repair by the crew, dressed in space suits.
It means that everything was set off, replaced in the conditions of a quick start, from normal pressure on the Earth, with a thin-walled capsule, and not a pressure chamber, in the conditions of a cosmic vacuum, given by ballistics of flight.
It should be noted that in many pictures, Americans are not even distracted by such an element as a spacesuit, flying to the moon (photo in the Apollo-17 capsule).
It is also interesting how the Apollo crews sprang from low pressure and respiration in pure oxygen. In this case, the astronauts in a very short time found themselves in increased pressure, but without the slightest fear of decompression, moreover, after several days in weightlessness, they cheerfully climbed aboard the American ship, as if not from space, but returned from the resort.
This nonsense is not fiction, it was documented on photos and film in December 1968 of the year (“Apollo-8”), where the Americans, as stated, flew to the Moon and returned. Once again, we note that before the Apollo-8, not a single American spacecraft did this, the Americans did not have any experience in returning space objects to Earth at 2 space speed. Another thing is the Soviet Union, which is working on technologies where the Zond-5 automatic station (the unmanned prototype of the 7K-L1 Soyuz spacecraft) reached the Moon in 1968, and, having flown around it, returned to Earth.
Note also the fact relating to the previously announced first long-term US entry into Earth orbit (Apollo-7), when the 22 of October 1968 of the year was returned to Earth in accordance with the program. During the descent, the following was announced to the public: astronauts had a respiratory tract due to a cold, and they feared that with a sharp increase in pressure during the return to the earth, acute ear pain could occur and even eardrums could burst. In this regard, the astronauts asked the flight managers to allow them not to wear space suits and helmets during their return to Earth, so that with a sharp increase in pressure in the compartment, astronauts could plug their nose and make a swallowing motion. The astronauts were allowed to remain without helmets, but, nevertheless, the suits were obliged to wear to avoid injury. More astronauts were supposed to impose on their heads overalls. Is it like - without helmets, wearing head overalls? It was as if it was a radio show based on a fantastic novel for the entertainment of listeners, naive inhabitants, and not reality. In a thin-walled capsule that should warm up when entering the dense atmosphere, with pure oxygen inside, but Americans without helmets and even space suits do not want to wear. What should astronauts assume at the subsequent opening of the hatch, when an abrupt pressure drop should occur, after their eleven days in an oxygen environment, low pressure, cramping and weightlessness? ..
Nevertheless, the living and quite healthy astronauts were taken aboard the helicopter and delivered to the aircraft carrier 56 minutes after landing, none of them, unlike the Soviet cosmonauts, were returned after being exhausted (oh, “life-giving oxygen”). The crew compartment was hoisted aboard the aircraft carrier in an hour.
This alone raises a logical question: did American astronauts then return from space? Or, focusing on the cheerful statements of TASS that the Soviet cosmonauts returned safely from orbit, they had no idea what a real return from space was?
To be continued ...
In 1968, Stanley Kubrick’s film “2001 Year: A Space Odyssey” was released, becoming the same epochal event in cinema as Georges Méliès film, once already far behind in its entertainment technique. The technique of Kubrick's shooting brought the perception of fiction closer to reality, becoming a new starting point in the increased possibilities of Hollywood. So cinema for humanity became not only a spectacle, but also a kind of eraser, erasing the face of the real and the fictional, and it turned out that it was Stanley Kubrick who tried to return this facet in his sensational confession.
So, Stanley Kubrick was a famous director, but he attracted the most attention shortly before his death. The director didn’t become 9 March 1999, Kubrick died suddenly (allegedly from a heart attack) in his English estate near Hertfordshire, but many assume that the director was killed. The fact is that Stanley Kubrick confessed before his death that all the manned trips of Americans to the moon were a grandiose falsification, in which he was directly involved in the film. That is, according to Kubrick, all the achievements of the United States on the landing on the Moon are, to a large extent, only the spectacular achievements of Hollywood's capabilities in the most important art, and not the scientific and technical breakthrough of the United States in space.
Let us leave aside the fact that many times already been criticized and explained, justified, be it the American flag swaying in the airless environment on the Moon, the absence of a starry sky, ridiculous shadows, and much more that could, indeed, be filmed at a film studio. In principle, this possibility itself is not denied, in fact, some of the NASA materials could be captured in pavilions to enhance and supplement the image from the moon. In particular, such a version was voiced by cosmonaut Georgy Grechko after the recognition of Kubrick, in one of his interviews in December 2000 of the year. However, there is a big difference between staged photography, complementary and illustrating real events, and the complete replacement of real events with a fabricated fake, deliberate falsification.
Immediately you need to agree "ashore" that this article is only thoughts on Kubrick's statement, personal opinion, not a verdict, no claim to ultimate truth. Moreover, no one has to prove anything for the Americans, if we talk about the declared landing on the moon. Here, as in the defense of a thesis, first of all we need indisputable evidence from the applicant himself. There were Americans on the moon, great, but as they say, what is your evidence? If there is no absolute evidence, there are inconsistencies and drawn explanations, reasonable objections and doubts remain, then the defense of such a “dissertation” can be considered failed, the “theorem” - unproved. Let's try to figure it out.
To begin with, let us remember how it all began, what was the forerunner of American triumph, what, in fact, prerequisites for it, and why some remained staunch supporters of US superiority over the Soviet Union, while others only increased their skepticism regarding the flight of Americans, including after the statement of Kubrick.
In the summer of 1955, the Soviet Union and the United States almost simultaneously announced that they would launch a spacecraft in the International Geophysical Year (1957-1958).
It began what was called the “Space Race” (Space Race), so in the United States he named the events that had taken shape in space exploration from the late fifties to the late sixties, in rivalry with the Soviet Union.
In the unfolding space race on priority objectives (the first launch of a spacecraft into space, the first conclusion of a spacecraft into space with a man on board), the USA lost completely. The first Soviet satellite and “Hurray, Yura in Space!” Became the victories of the Soviet Union, the victories of the socialist path of social development.
America needed not just revenge, but success, unattainable for the Soviet Union, a victory proving the complete superiority of the United States in all spheres of development. For this was chosen an impressive goal - the conquest of the moon. New US President John F. Kennedy, speaking before the 25 Congress in May 1961, announced these ambitions in landing on the moon.
There were three main conditions.
First, the event should have become more significant, to be more spectacular than all previous achievements in space and turn all previous Soviet successes into secondary ones.
Secondly, the United States had to demonstrate its superiority in solving a very difficult goal.
Well, and thirdly, such a goal must be poorly achievable or even generally unrealistic for the Soviet Union, for the socialist model of the economy.
Such a goal was to be a manned flight to the Moon, which would have been the triumph of the United States, once and for all returning the United States lost positions in space, making it the undisputed leader and winner not only of the space race, but also demonstrating the complete superiority of capitalism, the United States as leader of the capitalist system. Naturally, the priority in this program received more political factors than the scientific one, and, first of all, for the wounded prestige of the US leadership, where the Americans on the landing of a man on the moon must necessarily have outstripped the USSR.
Landing a man on the moon. What did the United States and the USSR have before such a grand program of manned flight, who had a better chance of success?
At once, we say that in the study of the moon, the United States also lagged behind on all counts from the USSR, acting as a follower.
The Soviet Union had its lunar program, moreover, the USSR was the first in this regard, ahead of the Americans: as early as 1959, the Soviet stations reached the moon and even photographed its opposite side. In 1966, the world's first automatic stationary Luna-9 was delivered to the moon. In 1968, the automated probe Zond-5 reached the moon for seven days, flew around it and returned safely to Earth.
The study of the moon in the USSR was consistent and phased. After the landing on the moon, declared by the Americans, the Soviet automatic station Luna-16 (in September 1970) landed on the moon, took a sample of the ground, and, taking off from the surface of the moon, delivered the lunar soil to the earth.
Total Soviet spacecraft delivered to Earth from the moon about 300 grams of real lunar soil. Finally, we must not forget that the 17 of the year 1970 was already launched on the Moon on November 1, the world's first movable automatic apparatus, the Soviet Lunokhod-1, began work. Further, January 16 1973, the moon exploration continued the "Lunokhod-2", becoming an improved development of the "Lunokhod-1".
In order not to endanger the lives of astronauts, in the Soviet Union, a new spacecraft, the Soyuz-7K-L1, was tested in an unmanned automatic version. Its unmanned version was called the Zond (structurally made on the basis of the manned spacecraft Soyuz, but without a domestic compartment). The devices of the probe series were intended for the development of subsequent manned flybys of the moon as part of the Soviet manned lunar program.
Now let's see what the Americans had with their stated “priority” on the Moon, what they had in mastering the technique of flying to the Moon, on what development the USA was, to be confident in the success of a manned flight, what technologies and developments they had .
It makes no sense to argue with the fact that after the Second World War, the United States has become and remains the first technological power. But not always and not everywhere the United States was in the lead, and this is exactly what happened with the conquest of outer space.
For a variety of reasons, including an incorrect assessment of the importance of rockets, the United States lagged behind the USSR, including in the study of the Moon, without having worked out a number of important technologies in automatic mode. First of all, circling the moon and returning to Earth, and the more soft landing on the surface of the moon with a reverse start and return to Earth. The United States did not have any heavy launch vehicles either.
The amazing appearance of the “Saturn-5” with fantastic reliability after hasty and incomplete tests and a record to date, carrying capacity - a separate topic, to which we come back later.
To begin with, we note one very important detail, which is directly interconnected with the presence or absence of a heavy launch vehicle in the period of the start of launches of the inhabited apparatuses of the USSR and the USA into near-earth orbit. If our cosmonauts were provided for breathing air, the Americans used pure oxygen, an extremely dangerous option, fraught with fire and an explosion from any spark.
Of the many accidents with the use of oxygen, the death of the Apollo-1 crew is most known. The fire occurred on January 27 1967 of the year during ground tests at the launch complex of the Kennedy Space Center. The astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee were burned alive in the fire. Oxygen is an extremely hazardous environment where the slightest spark can cause an explosion and a fire. In oxygen, not only steel, but even ceramics easily burns. Oxygen was used to maximize the relief of US space capsules, precisely because of the absence of a heavy launch vehicle in the United States.
The size of the US manned spacecraft, intended for withdrawal into near-Earth space, differed incredibly tightness - and also because of weight savings. So, the total volume for two people in “Gemini” was 2,6 cubic meters, in “Apollo” the total volume was for three 6 cubic meters. For comparison: "Soyuz" had a total volume of two 8,5 astronauts cubic meters.
The Americans themselves noted that the Soviet Union began its space program in spacecraft, which could be 50 times heavier than those that the United States launched six months later. The Soviet vehicles, resembling compressed air tanks, were much more adapted to flying than the American "space shells", having sufficient strength to withstand the normal atmospheric pressure inside, and to resist the external vacuum.
Not having powerful rockets capable of raising such a mass, the United States could not afford this and had to build light capsules with an oxygen medium to at least somehow respond to the Soviet Union.
The difference between normal atmospheric pressure (in 1 atmosphere) and vacuum implies a load on the inner walls of the capsule, equal to 144 atmospheres, so a relatively heavy and durable material is needed for the skeleton and the spacecraft shell to be at normal pressure. The large lifting force of Soviet missiles made it possible to use a breathing mixture consisting of 20% oxygen and 80% nitrogen, which is the equivalent of normal air. On board, this mixture was stored as liquids in low-temperature tanks. The supply of nitrogen was less, because this gas is inert for the human body and is only required to restore the internal pressure of the capsule after sealing. Oxygen tanks were much more voluminous, as it was converted by means of respiration into carbon dioxide, which was instantly removed from the cabin with the help of chemicals. A large amount of oxygen was also consumed during depressurization when opening the cabin.
Without having thick-walled capsules at its disposal, NASA decided from the outset to use a mixture of 50% oxygen and 50% nitrogen at a pressure in the 0,5 atmosphere. In August, 1962, this requirement was reduced to the use of pure oxygen at a pressure in the 0,3 atmosphere.
The fact is that you can breathe pure oxygen only for a limited time, but a glut of oxygen in the body has its own medical term, “hyperoxia” (oxygen poisoning). You can breathe pure oxygen at normal atmospheric pressure for no more than 4 hours.
If you put a person in a pressure chamber filled with pure oxygen, it will be hard for him to breathe, and after a while he will show signs of significant impairment of life and poisoning.
However, as it turned out, as the atmospheric pressure decreases, the human body tolerates the presence of a large amount of oxygen, and at atmospheric pressure 0,2, the pressure chamber can be filled with pure oxygen without any particular harm. The experiments were carried out with the pilots of jet aircraft, placing them in the pressure chambers of two people, the results were positive. Nevertheless, it was noted that almost all the pilots who underwent the experiment began to suffer disorders typical of oxygen poisoning. They felt pain in the chest, ears, teeth, muscles, they felt tired, nauseous, impaired visual perception. All of these symptoms completely disappeared only within 7 — 10 days after leaving the pressure chamber.
That is, with appropriate training under reduced pressure in an oxygen environment, it can be quite a long time. Another issue is that a long stay in the close cabin of a spacecraft and without the complications associated with a decrease in pressure and oxygen supply (pressure chamber function) creates a lot of difficulties for the human body and it is unlikely that they should be aggravated. More from oxygen poisoning (hyperoxia) to oxygen starvation (hypoxia) with increasing or decreasing atmospheric pressure will depend on the partial pressure of oxygen.
Climbers and divers will understand this better, but I will limit myself to the fact that the partial pressure of oxygen is of particular importance for the physiological state of a person, since it determines the process of gas exchange in the body. If the barometric pressure of air falls, then the pressure of each component of the air falls separately, that is, the partial pressure of oxygen, nitrogen and other gases that make up the air falls.
For example, at atmospheric pressure 760 millimeters of mercury (at sea level), the partial pressure of oxygen will be within 150 millimeters of mercury. The rate of penetration of oxygen to the blood vessels by diffusion is not determined by its percentage in the air, but by partial pressure.
To safely switch to breathing pure oxygen under reduced pressure, you must first remove the nitrogen from the body. This prevents the formation of bubbles in the body that expand from reduced pressure. So, in order to avoid deadly danger, astronauts need to spend a period of time breathing pure oxygen at normal atmospheric pressure.
What is the passage above? Yes, not everything is so simple with the use of pure oxygen in space, from start, flight and landing, as it seems at first glance. So far, there are no convincing arguments for multi-day spaceflight in thin-walled American capsules, far from oxygen pressure chambers, there is no way to the Moon and back.
For comparison: the air pressure on the ISS is normally equal to the atmospheric pressure at sea level, that is, 760 millimeters of mercury. Sometimes the pressure may drop slightly.
The critical level, below which individual components may fail, is 672 mm Hg, that is, equipment fails at lower pressure.
As stated by the Americans, the reduced pressure was used to save weight on the American Apollo ships, as well as on the US’s only Skylab orbital station, where the pressure was a little over a third atmospheric.
By the way, here we are surprised at a very strange fact: how can you create a super-heavy Saturn-5 rocket and at the same time not develop new habitable spacecraft for it, moving away from dangerous technologies with an oxygen environment and thin-walled close capsules?
On the ISS, which was built on the basis of the Soviet experience of creating orbital stations, the pressure is equal to the 1 atmosphere, as it was at the Salyut and Mir stations; moreover, all manned flights are now performed using air rather than oxygen. The United States went on the air when they were finally able to master their Space Shuttle program.
So how did the Americans fly to the moon (even for a long time into Earth orbit), if in one case there is oxygen poisoning, and under reduced pressure inside the capsule - equipment failures, a huge risk from an explosion and a fire with the slightest spark? It is much more interesting than the explanation of the diapers in flight.
For American pilots in Gemini's suborbital jumps on 15 minutes, this may be acceptable and acceptable, but for being in space for many days? How can we make a pressure chamber in the conditions of launch and exit into space? How can we adapt to the oxygen environment with low pressure from the earth's atmosphere in a short time?
The American “experts” from NASA have always found any explanations or excuses for the public. For example, such information that the life support system for the crew of the Apollo spacecraft was designed and manufactured by Airsearch (USA). The system was supposed to maintain in the ship's cabin temperatures ranging from 21 to 27 ° C, humidity from 40 to 70% and pressure 0,35 kg / cm2. In preparation for the launch and at the start, the atmosphere in the cockpit consisted of 60% oxygen and 40% nitrogen; in flight, this mixture was etched and replaced with pure oxygen. The system was designed to increase the duration of the flight beyond the estimated time of four days required for the expedition to the moon, and therefore provided the possibility of adjustment and repair by the crew, dressed in space suits.
It means that everything was set off, replaced in the conditions of a quick start, from normal pressure on the Earth, with a thin-walled capsule, and not a pressure chamber, in the conditions of a cosmic vacuum, given by ballistics of flight.
It should be noted that in many pictures, Americans are not even distracted by such an element as a spacesuit, flying to the moon (photo in the Apollo-17 capsule).
It is also interesting how the Apollo crews sprang from low pressure and respiration in pure oxygen. In this case, the astronauts in a very short time found themselves in increased pressure, but without the slightest fear of decompression, moreover, after several days in weightlessness, they cheerfully climbed aboard the American ship, as if not from space, but returned from the resort.
This nonsense is not fiction, it was documented on photos and film in December 1968 of the year (“Apollo-8”), where the Americans, as stated, flew to the Moon and returned. Once again, we note that before the Apollo-8, not a single American spacecraft did this, the Americans did not have any experience in returning space objects to Earth at 2 space speed. Another thing is the Soviet Union, which is working on technologies where the Zond-5 automatic station (the unmanned prototype of the 7K-L1 Soyuz spacecraft) reached the Moon in 1968, and, having flown around it, returned to Earth.
Note also the fact relating to the previously announced first long-term US entry into Earth orbit (Apollo-7), when the 22 of October 1968 of the year was returned to Earth in accordance with the program. During the descent, the following was announced to the public: astronauts had a respiratory tract due to a cold, and they feared that with a sharp increase in pressure during the return to the earth, acute ear pain could occur and even eardrums could burst. In this regard, the astronauts asked the flight managers to allow them not to wear space suits and helmets during their return to Earth, so that with a sharp increase in pressure in the compartment, astronauts could plug their nose and make a swallowing motion. The astronauts were allowed to remain without helmets, but, nevertheless, the suits were obliged to wear to avoid injury. More astronauts were supposed to impose on their heads overalls. Is it like - without helmets, wearing head overalls? It was as if it was a radio show based on a fantastic novel for the entertainment of listeners, naive inhabitants, and not reality. In a thin-walled capsule that should warm up when entering the dense atmosphere, with pure oxygen inside, but Americans without helmets and even space suits do not want to wear. What should astronauts assume at the subsequent opening of the hatch, when an abrupt pressure drop should occur, after their eleven days in an oxygen environment, low pressure, cramping and weightlessness? ..
Nevertheless, the living and quite healthy astronauts were taken aboard the helicopter and delivered to the aircraft carrier 56 minutes after landing, none of them, unlike the Soviet cosmonauts, were returned after being exhausted (oh, “life-giving oxygen”). The crew compartment was hoisted aboard the aircraft carrier in an hour.
This alone raises a logical question: did American astronauts then return from space? Or, focusing on the cheerful statements of TASS that the Soviet cosmonauts returned safely from orbit, they had no idea what a real return from space was?
To be continued ...
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