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Just in case you're thinking to yourself "Hey, didn't he say you have to leave stuff out?" (and for my fellow keeners sake, especially) I will post below just a few of the many bits of pure-candy space knowledge which stayed on the cutting room floor, in the interests of effective concision!

Robert Goddard's graduation speech as class valedictorian, included this, "Just as in the sciences we have learned that we are too ignorant to safely pronounce anything impossible, so for the individual, since we cannot know just what are his limitations, we can hardly say with certainty that anything is necessarily within or beyond his grasp. Each must remember that no one can predict to what heights of wealth, fame, or usefulness he may rise until he has honestly endeavoured, and he should derive courage from the fact that all sciences have been, at some time, in the same condition as he, and that it has often proved true that the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.”

Arthur C Clarke is well known as a science fiction writer (though 2001, with which he is most associated, wasn't filmed anything like the story he wrote) but fewer realize that he made a huge Tsiolkovsky-style contribution when he worked out the math for - geosynchronous orbit - how fast do you have to move in orbit, to stay over the same spot on the earth below, so signals can be reliably bounced? Modern satellite telecommunications is based on this concept of geosynchronous satellite 'constellations'.

(You can't help asking yourself how many times in his life, people told him to "stop making up all those silly stories and get a real job that produces something"). ;o)

Extra discovered candy - Alexei Leonov - who did the first space walk, and was later director of the manned program, was originally scheduled to be on the Soyuz11 crew that suffocated on the way back from Salyut 1 - but a replacement crew was ordered to take the flight instead, when one of his crew members showed signs of Tuberculosis, on a pre-flight X-ray - which is how Leonov ended up being part of the ASTP in 1975 - where an Apollo and a Soyuz capsule docked in orbit to meet and shake hands - a peaceful gesture which the whole world appreciated (and the start of genuine friendships that served him well, when he was later trying to facilitate international cooperation).

The Soviet program developed two classes of space suit - the depicted pressure-suit, the Sokol, for Soyuz use, while travelling to and from orbit, and the much heavier (zero G only) Orlan suits for EVA (extravehicular activity) or spacewalking. The Orlan is rather cool - you enter it by opening a hatch on the huge backpack and stepping forward into it - a lot easier than some earlier approaches (though it still takes about ---- minutes to get suited up and checked out, which means that any team doing a spacewalk knows help is always that long away, at least! Best to try and solve it yourselves! (another reason specialists are great - but techs rule, as space crew!)

The Russians did build their own shuttle - the Buran - which was designed to launch with a massive heavy lift rocket, and was able to fly back under power, rather than just gliding home like the American shuttle - meaning go-arounds and standard plane maneuvers were possible - way safer! One robotic launch, then retired forever.

The damned thing was a turkey - way too expensive and complex - and anyhow, why launch the crew and the cargo both in a risky way, when it's safer for both to split the payloads on smaller more reliable rockets, and just have them meet and assemble as necessary in orbit? (A good question that might have saved Nasa $200 Billion, as of 2011)

Buran ended it's days as a popular ride at a Soviet amusement park!

I think some characters are doubly difficult to judge. I had a former Hitler-Youth instructor in my main lab while studying electronics, and his harsh confrontational manner terrified me at the time - but there are very few teachers to whom I owe a greater debt for transferred skill and rigour - Not everything gruff or uncomfortable, is without value!

I know - awfully long - but I bet even for space keeners, there's some cool stuff that you didn't know in every paragraph. Anyhow, everyone is entitled to at least one Langewiesche, aren't they? (or is that actually everyone is morally obligated to perform at least one, as a non-fictional act of purification?) ;o)

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