Home Garden on the windowsill Modern scientific research of outer space. Why space research is important for each of us. Research in space biology, physiology and materials science

Garden on the windowsill

Modern scientific research of outer space. Why space research is important for each of us. Research in space biology, physiology and materials science

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Introduction

In the second half of the XX century. humanity stepped on the threshold of the universe - went out into outer space. The road to space was opened by our Motherland. The first artificial satellite of the Earth, which opened the space age, was launched by the former Soviet Union, the first cosmonaut in the world is a citizen of the former USSR.

Cosmonautics is a huge catalyst for modern science and technology, which has become one of the main levers of the modern world process in an unprecedentedly short period of time. It stimulates the development of electronics, mechanical engineering, materials science, computer technology, energy and many other areas of the national economy.

In scientific terms, humanity seeks to find in space the answer to such fundamental questions as the structure and evolution of the Universe, the formation of the solar system, the origin and development of life. From hypotheses about the nature of the planets and the structure of the cosmos, people moved on to a comprehensive and direct study of celestial bodies and interplanetary space with the help of rocket and space technology.

In space exploration, mankind will have to study various areas of outer space: the Moon, other planets and interplanetary space.

The current level of space technology and the forecast of its development show that the main goal of scientific research using space means, apparently, in the near future will be our solar system. The main tasks will be the study of solar-terrestrial relations and the Earth-Moon space, as well as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and other planets, astronomical research, medical and biological research in order to assess the impact of flight duration on the human body and its performance.

In principle, the development of space technology should outstrip the "Demand", associated with the solution of urgent national economic problems. The main tasks here are launch vehicles, propulsion systems, spacecraft, as well as supporting means (command-measuring and launch complexes, equipment, etc.), ensuring progress in related branches of technology, directly or indirectly related to the development of astronautics.

Before flying into the world space, it was necessary to understand and put into practice the principle of jet propulsion, learn how to make rockets, create a theory of interplanetary communications, etc.

Rocketry is far from a new concept. To create powerful modern launch vehicles, man went through millennia of dreams, fantasies, mistakes, searches in various fields of science and technology, accumulation of experience and knowledge.

The principle of operation of a rocket lies in its movement under the action of the recoil force, the reaction of the flow of particles thrown from the rocket. In a rocket. those. in an apparatus equipped with a rocket engine, the exhaust gases are formed due to the reaction of the oxidizer and fuel stored in the rocket itself. This circumstance makes the operation of the rocket engine independent of the presence or absence of a gaseous medium. Thus, the rocket is an amazing structure that can move in airless space, i.e. not a reference, outer space.

A special place among Russian projects for the application of the jet principle of flight is occupied by the project of N. I. Kibalchich, a famous Russian revolutionary who, despite his short life (1853-1881), left a deep mark on the history of science and technology. Having extensive and deep knowledge of mathematics, physics, and especially chemistry, Kibalchich made home-made shells and mines for the Narodnaya Volya. The "aeronautical device project" was the result of Kibalchich's long research work on explosives. He, in essence, for the first time proposed not a rocket engine adapted to any existing aircraft, as other inventors did, but a completely new (rocket-dynamic) apparatus, a prototype of modern manned space vehicles, in which the thrust of rocket engines serves to directly create lifting the force that keeps the craft in flight. Kibalchich's aircraft was supposed to function on the principle of a rocket!

But since Kibalchich was imprisoned for an attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander II, then the project of his aircraft was discovered only in 1917 in the archives of the police department.

So, by the end of the last century, the idea of using jet instruments for flights gained large scale in Russia. And the first who decided to continue research was our great compatriot Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935). Already in 1883 he gave a description of a ship with a jet engine. Already in 1903, Tsiolkovsky, for the first time in the world, made it possible to design a scheme for a liquid rocket. Tsiolkovsky's ideas were universally recognized as early as the 1920s. And the brilliant successor of his work, S.P. Korolev, a month before the launch of the first artificial satellite of the Earth, said that the ideas and works of Konstantin Eduardovich would attract more and more attention as rocket technology developed, which he turned out to be absolutely right.

The beginning of the space age

And so, 40 years after the design of the aircraft created by Kibalchich was found, on October 4, 1957, the former USSR launched the world's first artificial Earth satellite. The first Soviet satellite made it possible for the first time to measure the density of the upper atmosphere, obtain data on the propagation of radio signals in the ionosphere, work out the issues of launching into orbit, thermal conditions, etc. The satellite was an aluminum sphere with a diameter of 58 cm and a mass of 83.6 kg with four whip antennas 2 long, 4-2.9 m. The equipment and power supplies were placed in the sealed housing of the satellite. The initial parameters of the orbit were: perigee height 228 km, apogee height 947 km, inclination 65.1 deg. On November 3, the Soviet Union announced the launch of the second Soviet satellite into orbit. In a separate pressurized cabin were the dog Laika and a telemetry system for recording her behavior in weightlessness. The satellite was also equipped with scientific instruments for studying solar radiation and cosmic rays.

On December 6, 1957, an attempt was made in the USA to launch the Avangard-1 satellite using a launch vehicle developed by the Naval Research Laboratory. .

On January 31, 1958, the Explorer 1 satellite, the American response to the launch of Soviet satellites, was launched into orbit. In terms of size and weight, he was not a candidate for champions. Being less than 1 m long and only ~15.2 cm in diameter, it had a mass of only 4.8 kg.

However, its payload was attached to the fourth, last stage of the Juno-1 launch vehicle. The satellite, together with the rocket in orbit, had a length of 205 cm and a mass of 14 kg. It was equipped with outdoor and indoor temperature sensors, erosion and impact sensors to determine micrometeorite flows, and a Geiger-Muller counter to register penetrating cosmic rays.

An important scientific result of the satellite flight was the discovery of the radiation belts surrounding the Earth. The Geiger-Muller counter stopped counting when the apparatus was at apogee at an altitude of 2530 km, the height of the perigee was 360 km.

On February 5, 1958, a second attempt was made in the United States to launch the Avangard-1 satellite, but it also ended in an accident, like the first attempt. Finally, on March 17, the satellite was launched into orbit. Between December 1957 and September 1959, eleven attempts were made to launch Avangard-1 into orbit, only three of them were successful.

Between December 1957 and September 1959, eleven attempts were made to launch the Avangard

Both satellites contributed a lot to space science and technology (solar batteries, new data on the density of the upper atmosphere, accurate mapping of islands in the Pacific Ocean, etc.) On August 17, 1958, the first attempt was made in the USA to send from Cape Canaveral to the vicinity Moon probe with scientific equipment. She was unsuccessful. The rocket rose and flew only 16 km. The first stage of the rocket exploded at 77 from the flight. On October 11, 1958, a second attempt was made to launch the Pioneer-1 lunar probe, which also turned out to be unsuccessful. The subsequent several launches also turned out to be unsuccessful, only on March 3, 1959, Pioneer-4, weighing 6.1 kg, partially completed the task: it flew past the Moon at a distance of 60,000 km (instead of the planned 24,000 km).

As well as when launching an Earth satellite, the priority in launching the first probe belongs to the USSR; on January 2, 1959, the first man-made object was launched, which was launched on a trajectory passing close enough to the Moon, into the orbit of the Sun satellite. Thus, "Luna-1" for the first time reached the second cosmic velocity. "Luna-1" had a mass of 361.3 kg and flew past the Moon at a distance of 5500 km. At a distance of 113,000 km from Earth, a cloud of sodium vapor was released from a rocket stage docked to Luna 1, forming an artificial comet. Solar radiation caused a bright glow of sodium vapor and optical systems on Earth photographed the cloud against the background of the constellation Aquarius.

Luna-2, launched on September 12, 1959, made the world's first flight to another celestial body. Instruments were placed in the 390.2-kilogram sphere, which showed that the Moon does not have a magnetic field and a radiation belt.

Automatic interplanetary station (AMS) "Luna-3" was launched on October 4, 1959. The weight of the station was 435 kg. The main purpose of the launch was to fly around the Moon and photograph its opposite side, invisible from the Earth. Photographing was carried out on October 7 for 40 minutes from an altitude of 6200 km above the Moon.

man in space

April 12, 1961 at 9:07 Moscow time, a few tens of kilometers north of the village of Tyuratam in Kazakhstan at the Soviet Baikonur cosmodrome, an intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 was launched, in the nose compartment of which the Vostok manned spacecraft with Air Force Major Yuriy was located Alekseevich Gagarin on board. The launch was successful. The spacecraft was launched into orbit with an inclination of 65 degrees, a perigee altitude of 181 km and an apogee altitude of 327 km, and completed one revolution around the Earth in 89 minutes. On the 108th mine after launch, he returned to Earth, landing near the village of Smelovka, Saratov Region. Thus, 4 years after the launch of the first artificial Earth satellite, the Soviet Union for the first time in the world carried out a manned flight into outer space.

The spacecraft consisted of two compartments. The descent vehicle, which was also the cosmonaut's cabin, was a sphere 2.3 m in diameter, covered with an ablative material for thermal protection during atmospheric entry. The spacecraft was controlled automatically, as well as by the astronaut. In flight, it was continuously supported with the Earth. The ship's atmosphere is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen at a pressure of 1 atm. (760 mm Hg). "Vostok-1" had a mass of 4730 kg, and with the last stage of the launch vehicle 6170 kg. The Vostok spacecraft was launched into space 5 times, after which it was declared safe for human flight.

Four weeks after Gagarin's flight on May 5, 1961, Captain 3rd Rank Alan Shepard became the first American astronaut.

Although it did not reach low Earth orbit, it rose above the Earth to an altitude of about 186 km. Shepard, launched from Cape Canaveral in the Mercury-3 spacecraft using a modified Redstone ballistic missile, spent 15 minutes 22 seconds in flight before landing in the Atlantic Ocean. He proved that a person in zero gravity can manually control a spacecraft. Spacecraft "Mercury" was significantly different from the spacecraft "Vostok".

It consisted of only one module - a manned capsule in the shape of a truncated cone with a length of 2.9 m and a base diameter of 1.89 m. Its pressurized nickel alloy shell had titanium skin to protect it from heating during atmospheric entry.

The atmosphere inside the "Mercury" consisted of pure oxygen at a pressure of 0.36 atm.

On February 20, 1962, the USA reached Earth orbit. The Mercury 6 was launched from Cape Canaveral, piloted by Navy Lieutenant Colonel John Glenn. Glenn stayed in orbit for only 4 hours and 55 minutes, completing 3 orbits before successfully landing. The purpose of Glenn's flight was to determine the possibility of human work in the spacecraft "Mercury". Mercury was last launched into space on May 15, 1963.

On March 18, 1965, the Voskhod spacecraft was launched into orbit with two cosmonauts on board - the commander of the ship, Colonel Pavel Ivarovich Belyaev, and the co-pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov. Immediately after entering orbit, the crew purged themselves of nitrogen by inhaling pure oxygen. Then the airlock compartment was deployed: Leonov entered the airlock compartment, closed the cover of the spacecraft hatch and for the first time in the world made an exit into outer space. The cosmonaut with an autonomous life support system was outside the spacecraft cabin for 20 minutes, sometimes moving away from the spacecraft at a distance of up to 5 m. During the exit, he was connected to the spacecraft only by telephone and telemetry cables. Thus, the possibility of the astronaut's stay and work outside the spacecraft was practically confirmed.

On June 3, Gemeni-4 was launched with captains James McDivitt and Edward White. During this flight, which lasted 97 hours and 56 minutes, White left the spacecraft and spent 21 minutes outside the cockpit, testing the possibility of maneuvering in space with a compressed gas hand-held jet gun.

Unfortunately, space exploration has not been without casualties. On January 27, 1967, the crew preparing to make the first manned flight under the Apollo program died during a fire inside the spacecraft, having burned out in 15 seconds in an atmosphere of pure oxygen. Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee became the first American astronauts to die in spacecraft. On April 23, a new Soyuz-1 spacecraft was launched from Baikonur, piloted by Colonel Vladimir Komarov. The launch was successful.

On orbit 18, 26 hours and 45 minutes after the launch, Komarov began the orientation for entry into the atmosphere. All operations went well, but after entering the atmosphere and braking, the parachute system failed. The cosmonaut died instantly at the moment the Soyuz hit the Earth at a speed of 644 km / h. In the future, the Cosmos claimed more than one human life, but these victims were the first.

It should be noted that in terms of natural science and production, the world is facing a number of global problems, the solution of which requires the combined efforts of all peoples. These are the problems of raw materials, energy, control over the state of the environment and the conservation of the biosphere, and others. A huge role in their cardinal solution will be played by space research - one of the most important areas of the scientific and technological revolution.

Cosmonautics vividly demonstrates to the whole world the fruitfulness of peaceful creative work, the benefits of combining the efforts of different countries in solving scientific and national economic problems.

What problems do astronautics and astronauts face?

Let's start with life support. What is life support? Life support in space flight is the creation and maintenance during the entire flight in the living and working compartments of the K.K. such conditions that would provide the crew with sufficient performance to complete the task, and the minimum likelihood of pathological changes in the human body. How to do it? It is necessary to significantly reduce the degree of impact on a person of adverse external factors of space flight - vacuum, meteoric bodies, penetrating radiation, weightlessness, overloads; supply the crew with substances and energy without which normal human life is not possible - food, water, oxygen and net; remove waste products of the body and substances harmful to health, released during the operation of systems and equipment of the spacecraft; to provide human needs for movement, rest, external information and normal working conditions; organize medical control over the health of the crew and maintain it at the required level. Food and water are delivered into space in appropriate packaging, and oxygen is in a chemically bound form. If you do not restore the products of vital activity, then for a crew of three people for one year you will need 11 tons of the above products, which, you see, is a considerable weight, volume, and how will all this be stored during the year ?!

In the near future, regeneration systems will make it possible to almost completely reproduce oxygen and water on board the station. It has long been used water after washing and shower, purified in the regeneration system. Exhaled moisture is condensed in the refrigeration and drying unit and then regenerated. Breathing oxygen is extracted from purified water by electrolysis, and hydrogen gas, reacting with carbon dioxide coming from the concentrator, forms water that feeds the electrolyzer. The use of such a system makes it possible to reduce the mass of stored substances in the considered example from 11 to 2 tons. Recently, it has been practiced to grow various types of plants directly on board the ship, which makes it possible to reduce the supply of food that needs to be taken into space, Tsiolkovsky mentioned this in his writings.

space science

Space exploration helps a lot in the development of sciences:

On December 18, 1980, the phenomenon of a runoff of particles from the Earth's radiation belts under negative magnetic anomalies was established.

Experiments carried out on the first satellites showed that near-Earth space outside the atmosphere is not "empty" at all. It is filled with plasma, permeated with flows of energy particles. In 1958, Earth's radiation belts were discovered in near space - giant magnetic traps filled with charged particles - high-energy protons and electrons.

The highest intensity of radiation in the belts is observed at altitudes of several thousand km. Theoretical estimates showed that below 500 km. There should be no increased radiation. Therefore, the discovery during the flights of the first K.K. areas of intense radiation at altitudes up to 200-300 km. It turned out that this is due to the anomalous zones of the Earth's magnetic field.

The study of the natural resources of the Earth by space methods has spread, which in many respects has contributed to the development of the national economy.

The first problem that confronted space researchers in 1980 was a complex of scientific research, including most of the most important areas of space natural science. Their goal was to develop methods for thematic interpretation of multi-zone video information and their use in solving problems of the Earth sciences and economic sectors. These tasks include: the study of global and local structures of the earth's crust to understand the history of its development.

The second problem is one of the fundamental physical and technical problems of remote sensing and aims to create catalogs of the radiation characteristics of terrestrial objects and models of their transformation, which will make it possible to analyze the state of natural formations at the time of shooting and predict them for dynamics.

A distinctive feature of the third problem is the orientation towards radiation of the radiation characteristics of large regions up to the planet as a whole, using data on the parameters and anomalies of the Earth's gravitational and geomagnetic fields.

Exploring the Earth from space

Man first appreciated the role of satellites in monitoring the state of agricultural land, forests and other natural resources of the Earth only a few years after the onset of the space age. The beginning was laid in 1960, when with the help of meteorological satellites "Tiros" map-like outlines of the globe were obtained, lying under the clouds. These first black-and-white TV images gave very little insight into human activity, and yet it was a first step. Soon new technical means were developed that made it possible to improve the quality of observations. Information was extracted from multispectral images in the visible and infrared (IR) regions of the spectrum. The first satellites designed to take full advantage of these capabilities were the Landsat. For example, the Landsat-D satellite, the fourth in a series, observed the Earth from a height of more than 640 km using advanced sensitive instruments, which allowed consumers to receive much more detailed and timely information. One of the first areas of application of images of the earth's surface was cartography. In the pre-satellite era, maps of many areas, even in the developed regions of the world, were inaccurate. The Landsat images have corrected and updated some of the existing maps of the United States. In the USSR, images obtained from the Salyut station turned out to be indispensable for reconciling the BAM railway.

In the mid-1970s, NASA and the US Department of Agriculture decided to demonstrate the capabilities of the satellite system in forecasting the most important agricultural crop, wheat. Satellite observations, which turned out to be extremely accurate, were later extended to other agricultural crops. Approximately at the same time, in the USSR, observations of agricultural crops were carried out from satellites of the Cosmos, Meteor, and Monsoon series and the Salyut orbital stations.

The use of satellite information has revealed its undeniable advantages in assessing the volume of timber in the vast territories of any country. It became possible to manage the process of deforestation and, if necessary, to give recommendations on changing the contours of the deforestation area from the point of view of the best preservation of the forest. Thanks to satellite images, it has also become possible to quickly assess the boundaries of forest fires, especially the “crown-shaped” ones, characteristic of the western regions of North America, as well as the regions of Primorye and southern regions of Eastern Siberia in Russia.

Of great importance for humanity as a whole is the ability to observe almost continuously the expanses of the World Ocean, this "forge" of weather. It is above the depths of ocean water that monstrous forces are born of hurricanes and typhoons, bringing numerous victims and destruction to the inhabitants of the coast. Early warning to the public is often critical to saving the lives of tens of thousands of people. Determining the stocks of fish and other seafood is also of great practical importance. Ocean currents often curve, change course and size. For example, El Nino, a warm current in a southerly direction off the coast of Ecuador in some years can spread along the coast of Peru up to 12 degrees. S . When this happens, plankton and fish die in huge numbers, causing irreparable damage to the fisheries of many countries, including Russia. Large concentrations of unicellular marine organisms increase the mortality of fish, possibly due to the toxins they contain. Satellite observation helps to identify the “whims” of such currents and provide useful information to those who need it. According to some estimates by Russian and American scientists, the fuel savings, combined with the "extra catch" due to the use of information from satellites obtained in the infrared range, yield an annual profit of $ 2.44 million. The use of satellites for survey purposes has facilitated the task of plotting the course of ships . Also, satellites detect icebergs and glaciers dangerous for ships. Accurate knowledge of snow reserves in the mountains and the volume of glaciers is an important task of scientific research, because as the development of arid territories, the need for water increases dramatically.

The help of astronauts in the creation of the largest cartographic work - the Atlas of Snow and Ice Resources of the World is invaluable.

Also, with the help of satellites, oil pollution, air pollution, minerals are found.

space study hole satellite

space science

Within a short period of time since the beginning of the space age, man not only sent robotic space stations to other planets and set foot on the surface of the moon, but also revolutionized the science of space, which has not been equaled in the entire history of mankind. Along with the great technological advances brought about by the development of astronautics, new knowledge about the planet Earth and neighboring worlds was obtained. One of the first important discoveries, made not by the traditional visual, but by another method of observation, was the establishment of the fact of a sharp increase with height, starting from a certain threshold height, in the intensity of cosmic rays previously considered isotropic. This discovery belongs to the Austrian WF Hess, who in 1946 launched a gas balloon with equipment to great heights.

In 1952 and 1953 Dr. James Van Allen conducted research on low-energy cosmic rays when launching small rockets to a height of 19-24 km and high-altitude balloons in the region of the north magnetic pole of the Earth. After analyzing the results of the experiments, Van Allen proposed placing on board the first American artificial earth satellites, fairly simple in design, cosmic ray detectors.

On January 31, 1958, with the help of the Explorer-1 satellite launched into orbit by the United States, a sharp decrease in the intensity of cosmic radiation was detected at altitudes above 950 km. At the end of 1958, the Pioneer-3 AMS, which covered a distance of more than 100,000 km in a day of flight, registered using the sensors on board the second, located above the first, the Earth's radiation belt, which also encircles the entire globe.

In August and September 1958, at an altitude of more than 320 km, three atomic explosions were carried out, each with a power of 1.5 kW. The purpose of the tests, codenamed Argus, was to investigate the possibility of radio and radar communications being lost during such tests. The study of the Sun is the most important scientific problem, the solution of which is devoted to many launches of the first satellites and AMS.

The American "Pioneer-4" - "Pioneer-9" (1959-1968) from near-solar orbits transmitted by radio to Earth the most important information about the structure of the Sun. At the same time, more than twenty satellites of the Interkosmos series were launched to study the Sun and near-solar space.

Black holes

Black holes were first discovered in the 1960s. It turned out that if our eyes could only see X-rays, then the starry sky above us would look very different. True, the X-rays emitted by the Sun were discovered even before the birth of astronautics, but they did not even suspect about other sources in the starry sky. They stumbled upon them by accident.

In 1962, the Americans, having decided to check whether X-rays were coming from the surface of the Moon, launched a rocket equipped with special equipment. It was then that, processing the results of observations, we were convinced that the instruments had noted a powerful source of X-ray radiation. It was located in the constellation Scorpio. And already in the 70s, the first 2 satellites, designed to search for research on X-ray sources in the universe, went into orbit - the American Uhuru and the Soviet Kosmos-428.

By this time, things were starting to become clear. Objects emitting X-rays have been linked to barely visible stars with unusual properties. These were compact clumps of plasma of negligible, of course by cosmic standards, sizes and masses, heated to several tens of millions of degrees. With a very modest appearance, these objects possessed colossal X-ray power, several thousand times greater than the full compatibility of the Sun.

These are tiny, with a diameter of about 10 km. , the remains of completely burned out stars, compressed to a monstrous density, should have somehow declared themselves. Therefore, neutron stars were so readily "recognized" in X-ray sources. And it all seemed to fit. But the calculations refuted the expectations: the newly formed neutron stars should immediately cool down and stop emitting, and these were X-rays.

With the help of launched satellites, the researchers found strictly periodic changes in the radiation fluxes of some of them. The period of these variations was also determined - usually it did not exceed several days. Only two stars rotating around themselves could behave in this way, one of which periodically eclipsed the other. This has been proven by observing through telescopes.

Where do X-ray sources draw their colossal radiation energy from? The main condition for the transformation of a normal star into a neutron one is considered to be the complete attenuation of the nuclear reaction in it. Therefore, nuclear energy is excluded. Then, perhaps, this is the kinetic energy of a rapidly rotating massive body? Indeed, it is large for neutron stars. But it only lasts for a short time.

Most neutron stars exist not alone, but in pairs with a huge star. In their interaction, theorists believe, the source of the mighty power of cosmic X-rays is hidden. It forms a disk of gas around the neutron star. At the magnetic poles of the neutron ball, the matter of the disk falls onto its surface, and the energy acquired by the gas is converted into X-rays.

Cosmos-428 also presented its own surprise. His equipment registered a new, completely unknown phenomenon - X-ray flashes. In one day, the satellite detected 20 bursts, each of which lasted no more than 1 second. , and the radiation power increased tenfold in this case. Scientists called the sources of X-ray flashes BARSTERS. They are also associated with binary systems. The most powerful flares are only a few times inferior to the total radiation of hundreds of billions of stars located in our Galaxy in terms of the energy emitted.

Theorists have proven that the "black holes" that make up binary star systems can signal themselves with X-rays. And the cause of occurrence is the same - accretion of gas. However, the mechanism in this case is somewhat different. The internal parts of the gaseous disk settling into the "hole" must heat up and therefore become sources of X-rays.

Only those luminaries whose mass does not exceed 2-3 solar ones end their “life” with the transition to a neutron star. Larger stars suffer the fate of a "black hole".

X-ray astronomy has told us about the last, perhaps the most turbulent, stage in the development of stars. Thanks to her, we learned about the most powerful cosmic explosions, about gas with a temperature of tens and hundreds of millions of degrees, about the possibility of a completely unusual superdense state of matter in "black holes".

What else gives space for us?

Television (TV) programs have not mentioned for a long time that the transmission is via satellite. This is further evidence of the tremendous success in the industrialization of space, which has become an integral part of our lives. Communication satellites literally entangle the world with invisible threads. The idea of creating communication satellites was born shortly after the Second World War, when A. Clark in the October 1945 issue of the magazine "World of Radio" (Wireless World) presented his concept of a relay communication station located at an altitude of 35880 km above the Earth.

Clark's merit was that he determined the orbit in which the satellite is stationary relative to the Earth. Such an orbit is called a geostationary or Clarke orbit. When moving along a circular orbit with a height of 35880 km, one revolution is completed in 24 hours, i.e. during the Earth's daily rotation. A satellite moving in such an orbit will constantly be above a certain point on the Earth's surface.

The first communication satellite "Telstar-1" was nevertheless launched into low earth orbit with parameters of 950 x 5630 km, this happened on July 10, 1962. Almost a year later, the launch of the Telstar-2 satellite followed. The first telecast showed the American flag in New England with the Andover station in the background. This image was transmitted to the UK, France and the US station in pc. New Jersey 15 hours after satellite launch. Two weeks later, millions of Europeans and Americans watched the negotiations of people on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean. They not only talked but also saw each other, communicating via satellite. Historians may consider this day as the birth date of space TV. The world's largest state-owned satellite communications system has been created in Russia. Its beginning was laid in April 1965. the launch of satellites of the Molniya series, which are launched into highly elongated elliptical orbits with an apogee over the Northern Hemisphere. Each series includes four pairs of satellites orbiting at an angular distance of 90 degrees from each other.

On the basis of the Molniya satellites, the first Orbita deep space communication system was built. In December 1975 The family of communications satellites was replenished with the Raduga satellite operating in geostationary orbit. Then came the Ekran satellite with a more powerful transmitter and simpler ground stations. After the first development of satellites, a new period in the development of satellite communications technology began, when satellites began to be launched into a geostationary orbit in which they move synchronously with the rotation of the Earth. This made it possible to establish round-the-clock communication between ground stations using new-generation satellites: the American "Sincom", "Early Bird" and "Intelsat" and the Russian ones - "Rainbow" and "Horizon".

A great future is associated with the deployment of antenna systems in geostationary orbit.

On June 17, 1991, the ERS-1 geodetic satellite was launched into orbit. The main mission of the satellites would be to observe the oceans and ice-covered parts of the land in order to provide climatologists, oceanographers and environmental organizations with data on these underexplored regions. The satellite was equipped with the most advanced microwave equipment, thanks to which it is ready for any weather: the "eyes" of its radar instruments penetrate fog and clouds and give a clear image of the Earth's surface, through water, through land - and through ice. ERS-1 was aimed at developing ice maps, which would later help to avoid many disasters associated with the collision of ships with icebergs, etc.

For all that, the development of shipping routes is, figuratively speaking, only the tip of the iceberg, if we only remember the interpretation of ERS data on the oceans and ice-covered expanses of the Earth. We are aware of the alarming predictions of a general warming of the Earth, which will lead to the melting of the polar caps and rising sea levels. All coastal zones will be flooded, millions of people will suffer.

But we do not know how correct these predictions are. Long-term observations of the polar regions with ERS-1 and the ERS-2 satellite that followed it in late autumn 1994 provide data from which to draw conclusions about these trends. They're building an "early warning" system for the melting ice.

Thanks to the images that the ERS-1 satellite transmitted to Earth, we know that the ocean floor with its mountains and valleys is, as it were, "imprinted" on the surface of the waters. So scientists can get an idea of whether the distance from the satellite to the sea surface (measured to within ten centimeters by satellite radar altimeters) is an indication of rising sea levels, or is it a “fingerprint” of a mountain on the bottom.

Although originally designed for ocean and ice observations, ERS-1 quickly proved its versatility on land as well. In agriculture and forestry, in fisheries, geology and cartography, specialists work with data provided by the satellite. Since the ERS-1 is still operational after three years of its mission, scientists have a chance to operate it with the ERS-2 for general missions as a tandem. And they are going to receive new information about the topography of the earth's surface and provide assistance, for example, in warning about possible earthquakes.

The ERS-2 satellite is also equipped with the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment Gome instrument, which takes into account the volume and distribution of ozone and other gases in the Earth's atmosphere. With this device, you can observe the dangerous ozone hole and the ongoing changes. At the same time, according to ERS-2 data, UV-B radiation close to the ground can be removed.

Against the backdrop of the many global environmental problems that both ERS-1 and ERS-2 must provide the foundational information to solve, shipping route planning seems like a relatively minor outcome of this new generation of satellites. But it is one of those areas where the opportunities for commercial use of satellite data are being used particularly intensively. This helps in funding other important tasks. And this has an effect in the field of environmental protection that can hardly be overestimated: faster shipping lanes require less energy. Or consider oil tankers that ran aground in a storm or crashed and sank, losing their environmentally hazardous cargo. Reliable route planning helps to avoid such disasters.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it would be fair to say that the twentieth century is rightly called the "age of electricity", the "atomic age", the "age of chemistry", the "age of biology". But the most recent and, apparently, also its fair name is “space age”. Mankind has embarked on a path leading to mysterious cosmic distances, conquering which it will expand the scope of its activities. The cosmic future of mankind is a guarantee of its continuous development on the path of progress and prosperity, which was dreamed of and created by those who worked and are working today in the field of astronautics and other sectors of the national economy.

Bibliography

1. "Space technology" edited by K. Gatland. 1986 Moscow.

2. "COSMOS far and near" A.D. Koval V.P. Senkevich. 1977

3. "Space exploration in the USSR" V.L. Barsukov 1982

For the preparation of this work, materials from the site http://goldref.ru/

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1. Protection against a possible collision with an asteroid

If we don't want to end up like dinosaurs, we need to protect ourselves from the threat of a large asteroid impact. As a rule, about once every 10 thousand years, some celestial body the size of a football field threatens to crash into the Earth, which can lead to irreversible consequences for the planet. We really should be wary of such "guests" with a diameter of at least 100 meters. The collision will raise a dust storm, destroy forests and fields, doom those who remain alive to starvation. Special space programs are aimed at identifying a dangerous object long before it approaches the Earth and knocking it off its trajectory.

2. The possibility of new great discoveries

A considerable number of various gadgets, materials and technologies were originally developed for space programs, but later they found their application on Earth. We all know about freeze-dried products and have been using them for a long time. In the 1960s, scientists developed a special plastic coated with a reflective metal coating. When used in the production of conventional blankets, it retains up to 80% of a person's body heat. Another valuable innovation is nitinol, a flexible yet resilient alloy designed for the manufacture of satellites. Now dental braces are made from this material.

3. Contribution to medicine and healthcare

Space exploration has led to many medical innovations for terrestrial use: for example, the method of injecting anti-cancer drugs directly into a tumor, equipment with which a nurse can perform ultrasound and instantly transmit data to a doctor thousands of kilometers away, and a mechanical manipulator arm that performs complex activities inside the MRI machine. Pharmaceutical developments in the field of protecting astronauts from loss of bone and muscle mass in microgravity have led to the creation of drugs for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis. Moreover, these drugs were easier to test in space, since astronauts lose about 1.5% of bone mass per month, and an elderly woman on Earth loses 1.5% per year.

4. Space exploration inspires humanity to new achievements

If we want to create a world where our children aspire to be scientists and engineers rather than reality show hosts, movie stars or financial magnates, then space exploration is a very inspiring endeavor. It's time to ask the rising generation the question: "Who wants to be an aerospace engineer and design a flying machine that can get into the rarefied atmosphere of Mars?"

5. We need raw materials from space

Outer space contains gold, silver, platinum and other valuable metals. Some international companies are already thinking about mining asteroids, so it is possible that a profession of a space miner will appear in the near future. The moon, for example, is a possible "supplier" of helium-3 (used for MRI and considered as a possible fuel for nuclear power plants). On Earth, this substance costs up to 5 thousand dollars per liter. The moon is also considered a potential source of rare earth elements such as europium and tantalum, which are in high demand for use in electronics, solar cells and other advanced devices.

6. Space exploration can help answer a very important question

We all believe that life exists somewhere in space. In addition, many believe that aliens have already visited our planet. However, we still have not received any signals from distant civilizations. This is why extraterrestrial scientists are ready to deploy orbital observatories, such as the James Webb Space Telescope. This satellite is scheduled for launch in 2018, and with its help it will be possible to search for life in the atmospheres of distant planets outside our solar system by chemical signs. And this is just the beginning.

7. Humans have a natural desire for research.

Our primitive ancestors from East Africa settled all over the planet, and since then humanity has never stopped the process of its movement. We always want to explore and master something new and unknown, whether it's a short trip to the moon as a tourist, or a long interstellar journey spanning several generations. A few years ago, a NASA executive made the distinction between "understandable reasons" and "real reasons" for space exploration. Understandable reasons are questions of obtaining economic and technological advantages, while real reasons include concepts such as curiosity and the desire to leave a mark.

8. To survive, humanity will probably have to colonize outer space

We have learned how to send satellites into space, and this helps us control and fight against pressing earthly problems, including forest fires, oil spills and the depletion of aquifers. However, a significant increase in the population, banal greed and unjustified frivolity regarding environmental consequences have already caused serious damage to our planet. Scientists believe that the Earth has a "carrying capacity" of 8 to 16 billion, and we are already more than 7 billion. Perhaps it is time for humanity to prepare for the development of other planets for life.

Space exploration.

Yu.A.Gagarin.

In 1957, under the leadership of Korolev, the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile R-7 was created, which in the same year was used to launch the world's first artificial Earth satellite.

November 3, 1957 - the second artificial Earth satellite Sputnik-2 was launched, which for the first time brought into space a living creature - the dog Laika. (THE USSR).

January 4, 1959 - the station "Luna-1" passed at a distance of 6000 kilometers from the surface of the moon and entered the heliocentric orbit. It became the world's first artificial satellite of the Sun. (THE USSR).

September 14, 1959 - the Luna-2 station for the first time in the world reached the surface of the Moon in the area of the Sea of Clarity near the craters Aristides, Archimedes and Autolycus, delivering a pennant with the coat of arms of the USSR. (THE USSR).

October 4, 1959 - AMS Luna-3 was launched, which for the first time in the world photographed the side of the Moon invisible from Earth. Also during the flight, for the first time in the world, a gravitational maneuver was carried out in practice. (THE USSR).

August 19, 1960 - the first ever orbital flight into space of living beings was made with a successful return to Earth. The dogs Belka and Strelka made an orbital flight on the Sputnik-5 spacecraft. (THE USSR).

April 12, 1961 - the first manned flight into space (Yu. Gagarin) was made on the Vostok-1 spacecraft. (THE USSR).

August 12, 1962 - the world's first group space flight was made on the Vostok-3 and Vostok-4 spacecraft. The maximum approach of the ships was about 6.5 km. (THE USSR).

June 16, 1963 - the world's first space flight of a female cosmonaut (Valentina Tereshkova) on the Vostok-6 spacecraft was completed. (THE USSR).

October 12, 1964 - the world's first multi-seat spacecraft Voskhod-1 flew. (THE USSR).

March 18, 1965 - the first ever manned spacewalk. Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov made a spacewalk from Voskhod-2 spacecraft. (THE USSR).

February 3, 1966 - AMS Luna-9 made the world's first soft landing on the surface of the Moon, panoramic images of the Moon were transmitted. (THE USSR).

March 1, 1966 - the station "Venera-3" for the first time reached the surface of Venus, delivering a pennant to the USSR. It was the world's first flight of a spacecraft from Earth to another planet. (THE USSR).

October 30, 1967 - the first docking of two unmanned spacecraft "Cosmos-186" and "Cosmos-188" was made. (CCCP).

September 15, 1968 - the first return of the spacecraft (Zond-5) to Earth after a flyby of the moon. On board were living creatures: turtles, fruit flies, worms, plants, seeds, bacteria. (THE USSR).

January 16, 1969 - the first docking of two manned spacecraft Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5 was made. (THE USSR).

September 24, 1970 - the Luna-16 station collected and then delivered to Earth (by the Luna-16 station) samples of lunar soil. (THE USSR). It is also the first unmanned spacecraft that delivered rock samples to Earth from another cosmic body (that is, in this case, from the Moon).

November 17, 1970 - soft landing and start of operation of the world's first semi-automatic remotely controlled self-propelled vehicle, controlled from the Earth: Lunokhod-1. (THE USSR).

October 1975 - soft landing of two spacecraft "Venera-9" and "Venera-10" and the world's first photographs of the surface of Venus. (THE USSR).

February 20, 1986 - launch of the base module of the orbital station [[Mir_(orbital_station)]Mir] into orbit

November 20, 1998 - launch of the first block of the International Space Station. Production and launch (Russia). Owner (USA).

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50th anniversary of the first manned spacewalk.

Today, March 18, 1965, at 11:30 Moscow time, during the flight of the Voskhod-2 spacecraft, a man was first launched into outer space. On the second orbit of the flight, co-pilot pilot-cosmonaut Lieutenant Colonel Leonov Alexei Arkhipovich, in a special spacesuit with an autonomous life support system, made an exit into outer space, retired from the ship at a distance of up to five meters, successfully carried out a set of planned studies and observations and safely returned to the ship. With the help of the onboard television system, the process of Comrade Leonov's exit into outer space, his work outside the spacecraft, and his return to the spacecraft were transmitted to Earth and observed by a network of ground stations. The state of health of Comrade Alexei Arkhipovich Leonov during his stay outside the ship and after returning to the ship is good. The commander of the ship, comrade Pavel Ivanovich Belyaev, is also feeling well.

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Today is characterized by new projects and plans for space exploration. Space tourism is actively developing. The manned astronautics is again going to return to the Moon and turned its eyes to other planets of the solar system (primarily to Mars).

In 2009, the world spent $68 billion on space programs, including $48.8 billion in the US, $7.9 billion in the EU, $3 billion in Japan, $2.8 billion in Russia, and $2 billion in China.

6 143

Humanity originated in Africa. But not all of us stayed there, for more than a thousand years our ancestors spread throughout the continent and then left it. When they got to the sea, they built boats and sailed vast distances to islands they might not have known existed. Why?

Probably for the same reason why we and the stars say, “What's going on out there? We could get there? Perhaps we could fly there.”

Space is, of course, more hostile to human life than the surface of the sea; being able to escape Earth's gravity entails a lot more work and expense than taking a boat off the coast. But back then, boats were the cutting edge technology of their time. Travelers carefully planned their dangerous journeys, and many of them died trying to find out what was beyond the horizon.

The conquest of space in order to find a new habitat is a grandiose, dangerous, and perhaps impossible project. But that never stopped people from trying.

1. Takeoff

Gravity resistance

Powerful forces conspired against you - in particular, gravity. If an object above the Earth's surface wants to fly freely, it must literally shoot upwards at speeds in excess of 43,000 kilometers per hour. This entails large financial costs.

For example, it took nearly $200 million to launch the Curiosity rover to Mars. And if we talk about a mission with crew members, then the amount will increase significantly.

The reusable use of flying ships will help save money. Rockets, for example, were designed to be reusable, and as we know, there are already successful landing attempts.

2. Flight

Our ships are too slow

Flying through space is easy. It's a vacuum, after all; nothing slows you down. But when launching a rocket, difficulties arise. The greater the mass of an object, the more force is needed to move it, and rockets have a huge mass.

Chemical propellants are great for initial boost, but precious kerosene burns up in minutes. Impulse acceleration will make it possible to fly to Jupiter in 5-7 years. That's a hell of a lot of in-flight movies. We need a radical new method for developing airspeed.

Congratulations! You have successfully launched a rocket into orbit. But before you break out into space, a piece of an old satellite will appear out of nowhere and crash into your fuel tank. That's it, there are no more rockets.

This is a space junk problem, and it's very real. The "American Surveillance Network" for outer space has detected 17,000 objects - each the size of a ball - rushing around the Earth at speeds greater than 28,000 km per hour; and nearly 500,000 more debris smaller than 10 cm. Launch adapters, lens caps, even a splash of paint can bleed through critical systems.

Whipple's shields - layers of metal and Kevlar - can protect you from tiny parts, but nothing can save you from a whole satellite. There are about 4,000 of them in Earth orbit, most of them killed in the air. Flight control helps avoid dangerous paths, but it's not perfect.

Pushing them out of orbit is not realistic - it would take an entire mission to get rid of just one dead satellite. So now all the satellites will fall out of orbit on their own. They will blast extra fuel overboard and then use rocket boosters or a solar sail to head down to Earth and burn up in the atmosphere.

4. Navigation

There is no GPS for space

The "Deep Space Network", antennas in California, Australia, and Spain, are the only navigational tool for space. Everything that launches into space, from student project satellites to the New Horizons probe roaming the Kopeyre Belt, depends on them.

But with more missions, the network gets crowded. The switchboard is often busy. So in the near future, NASA is working to lighten the load. Atomic clocks on the ships themselves would cut transmission times in half, allowing distances to be calculated with a single transmission of information from space. And increasing the bandwidth of lasers will process large data packets such as photos or video messages.

But the farther the rockets get from the Earth, the less reliable this method becomes. Sure, radio waves travel at the speed of light, but transmissions into deep space still take hours. And the stars may show you the direction, but they are too far away to tell you where you are.

Deep space navigation expert Joseph Ginn wants to design an autonomous system for future missions that would collect images of targets and nearby objects and use their relative positions to triangulate spacecraft coordinates without requiring any ground control.

It will be like GPS on Earth. You put a GPS receiver on your car and the problem is solved.

5. Radiation

Space will turn you into a bag of cancer

Outside the safe cocoon of Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field, cosmic radiation awaits you, and it's deadly. Besides cancer, it can also cause cataracts and possibly Alzheimer's disease.

When subatomic particles hit the aluminum atoms that make up the spacecraft's hull, their nuclei explode, releasing more ultra-fast particles called secondary radiation.

Solution? One word: plastic. It's light and strong, and it's full of hydrogen atoms whose small nuclei don't produce much secondary radiation. NASA is testing a plastic that can mitigate radiation in spacecraft or space suits.

Or how about this word: magnets. Scientists on the Space Radiation Project "Shield of Superconductivity" are working on magnesium diboride, a superconductor that would deflect charged particles away from a ship.

6. Food and water

There are no supermarkets on Mars

Last August, astronauts on the ISS ate some lettuce they had grown in space for the first time. But large-scale gardening in zero gravity is tricky. Water floats around in bubbles instead of seeping through the soil, which is why engineers invented ceramic pipes to channel water down to plant roots.

Some vegetables are already quite space-efficient, but scientists are working on a genetically engineered pygmy plum that is less than a meter tall. Proteins, fats and carbohydrates can be replenished through a more varied crop - like potatoes and peanuts.

But all this will be in vain if you exhaust all the water. (The ISS urine and water recycling system needs periodic repairs, and interplanetary crews can't count on new parts to be restocked.) GMOs can help here, too. Michael Flynn, a NASA research center engineer, is working on a water filter made from genetically modified bacteria. He compared it to how the small intestine processes what you drink. Basically you are a water recycling system with a useful life of 75 or 80 years.

7. Muscles and bones

Weightlessness turns you into a mess

Weightlessness destroys the body: certain immune cells are unable to do their job, and red blood cells explode. This contributes to kidney stones and makes your heart lazy.

Astronauts on the ISS train to fight muscle wasting and bone loss, but they still lose bone mass in space, and those weightless spin cycles don't help other problems. Artificial gravity would fix all that.

In his laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, former astronaut Lawrence Young conducts tests on a centrifuge: the test subjects lie on their side on a platform and pedal with their feet on a stationary wheel, while the whole structure gradually spins around its axis. The resulting force acts on the legs of the astronauts, vaguely resembling a gravitational effect.

Young's simulator is too limited, it can be used for more than an hour or two a day, for constant gravity, the whole spacecraft would have to become a centrifuge.

8. Mental health

Interplanetary travel is a direct path to madness

When a person has a stroke or heart attack, doctors sometimes lower the patient's temperature by slowing their metabolism to reduce damage from lack of oxygen. It's a trick that could work for astronauts too. Interplanetary travel for at least a year, living in a cramped spaceship with bad food and zero privacy is a recipe for space madness.

That's why John Bradford says we should sleep while traveling in space. President of the engineering firm SpaceWorks and co-author of a report for NASA on long missions, Bradford believes that cryogenically freezing the crew will cut down on food, water, and keep the crew from mental breakdown.

9. Landing

Probability of an accident

Planet hello! You have been in space for many months or even several years. The distant world is finally visible through your porthole. All you have to do is land. But you are rolling through frictionless space at 200,000 miles per hour. Oh, yes, and then there is the gravity of the planet.

The landing problem is still one of the most urgent that engineers have to solve. Remember the unsuccessful one on Mars.

10. Resources

You can't take a mountain of aluminum ore with you.

When spaceships go on a long journey, they will take supplies from Earth with them. But you can't take everything with you. Seeds, oxygen generators, maybe a few infrastructure building machines. But the settlers will have to do the rest themselves.

Fortunately space is not entirely barren. “Each planet has all the chemical elements, although the concentrations differ,” says Ian Crawford, a planetary scientist at Birkbeck, University of London. The moon has a lot of aluminum. Mars has quartz and iron oxide. Neighboring asteroids are a great source of carbon and platinum ores - and water, once pioneers figure out how to blow up matter in space. If the fuses and drillers are too heavy to take on a ship, they will have to extract the fossils by other methods: melting, magnets, or metal-digesting microbes. And NASA is looking into a 3D printing process to print entire buildings - and there won't be any need to import special equipment.

11. Research

We can't do everything ourselves

Dogs helped humans colonize the Earth, but they wouldn't survive on. To expand into the new world, we will need a new best friend: a robot.

Planet colonization requires a lot of hard work, and robots can dig all day long without having to eat or breathe. The current prototypes are large and bulky, and can hardly move on the ground. So the robots should not be like us, it could be a light steerable bot with claws in the shape of an excavator bucket designed by NASA to dig ice on Mars.

However, if the work requires dexterity and precision, then human fingers are indispensable. Today's space suit is designed for weightlessness, not for hiking on an exoplanet. NASA's Z-2 prototype has flexible joints and a helmet that gives a clear view of any fine-grained wiring needs.

12. Space is huge

Warp drives still don't exist

The fastest thing humans have ever built is a probe called Helios 2. It is no longer functional, but if there was sound in space, you would hear it scream, as it is still orbiting the sun at speeds greater than 157,000 mph. This is almost 100 times faster than a bullet, but even at that speed it would take approximately 19,000 years to reach our nearest star, Alpha Centauri. During such a long flight, thousands of generations would change. And hardly anyone dreams of dying of old age in a spaceship.

To conquer time we need energy - a lot of energy. Perhaps you could mine enough helium 3 on Jupiter for fusion (after we invent fusion engines, of course). Theoretically, near-light speeds can be achieved using the energy of annihilation of matter and antimatter, but doing this on Earth is dangerous.

“You would never want to do this on Earth,” says Le Johnson, a NASA technician who works on crazy starship ideas. “If you do this in outer space and something goes wrong, you are not destroying a continent.” Too much? How about solar energy? All you need is a sail the size of Texas.

A much more elegant solution to crack the source code of the universe is with the help of physics. Miguel Alcubierre's theoretical drive would compress space-time in front of your ship and expand behind it so you could travel faster than the speed of light.

Mankind will need a few more Einsteins working in places like the Large Hadron Collider to unravel all the theoretical knots. It is possible that we will make some discovery that will change everything, but this breakthrough is unlikely to save the current situation. If you want more discoveries, you must invest more money in them.

13. There is only one Earth

We must have the courage to stay

A couple of decades ago, sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson sketched out a future utopia on Mars, built by scientists from an overpopulated, overstressed Earth. His "Martian Trilogy" made a powerful push for colonization. But, in fact, other than science, why do we strive for space?

The need to explore is embedded in our genes, this is the only argument - a pioneering spirit and a desire to find out your destiny. “A few years ago, dreams of space exploration occupied our imagination,” recalls NASA astronomer Heidi Hummel. - We spoke the language of brave space explorers, but everything changed after the New Horizons station in July 2015. The entire diversity of the worlds of the solar system has opened up before us.”

But what about the fate and destiny of mankind? Historians know better. The expansion of the West was a land grab, and the great explorers were mostly in it for resources or treasures. Human desire to change places is expressed only in the service of political or economic desire.

Of course, the impending destruction of the Earth can be a stimulus. Deplete the planet's resources, change the climate, and space will become the only hope for survival.

But this is a dangerous line of thought. This creates a moral hazard. People think that if we can start from scratch somewhere on Mars. This is a wrong judgment.

As far as we know, Earth is the only habitable place in the known universe. And if we are going to leave this planet, then this should be our desire, and not the result of a stalemate.

Scientific research carried out in space covers various branches of the four sciences: astronomy, physics, geophysics and biology. True, such a distinction is often arbitrary. The study, for example, of cosmic rays far from the Earth is more of an astronomical than a physical problem. But both by tradition and by virtue of the technique used, the study of cosmic rays is usually referred to as physics. The same, however, can be said about the study of the Earth's radiation belts, which we considered a geophysical problem. By the way, most of the problems studied on satellites and rockets are sometimes referred to as a new science - experimental astronomy.

This name, however, is not generally accepted and may not take root. In the future, the terminology will probably be somehow refined, but one can think that the classification adopted here will not lead to misunderstandings.

WHY EXACTLY SATELLITES OR SPACE ROCKETS ARE NEEDED!

The answer to this question is obvious when it comes to studying the Moon and planets, the interstellar medium, the Earth's ionosphere and exosphere. In other cases, satellites are needed in order to go beyond the atmosphere, the ionosphere, or the action of the earth's magnetic field.

In fact, our Earth is surrounded, as it were, by three belts of armor. The first belt - the atmosphere - is a layer of air weighing 1000 g per square centimeter of the earth's surface. The mass of air is concentrated mainly in a layer 10-20 km thick. By weight, this layer is equal to the weight of a layer of water 10 m thick. In other words, from the point of view of absorbing various extraterrestrial radiations, we are, as it were, under a 10-meter layer of water. Even a bad diver imagines that such a layer is by no means thin. The atmosphere strongly absorbs ultraviolet rays (wavelengths shorter than 3,500-4,000 angstroms) and infrared radiation (wavelengths greater than 10,000 angstroms).

This layer also does not transmit X-rays, gamma rays of cosmic origin, as well as primary cosmic rays (fast charged particles - protons, nuclei and electrons) coming from space.

For visible rays, the atmosphere is transparent in a cloudless time, but even in this case it interferes with observations, causing the twinkling of stars and other phenomena caused by the movement of air, dust, etc. That is why large telescopes are installed on mountains in especially favorable areas, but also in Under these conditions, they work at full strength only a small part of the time.

To get rid of absorption in the atmosphere, it is usually enough to raise the equipment by 20-40 km, which can also be done with the help of balls (cylinders). However, it is not always enough to rise to such a height. In addition, the balls can only survive in the atmosphere for a few hours and collect information only in the launch area. A satellite, on the other hand, can fly almost unlimited time and (in the case of close satellites) circles the entire globe in 1.5 hours.

The second belt of armor - the earth's ionosphere - starts from a height of several tens and extends up to hundreds of kilometers above the Earth's surface. In this region, the gas is strongly ionized and the concentration of electrons - their number in a cubic centimeter - is quite significant. Above 1,000 km there is very little gas, but still, up to about 20,000 km, the gas concentration is several hundred particles per cubic centimeter.

This region is sometimes called the exosphere, or geocorona. It differs from the ionosphere only in that here the particles practically do not collide with each other; the gas concentration in this region is approximately constant. Even farther from the Earth (both in its vicinity and in the transition to interplanetary space), there is almost no information on the density of the gas. It is currently believed that the gas concentration here is less than 100 particles per cubic centimeter.

The ionosphere usually does not transmit radio waves longer than 30 m (longer waves - up to 200-300 m - can pass through the ionosphere at night; in some cases, very long waves also pass). In addition, even if a radio wave of cosmic origin reaches the Earth, the ionosphere distorts it to some extent, and these distortions are noticeable even for meter waves. The ionosphere also does not transmit soft (long-wavelength) X-rays and far ultraviolet rays (wavelengths from tens to about 1,000 angstroms).

The third armor belt of the Earth is its magnetic field. It extends for 20-25 Earth radii, that is, for about 100,000 km (this entire area is sometimes called the Earth's magnetosphere). At large distances, the terrestrial field is of the same order (or less) as the magnetic field in interplanetary space and therefore does not play a special role. The Earth's magnetic field does not allow charged particles with not too high energy to approach the Earth, if we do not talk about the polar regions. For example, at the equator in the vertical direction of the Earth, protons coming from space ( atomic nuclei) can only reach with an energy greater than 15 billion electron volts. This energy is possessed by a proton accelerated in an electric field with a potential difference of 15 billion volts.

From this it is clear that, depending on the nature of the problem, it is necessary to raise the equipment above several tens of kilometers (atmosphere), above hundreds of kilometers (ionosphere), or even move away from the Earth many tens of thousands of kilometers (magnetic field).

IONOSPHERE AND THE EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD

Only rockets and satellites make it possible to directly study the ionosphere and the earth's magnetic field at high altitudes.

One of the methods of observation used is as follows. The satellite has a transmitter on board that emits waves with a frequency of 20 and 90 megahertz (wavelength in vacuum, respectively, 15 m 333 cm). It is essential that the phase difference of both these oscillations (waves) in the transmitter itself is strictly fixed. When both waves pass through the ionosphere, their phases change, and in different ways. The ionosphere has almost no effect on the high-frequency oscillation (90 megahertz), and the wave propagates almost in the same way as in vacuum. On the contrary, the passage through the ionosphere leaves its mark on the low-frequency oscillation (20 megahertz). Therefore, in the receiver, the phase difference between the oscillations in both waves is already different from the phase difference in the transmitter. The change in the phase difference is directly related to the total number of electrons in the line of sight between the satellite and the receiver. With the help of this and other methods, it is possible to obtain "cuts" of the ionosphere in all those directions about which it is translucent by a radio beam coming from the satellite.

As for the earth's magnetic field, its direction and magnitude are determined using special instruments - magnetometers. There are different types of such devices, some of them have been successfully used on space rockets.

For obvious reasons, it was the first extraterrestrial celestial body to which space rockets rushed. Studies have established that the Moon's magnetic field is at least 500 times weaker than Earth's, and possibly even less. The moon also does not have a pronounced ionosphere, that is, a layer of ionized gas surrounding it. Photographs of the far side of the moon were taken. There is no doubt that in the near future more detailed photographs of the Moon will be obtained, and selenography (“lunar
geography") will be enriched with many new discoveries.

In addition, many new problems have arisen concerning lunar exploration. For example, it is necessary to study seismic activity on the moon. It is still not clear whether the Moon is a completely cold body or whether volcanoes erupt from time to time and earthquakes occur on it (apparently, it is more correct to call them moonquakes). How to solve this issue! Obviously, it is necessary to land a seismograph on the Moon and record the vibrations of the lunar surface, if any. It is also possible to determine the radioactivity of lunar rocks and some of their other properties. All this will be done by automatic devices, and the results obtained by them will be transmitted by radio to Earth. There is also no doubt that in the future the Moon will be used as a space station for a whole range of research. There are ideal conditions for this: the Moon has neither atmospheric nor ionospheric, nor, finally, magnetic armor. In other words, the Moon has the same advantages as distant artificial satellites; at the same time, it is in many respects more convenient and easier to use.

NEXT LINE - MARS AND VENUS

We know very little about the planets. More precisely, our information about them is very one-sided, we know a lot about some issues, and very little about others. Until now, for example, there is a debate whether there is vegetation on, what are the climatic conditions on this planet, what is the chemical composition of the atmosphere. Much has been written about, and the tasks facing its researchers are well known. Suffice it to say that the surface of Venus is very poorly visible, so we know even less about it than about the surface of Mars. By the way, with regard to Venus, even the period of its rotation is not known with certainty, it is not known whether it has a magnetic field. The existence of the field has not been established for Mars either. These unresolved questions must be clarified with the help of space rockets.

The next interesting object of study after Mars and Venus will be the largest planet in the solar system, a planet with a number of features. I would like to mention one of them. Jupiter is a source of very powerful radio waves emitted, for example, in the fifteen-meter range. This is a peculiar phenomenon, which is now being investigated by radio astronomical methods. Jupiter will and must also be studied with the help of satellites.

To be continued.

P.S. What else do British scientists think about: that in further space exploration they will have to write special safety requirements in emergency situations when working at space stations, and even in outer space, where many dangers lie in wait for the astronaut-researcher.