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Text 4 (B). Cosmonautics
The development of cosmonautics is closely connected with the
achievements of pilots and spacemen, aircraft and spacecraft engineers and
builders.
Aviation has become the cradle of cosmonautics. And this was not accidental/
At the turn of the 20
th
century the Russian scientists Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
solved several problems on the theory of reactive movement and substantiated
the possibility of manned space flight. His theoretical calculations have been
extensively used by scientists in all countries.
In the 1920s several groups of scientists and engineers worked on the
problems of rocketry in the Soviet Union. In 1934 a research Institute of
reactive Propulsion was organized and all the fundamental works and
investigations in rocketry were concentrated in it. It was this institute that
trained many outstanding experts in rocketry, including S. Korolyov who
subsequently became chief designer of powerful multi-stage rockets.
Today, outer space is not merely an object of study; it is also an enormous
laboratory where new materials and design structures are tested under natural
conditions. Cosmonautics is becoming more international in nature, mainly
for global scientific, engineering and economic reasons.
A vital step towards understanding the Solar System and the Universe
is the flight to another celestial body though such an exploration will take
generations. Landing on the Moon is just the beginning – not the end – of
a new era of discovery of new worlds. Manned flight to Mars seems to be
the next logical step.
From the scientific and engineering standpoint, a typical Mars landing
mission might begin with the orbiting of the elements for either one or
two identical spaceships by newly developed “space shuttles”. These
are reusable carriers for transporting men and equipment between the
ground and the Earth’s orbit. While the mission could be carried out
with a single ship, the use of two would provide an additional safety
factor, since each would be large enough to accommodate the astronauts
of its sister ship in the event of a major failure. Furthermore, with two
ships, additional equipment could be carried. The nominal crew of
each ship would be six men.
The spaceship itself would be divided into major three sections: the
forward compartment housing the Mars surface exploration module; the
main mission module with living quarters, the control area, experimental
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