Human spaceflight
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Human spaceflight (also referred to as manned spaceflight or crewed spaceflight) is
The first human in space was
Currently, the United States, Russia, and China are the only countries with
History
Cold War era
Human spaceflight capability was first developed during the
After the first satellites were launched in 1957 and 1958 by the Soviet Union, the US began work on
In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy raised the stakes of the Space Race by setting the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by the end of the 1960s.[5] That same year, the US began the Apollo program of launching three-man capsules atop the Saturn family of launch vehicles. In 1962, the US began Project Gemini, which flew 10 missions with two-man crews launched by Titan II rockets in 1965 and 1966. Gemini's objective was to support Apollo by developing American orbital spaceflight experience and techniques to be used during the Moon mission.[6]
Meanwhile, the USSR remained silent about their intentions to send humans to the Moon and proceeded to stretch the limits of their single-pilot Vostok capsule by adapting it to a two or three-person
The US succeeded in developing the Saturn V rocket necessary to send the Apollo spacecraft to the Moon, and sent Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders into 10 orbits around the Moon in Apollo 8 in December 1968. In 1969, Apollo 11 accomplished Kennedy's goal by landing Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon on 21 July and returning them safely on 24 July, along with Command Module pilot Michael Collins. Through 1972, a total of six Apollo missions landed 12 men to walk on the Moon, half of which drove electric powered vehicles on the surface. The crew of Apollo 13—Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise—survived an in-flight spacecraft failure, they flew by the Moon without landing, and returned safely to Earth.
During this time, the USSR secretly pursued
Post-Apollo era
In 1969, Nixon appointed his vice president,
In 1973, the US launched the
The two nations continued to compete rather than cooperate in space, as the US turned to developing the Space Shuttle and planning the space station, which was dubbed Freedom. The USSR launched three Almaz military sortie stations from 1973 to 1977, disguised as Salyuts. They followed Salyut with the development of Mir, the first modular, semi-permanent space station, the construction of which took place from 1986 to 1996. Mir orbited at an altitude of 354 kilometers (191 nautical miles), at an orbital inclination of 51.6°. It was occupied for 4,592 days and made a controlled reentry in 2001.
The Space Shuttle started flying in 1981, but the US Congress failed to approve sufficient funds to make Space Station Freedom a reality. A fleet of four shuttles was built: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. A fifth shuttle, Endeavour, was built to replace Challenger, which was destroyed in an accident during launch that killed 7 astronauts on 28 January 1986. From 1983 to 1998, twenty-two Shuttle flights carried components for a European Space Agency sortie space station called Spacelab in the Shuttle payload bay.[8]
The USSR copied the US's reusable Space Shuttle orbiter, which they called Buran-class orbiter or simply Buran, which was designed to be launched into orbit by the expendable Energia rocket, and was capable of robotic orbital flight and landing. Unlike the Space Shuttle, Buran had no main rocket engines, but like the Space Shuttle orbiter, it used smaller rocket engines to perform its final orbital insertion. A single uncrewed orbital test flight took place in November 1988. A second test flight was planned by 1993, but the program was canceled due to lack of funding and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Two more orbiters were never completed, and the one that performed the uncrewed flight was destroyed in a hangar roof collapse in May 2002.
US / Russian cooperation
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought an end to the Cold War and opened the door to true cooperation between the US and Russia. The Soviet Soyuz and Mir programs were taken over by the Russian Federal Space Agency, which became known as the
In 1993, President Bill Clinton secured Russia's cooperation in converting the planned Space Station Freedom into the International Space Station (ISS). Construction of the station began in 1998. The station orbits at an altitude of 409 kilometers (221 nmi) and an orbital inclination of 51.65°. Several of the Space Shuttle's 135 orbital flights were to help assemble, supply, and crew the ISS. Russia has built half of the International Space Station and has continued its cooperation with the US.
China
China was the third nation in the world, after the USSR and US, to send humans into space. During the
In 1992, under
The goal of the second phase of CMS was to make technology breakthroughs in
In September 2016,
The third phase of CMS began in 2020. The goal of this phase is to build China's own space station,
According to CMS announcement, all missions of Tiangong Space Station are scheduled to be carried out by the end of 2022.[17] Once the construction is completed, Tiangong will enter the application and development phase, which is poised to last for no less than 10 years.[17]
Abandoned programs of other nations
The European Space Agency began development of the Hermes shuttle spaceplane in 1987, to be launched on the Ariane 5 expendable launch vehicle. It was intended to dock with the European Columbus space station. The projects were canceled in 1992 when it became clear that neither cost nor performance goals could be achieved. No Hermes shuttles were ever built. The Columbus space station was reconfigured as the European module of the same name on the International Space Station.[18]
Japan (
From 1993 to 1997, the
According to a press release from the Iraqi News Agency dated 5 December 1989, there was only one test of the Al-Abid space launcher, which Iraq intended to use to develop its own crewed space facilities by the end of the century. These plans were put to an end by the Gulf War of 1991 and the economic hardships that followed.[citation needed]
United States "Shuttle gap"
Under the George W. Bush administration, the
Commercial private spaceflight
Since the early 2000s, a variety of private spaceflight ventures have been undertaken. As of May 2021, SpaceX has launched humans to orbit, while Virgin Galactic has launched crew to a height above 80 km (50 mi) on a suborbital trajectory.[21] Several other companies—including Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada—develop crewed spacecraft. All four companies plan to fly commercial passengers in the emerging space tourism market.
Blue Origin is in a multi-year test program of their New Shepard vehicle and has carried out 16 uncrewed test flights as of September 2021, and one crewed flight carrying founder Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, aviator Wally Funk, and 18-year old Oliver Daemen on July 20, 2021.
Passenger travel via spacecraft
Over the decades, a number of spacecraft have been proposed for spaceliner passenger travel. Somewhat analogous to travel by
One large spaceliner concept currently in early development is the SpaceX Starship, which, in addition to replacing the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles in the legacy Earth-orbit market after 2020, has been proposed by SpaceX for long-distance commercial travel on Earth, flying 100+ people suborbitally between two points in under one hour, also known as "Earth-to-Earth".[28][29][30]
Small
Human representation and participation
Participation and representation of humanity in space has been an issue ever since the first phase of space exploration.
Women
The first woman to ever enter space was Valentina Tereshkova. She flew in 1963, but it was not until the 1980s that another woman entered space. At the time, all astronauts were required to be military test pilots; women were not able to enter this career, which is one reason for the delay in allowing women to join space crews.[36] After the rules were changed, Svetlana Savitskaya became the second woman to enter space; she was also from the Soviet Union. Sally Ride became the next woman to enter space and the first woman to enter space through the United States program.
Since then, eleven other countries have allowed women astronauts. The first all-female spacewalk occurred in 2018, by Christina Koch and Jessica Meir. These two women had both participated in separate spacewalks with NASA. The first mission to the Moon with a woman aboard is planned for 2024.
Despite these developments, women are still underrepresented among astronauts and especially cosmonauts. More than 600 people have flown in space but only 75 have been women.[37] Issues that block potential applicants from the programs, and limit the space missions they are able to go on, are, for example:
- agencies limit women to half as much time in space as men, due to suppositions that women are at greater potential risk for cancer.[38]
- a lack of space suits sized appropriately for female astronauts.[39]
Milestones
By achievement
- 12 April 1961
- Yuri Gagarin was the first human in space and the first in Earth orbit, on Vostok 1.
- 17 July 1962 or 19 July 1963
- Either space border) was the first to pilot a spaceplane, the North American X-15, on 17 July 1962 (White) or 19 July 1963 (Walker).
- 18 March 1965
- Alexei Leonov was first to walk in space.
- 15 December 1965
- Walter M. Schirra and Tom Stafford were first to perform a space rendezvous, piloting their Gemini 6A spacecraft to achieve station-keeping one foot (30 cm) from Gemini 7for over 5 hours.
- 16 March 1966
- Agena Target Vehicle.
- 21–27 December 1968
- Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders were the first to travel beyond low Earth orbit (LEO) and the first to orbit the Moon, on the Apollo 8 mission, which orbited the Moon ten times before returning to Earth.
- 26 May 1969
- Apollo 10 reaches the fastest speed ever traveled by a human: 39,897 km/h (11.08 km/s or 24,791 mph), or roughly 1/27,000 of lightspeed.
- 20 July 1969
- Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were first to land on the Moon, during Apollo 11.
- 14 April 1970
- The crew of pericynthionabove the Moon, setting the current record for the highest absolute altitude attained by a crewed spacecraft: 400,171 kilometers (248,655 miles) from Earth.
- Longest time in space
- Valeri Polyakov performed the longest single spaceflight, from 8 January 1994 to 22 March 1995 (437 days, 17 hours, 58 minutes, and 16 seconds). Gennady Padalka has spent the most total time in space on multiple missions, 878 days.
- Longest-duration crewed space station
- The International Space Station has the longest period of continuous human presence in space, 2 November 2000 to present (23 years and 176 days). This record was previously held by Mir, from Soyuz TM-8 on 5 September 1989 to the Soyuz TM-29 on 28 August 1999, a span of 3,644 days (almost 10 years).
By nationality or sex
- 12 April 1961
- Yuri Gagarin became the first Soviet and the first human to reach space, on Vostok 1.
- 5 May 1961
- Alan Shepard became the first American to reach space, on Freedom 7.
- 20 February 1962
- John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.
- 16 June 1963
- Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to go into space and to orbit the Earth.
- 2 March 1978
- Vladimír Remek, a Czechoslovakian, became the first non-American and non-Soviet in space, as part of the Interkosmos program.
- 2 April 1984
- Rakesh Sharma, became the first Indian citizen to reach Earth's orbit.
- 25 July 1984
- Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space.
- 15 October 2003
- Yang Liwei became the first Chinese in space and to orbit the Earth, on Shenzhou 5.
- 18 October 2019
- Christina Koch and Jessica Meir conducted the first woman-only walk in space.[40]
Sally Ride became the first American woman in space, in 1983. Eileen Collins was the first female Shuttle pilot, and with Shuttle mission STS-93 in 1999 she became the first woman to command a U.S. spacecraft.
For many years, the USSR (later Russia) and the United States were the only countries whose astronauts flew in space. That ended with the 1978 flight of Vladimir Remek. As of 2010[update], citizens from 38 nations (including space tourists) have flown in space aboard Soviet, American, Russian, and Chinese spacecraft.
Space programs
Human spaceflight programs have been conducted by the Soviet Union–Russian Federation, the United States, Mainland China, and by American private spaceflight companies.
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org. |
Current programs
The following space vehicles and spaceports are currently used for launching human spaceflights:
- Soyuz program/spacecraft (Russia): Launched on Soyuz launch vehicle from Baikonur Cosmodrome. The first crewed flight was in 1967. As of August 2022[update], there have been 149 crewed flights, all of them orbital except one suborbital flight abort and one atmospheric flight abort. The first 66 flights were launched by the Soviet Union.
- Shenzhou spacecraft (China): Launched on Long March launch vehicle from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The first crewed flight was in 2003. As of October 2023[update], there have been 12 crewed orbital flights.
- SpaceShipTwo (US): Air launched by White Knight Two carrier aircraft taking off from Spaceport America (the first two were from Mojave Air and Space Port). The first crewed flight was in 2018. As of August 2022[update], there have been four crewed suborbital flights.
- Crew Dragon (US): Launched on Falcon 9 launch vehicle from Kennedy Space Center. The first crewed flight was in 2020. As of August 2022[update], there have been seven crewed orbital flights.[41][22]
- New Shepard (US): Launched on New Shepard launch vehicle from Corn Ranch spaceport. The first crewed flight was in 2021. As of August 2022[update], there have been six crewed suborbital flights.
The following
- International Space Station (US, Russia, Europe, Japan, Canada) assembled in orbit: altitude 409 kilometers (221 nautical miles), 51.65° orbital inclination; crews transported by Soyuz or Crew Dragon spacecraft
- Tiangong Space Station (China) assembled in orbit: 41.5° orbital inclination;[42]crews transported by Shenzhou spacecraft
Most of the time, the only humans in space are those aboard the ISS, which generally has a crew of 7, and those aboard Tiangong, which generally has a crew of 3.
Planned future programs
Under the
Since 2008, the
NASA is developing a plan to land humans on Mars by the 2030s. The first step has begun with Artemis 1 in 2022, sending an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon and returning it to Earth after a 25-day mission.
SpaceX is developing Starship, a fully reusable two-stage system, with near-Earth and cislunar applications and an ultimate goal of landing on Mars. The upper stage of the Starship system, also called Starship, has had 9 atmospheric test flights as of September 2021. The first test flight of the fully integrated two-stage system occurred in April 2023. A modified version of Starship is being developed for the Artemis program.
Several other countries and space agencies have announced and begun human spaceflight programs using natively developed equipment and technology, including Japan (
National spacefaring attempts
- This section lists all nations which have attempted human spaceflight programs. This is not to be confused with nations with citizens who have traveled into space, including space tourists, flown or intending to fly by a foreign country's or non-domestic private company's space systems – who are not counted in this list toward their country's national spacefaring attempts.
Nation/Organization | Space agency | Term(s) for space traveler | First launched astronaut | Date | Spacecraft | Launcher | Type |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991) |
OKB-1 Design Bureau )
|
космонавт (same word in:) (in Russian and Ukrainian) kosmonavt cosmonaut Ғарышкер(in Kazakh) |
Yuri Gagarin | 12 April 1961 | Vostok spacecraft
|
Vostok
|
Orbital |
United States | National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) | astronaut spaceflight participant |
Alan Shepard (suborbital) | 5 May 1961 | Mercury spacecraft
|
Redstone | Suborbital |
United States | National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) | astronaut spaceflight participant |
John Glenn (orbital) | 20 February 1962 | Mercury spacecraft
|
Atlas LV-3B | Orbital |
People's Republic of China | Space program of the People's Republic of China | 宇航员 (Chinese) yǔhángyuán 航天员 (Chinese) hángtiānyuán |
— | 1973 (abandoned) | Shuguang
|
Long March 2A | Orbital |
People's Republic of China | Space program of the People's Republic of China | 宇航员 (Chinese) yǔhángyuán 航天员 (Chinese) hángtiānyuán |
— | 1981 (abandoned) | Piloted FSW | Long March 2 | Orbital |
European Space Agency | CNES / European Space Agency (ESA) | spationaute (in French) astronaut |
— | 1992 (abandoned) | Hermes | Ariane V
|
Orbital |
Russia |
Roscosmos |
космонавт (in Russian) kosmonavt cosmonaut |
Alexander Kaleri
|
17 March 1992 | Soyuz TM-14 to MIR | Soyuz-U2 | Orbital |
Ba'athist Iraq (1968–2003)[note 1] |
— | رجل فضاء ( Arabic )mallāḥ faḍāʼiy |
— | 2001 (abandoned) | — | Tammouz 2 or 3 | — |
Japan | National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) | 宇宙飛行士 (Japanese) uchūhikōshi or アストロノート asutoronoto |
— | 2003 (abandoned) | HOPE | H-II | Orbital |
People's Republic of China | China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) | 宇航员 (Chinese) yǔhángyuán 航天员 (Chinese) hángtiānyuán taikonaut (太空人; tàikōng rén) |
Yang Liwei | 15 October 2003 | Shenzhou spacecraft | Long March 2F | Orbital |
Japan | Japanese Rocket Society [ja], Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries | 宇宙飛行士 (Japanese) uchūhikōshi or アストロノート asutoronoto |
— | 2000s (abandoned) | Kankoh-maru | Kankoh-maru | Orbital |
Japan | Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) | 宇宙飛行士 (Japanese) uchūhikōshi or アストロノート asutoronoto |
— | 2003 (abandoned) | Fuji | H-II | Orbital |
India | Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
|
Vyomanaut (in Sanskrit) |
— | 2024[48] | Gaganyaan | LVM 3
|
Orbital |
European Space Agency | European Space Agency (ESA) | astronaut | — | 2020 (concept approved in 2009; but full development not begun)[51][52][53][54] | CSTS, ARV phase-2 | Ariane V
|
Orbital |
Japan | Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) | 宇宙飛行士 (Japanese) uchūhikōshi or アストロノート asutoronoto |
— | TBD | HTV-based spacecraft | H3 | Orbital |
Iran | Iranian Space Agency (ISA) | — | — | 2019 (on hold) | ISA spacecraft | TBD | Orbital |
North Korea | National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA)
|
— | — | 2020s | NADA spacecraft
|
Unha 9 | Orbital |
Denmark | Copenhagen Suborbitals | astronaut | — | 2020s | Tycho Brahe | SPICA | Suborbital |
Safety concerns
There are two main sources of hazard in space flight: those due to the hostile space environment, and those due to possible equipment malfunctions. Addressing these issues is of great importance for NASA and other space agencies before conducting the first extended crewed missions to destinations such as Mars.[55]
Environmental hazards
Planners of human spaceflight missions face a number of safety concerns.
Life support
The basic needs for breathable air and drinkable water are addressed by the
Medical issues
Astronauts may not be able to quickly return to Earth or receive medical supplies, equipment, or personnel if a medical emergency occurs. The astronauts may have to rely for long periods on limited resources and medical advice from the ground.
The possibility of
On 31 December 2012, a
In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards report related to space exploration, which included the potential hazards of a human mission to Mars.[61][62]
On 2 November 2017, scientists reported, based on MRI studies, that significant changes in the position and structure of the brain have been found in astronauts who have taken trips in space. Astronauts on longer space trips were affected by greater brain changes.[63][64]
Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence on the International Space Station (ISS) of five Enterobacter bugandensis bacterial strains, none pathogenic to humans, that microorganisms on ISS should be carefully monitored to assure a healthy environment for astronauts.[65][66]
In March 2019, NASA reported that latent viruses in humans may be activated during space missions, possibly adding more risk to astronauts in future deep-space missions.[67]
On 25 September 2021, CNN reported that an alarm had sounded during the Inspiration4 Earth-orbital journey on the SpaceX Dragon 2. The alarm signal was found to be associated with an apparent toilet malfunction.[68]
Microgravity
Medical data from astronauts in low Earth orbits for long periods, dating back to the 1970s, show several adverse effects of a microgravity environment: loss of bone density, decreased muscle strength and endurance, postural instability, and reductions in aerobic capacity. Over time these deconditioning effects can impair astronauts' performance or increase their risk of injury.[69]
In a weightless environment, astronauts put almost no weight on the back
Astronauts experiencing weightlessness will often lose their orientation, get motion sickness, and lose their sense of direction as their bodies try to get used to a weightless environment. When they get back to Earth, they have to readjust and may have problems standing up, focusing their gaze, walking, and turning. Importantly, those motor disturbances only get worse the longer the exposure to weightlessness.[72] These changes can affect the ability to perform tasks required for approach and landing, docking, remote manipulation, and emergencies that may occur while landing.[73]
In addition, after long
Radiation
Without proper shielding, the crews of missions beyond low Earth orbit might be at risk from high-energy protons emitted by
Another type of radiation, galactic cosmic rays, presents further challenges to human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit.[85]
There is also some scientific concern that extended spaceflight might slow down the body's ability to protect itself against diseases,[86] resulting in a weakened immune system and the activation of dormant viruses in the body. Radiation can cause both short- and long-term consequences to the bone marrow stem cells from which blood and immune-system cells are created. Because the interior of a spacecraft is so small, a weakened immune system and more active viruses in the body can lead to a fast spread of infection.[87]
Isolation
During long missions, astronauts are isolated and confined in small spaces. Depression, anxiety, cabin fever, and other psychological problems may occur more than for an average person and could impact the crew's safety and mission success.[88] NASA spends millions of dollars on psychological treatments for astronauts and former astronauts.[89] To date, there is no way to prevent or reduce mental problems caused by extended periods of stay in space.
Due to these mental disorders, the efficiency of astronauts' work is impaired; and sometimes they are brought back to Earth, incurring the expense of their mission being aborted.[90] A Russian expedition to space in 1976 was returned to Earth after the cosmonauts reported a strong odor that resulted in a fear of fluid leakage; but after a thorough investigation, it became clear that there was no leakage or technical malfunction. It was concluded by NASA that the cosmonauts most likely had hallucinated the smell.
It is possible that the mental health of astronauts can be affected by the changes in the sensory systems while in prolonged space travel.
Sensory systems
During astronauts' spaceflight, they are in an extreme environment. This, and the fact that little change is taking place in the environment, will result in the weakening of sensory input to the astronauts' seven senses.
- Hearing – In the space station and spacecraft there are no noises from the outside, as there is no medium that can transmit sound waves. Although there are other team members who can talk to each other, their voices become familiar and do not stimulate the sense of hearing as much. Mechanical noises become familiar, as well.
- Sight– Because of weightlessness, the body's liquids attain an equilibrium that is different from what it is on the Earth. For this reason, an astronaut's face swells and presses on the eyes; and therefore their vision is impaired. The landscape surrounding the astronauts is constant, which lessens visual stimulations. Due to cosmic rays, astronauts may see flashes, even with their eyelids closed.
- Smell – The space station has a permanent odor described as the smell of gunpowder. Due to the zero gravity, the bodily fluids rise to the face and prevent the sinuses from drying up, which dulls the sense of smell.
- Taste – The sense of taste is directly affected by the sense of smell and therefore when the sense of smell is dulled, the sense of taste is also. The astronauts' food is bland, and there are only certain foods that can be eaten. The food comes only once every few months, when supplies arrive, and there is little or no variety.
- Touch – There are almost no stimulating changes in physical contact. There is almost no human physical contact during the journey.
- The vestibular system (motion and equilibrium system) – Due to the lack of gravity, all the movements required of the astronauts are changed, and the vestibular system is damaged by the extreme change.
- The proprioception system (the sense of the relative position of one's own parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement) – As a result of weightlessness, few forces are exerted on the astronauts' muscles; and there is less stimulus to this system.
Equipment hazards
Space flight requires much higher velocities than ground or air transportation, and consequently requires the use of high energy density propellants for launch, and the dissipation of large amounts of energy, usually as heat, for safe reentry through the Earth's atmosphere.
Launch
Since rockets have the potential for fire or explosive destruction,
Such a launch escape system is not always practical for multiple-crew-member vehicles (particularly spaceplanes), depending on the location of egress hatch(es). When the single-hatch Vostok capsule was modified to become the 2 or 3-person Voskhod, the single-cosmonaut ejection seat could not be used, and no escape tower system was added. The two Voskhod flights in 1964 and 1965 avoided launch mishaps. The Space Shuttle carried ejection seats and escape hatches for its pilot and copilot in early flights; but these could not be used for passengers who sat below the flight deck on later flights, and so were discontinued.
There have been only two in-flight launch aborts of a crewed flight. The first occurred on Soyuz 18a on 5 April 1975. The abort occurred after the launch escape system had been jettisoned when the launch vehicle's spent second stage failed to separate before the third stage ignited and the vehicle strayed off course. The crew finally managed to separate the spacecraft, firing its engines to pull it away from the errant rocket, and both cosmonauts landed safely. The second occurred on 11 October 2018 with the launch of Soyuz MS-10. Again, both crew members survived.
In the first use of a launch escape system on the launchpad, before the start of a crewed flight, happened during the planned
The only crew fatality during launch occurred on 28 January 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds after liftoff, due to the failure of a solid rocket booster seal, which caused the failure of the external fuel tank, resulting in an explosion of the fuel and separation of the boosters. All seven crew members were killed.
Extravehicular activity
Tasks outside a spacecraft require use of a space suit. Despite the risk of mechanical failures while working in open space, there have been no spacewalk fatalities. Spacewalking astronauts routinely remain attached to the spacecraft with tethers and sometimes supplementary anchors. Un-tethered spacewalks were performed on three missions in 1984 using the Manned Maneuvering Unit, and on a flight test in 1994 of the Simplified Aid For EVA Rescue (SAFER) device.
Reentry and landing
The single pilot of Soyuz 1, Vladimir Komarov, was killed when his capsule's parachutes failed during an emergency landing on 24 April 1967, causing the capsule to crash.
On 1 February 2003, the crew of seven aboard the
Artificial atmosphere
There are two basic choices for an artificial atmosphere: either an Earth-like mixture of oxygen and an inert gas such as nitrogen or helium, or pure oxygen, which can be used at lower than standard atmospheric pressure. A nitrogen–oxygen mixture is used in the International Space Station and Soyuz spacecraft, while low-pressure pure oxygen is commonly used in space suits for extravehicular activity.
The use of a gas mixture carries the risk of decompression sickness (commonly known as "the bends") when transitioning to or from the pure oxygen space suit environment. There have been instances of injury and fatalities caused by suffocation in the presence of too much nitrogen and not enough oxygen.
- In 1960, McDonnell Aircraft test pilot G.B. North passed out and was seriously injured when testing a Mercury cabin–space suit atmosphere system in a vacuum chamber, due to nitrogen-rich air leaking from the cabin into his space suit feed.[91]This incident led NASA to decide on a pure oxygen atmosphere for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo spacecraft.
- In 1981, three pad workers were killed by a nitrogen-rich atmosphere in the aft engine compartment of the Space Shuttle Columbia at the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39.[92]
- In 1995, two pad workers were similarly killed by a nitrogen leak in a confined area of the Ariane 5 launch pad at Guiana Space Centre.[93]
A pure oxygen atmosphere carries the risk of fire. The original design of the Apollo spacecraft used pure oxygen at greater than atmospheric pressure prior to launch. An electrical fire started in the cabin of
Reliability
The March 1966
The third lunar landing expedition,
The crew of Soyuz 11 were killed on 30 June 1971 by a combination of mechanical malfunctions; the crew were asphyxiated due to cabin decompression following the separation of their descent capsule from the service module. A cabin ventilation valve had been jolted open at an altitude of 168 kilometres (104 mi) by the stronger-than-expected shock of explosive separation bolts, which were designed to fire sequentially, but in fact had fired simultaneously. The loss of pressure became fatal within about 30 seconds.[95]
Fatality risk
As of December 2015[update], 23 crew members have died in accidents aboard spacecraft. Over 100 others have died in accidents during activities directly related to spaceflight or testing.
Date | Mission | Accident cause | Deaths | Cause of death |
---|---|---|---|---|
27 January 1967 | Apollo 1 | Electrical fire in the cabin, spread quickly by 16.7 psi (1.15 bar) pure oxygen atmosphere and flammable nylon materials in cabin and space suits, during pre-launch test; inability to remove plug door hatch cover due to internal pressure; rupture of cabin wall allowed outside air to enter, causing heavy smoke and soot | 3 | Cardiac arrest from carbon monoxide poisoning |
24 April 1967 | Soyuz 1 | Malfunction of primary landing parachute, and entanglement of reserve parachute; loss of 50% electrical power and spacecraft control problems necessitating emergency abort | 1 | Trauma from crash landing
|
15 November 1967 | X-15 Flight 3-65-97 | The accident board found that the cockpit instrumentation had been functioning properly, and concluded that pilot vertigo . The electrical disturbance early in the flight degraded the overall effectiveness of the aircraft's control system and further added to pilot workload.
|
1 | Vehicle breakup |
30 June 1971 | Soyuz 11 | Loss of cabin pressurization due to valve opening upon Orbital Module separation before re-entry | 3 | Asphyxia |
28 January 1986 | STS-51L Space Shuttle Challenger
|
Failure of O-ring inter-segment seal in one Solid Rocket Booster in extreme cold launch temperature, allowing hot gases to penetrate casing and burn through a strut connecting booster to the External Tank; tank failure; rapid combustion of fuel; orbiter breakup from abnormal aerodynamic forces | 7 | Asphyxia from cabin breach, or trauma from water impact[96] |
1 February 2003 | STS-107 Space Shuttle Columbia | Damaged reinforced carbon-carbon heat shield panel on wing's leading edge, caused by a piece of External Tank foam insulation broken off during launch; penetration of hot atmospheric gases during re-entry, leading to structural failure of the wing, loss of control and disintegration of the orbiter
|
7 | Asphyxia from cabin breach, trauma from dynamic load environment as orbiter broke up[97] |
31 October 2014 | SpaceShipTwo VSS Enterprise powered drop-test | Copilot error: premature deployment of " feathering " descent air-braking system caused the disintegration of the vehicle in flight; pilot survived, copilot died
|
1 | Trauma from crash
|
See also
- List of human spaceflight programs
- List of human spaceflights
- List of spaceflight records
- List of crewed spacecraft
- Animals in space
- Monkeys and apes in space
- Crewed Mars rover
- Commercial astronaut
- Mars to Stay
- NewSpace
- Space medicine
- Tourism on the Moon
- Women in space
Notes
- ^ According to a press release of Iraqi News Agency of 5 December 1989 about the first (and last) test of the Tammouz space launcher, Iraq intended to develop crewed space facilities by the end of the century. These plans were put to an end by the Gulf War of 1991 and the economic hard times that followed.
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Further reading
- Darling, David. The complete book of spaceflight. From Apollo 1 to Zero gravity. Wiley, Hoboken NJ 2003, ISBN 0-471-05649-9.
- Haeuplik-Meusburger: Architecture for Astronauts – An Activity based Approach. Springer Praxis Books, 2011, ISBN 978-3-7091-0666-2.
- Larson, Wiley J. (ed.). Human spaceflight – mission analysis and design. McGraw-Hill, New York NY 2003, ISBN 0-07-236811-X.
- Pyle, Rod. Space 2.0: How Private Spaceflight, a Resurgent NASA, and International Partners are Creating a New Space Age (2019), overview of space exploration excerpt
- Spencer, Brett. "The Book and the Rocket: The Symbiotic Relationship between American Public Libraries and the Space Program, 1950–2015."
- Reneau, Allyson (ed.). Moon First and Mars Second: A Practical Approach to Human Space Exploration (2020) excerpt
- Smith, Michael G., Michelle Kelley, and Mathias Basner. "A brief history of spaceflight from 1961 to 2020: An analysis of missions and astronaut demographics." Acta Astronautica 175 (2020): 290–299.