[Atompunk] the lost cosmonaut in space

[carl guderian]

This story is so fascinating on a human level that whether Lost  
Cosmonaut is/was real is beside the point.

It's a good thing too, because the speed given in the story, 18,000  
mph, is not enough to push anything out of earth orbit, let alone out  
of the solar system.

If they meant 18,000 mph on top of 25,000mph for earth escape  
velocity, which is an odd way of putting it, the distance would be  
about right. But no rocket in 1961 could have accomplished it. Even  
in 1968, the Saturn V burned 2-1/2 stages just getting itself to  
orbit so that the last stage could push the crew to the moon at maybe  
30,000 mph tops.  The Voyagers and Pioneers only got as far as they  
did because they didn't weigh much and had gravity assists from  
various planets.

Carl


On 30-apr-2009, at 23:01, Ross Payton wrote:

> http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/1302/lost_in_space.html
>
> There are those who believe that somewhere in the vast blackness of  
> space, about nine billion miles from the Sun, the first human is  
> about to cross the boundary of our Solar System into interstellar  
> space. His body, perfectly preserved, is frozen at –270 degrees C (– 
> 454ºF); his tiny capsule has been silently sailing away from the  
> Earth at 18,000 mph (29,000km/h) for the last 45 years. He is the  
> original lost cosmonaut, whose rocket went up and, instead of  
> coming back down, just kept on going.
>
> It is the ultimate in Cold War legends: that at the dawn of the  
> Space Age, in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, the Soviet  
> Union had two space programmes, one a public programme, the other a  
> ‘black’ one, in which far more daring and sometimes downright  
> suicidal missions were attempted. It was assumed that Russia’s  
> Black Ops, if they existed at all, would remain secret forever.
>
> The ‘Lost Cosmonauts’ debate has been reawakened thanks to a new  
> investigation into the efforts of two ingenious, radio-mad young  
> Italian brothers who, starting in 1957, hacked into both Russia’s  
> and NASA’s space programmes – so effect ively that the Russians, it  
> seems, may have wanted them dead.
>
>
>
> -- 
> Ross Payton
> Raillery: A Comedy video podcast
> http://www.raillery.tv
> _______________________________________________
> Atompunk mailing list
> Atompunk at antenna.nl
> http://www14.antenna.nl/mailman/listinfo/atompunk

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www14.antenna.nl/pipermail/atompunk/attachments/20090501/869fa986/attachment.html>