History of Astronautics

Harald von Beckh was born in Vienna, Austria, on November 17, 1917. He graduated as a Doctor of Medicine from the Vienna University School of Medicine in 1940. He began working at the Academy of Aviation Medicine in Berlin where he helped in the development of the concept of the Keplerian trajectory to obtain periods of microgravity while collaborating with Dr. Heinz von Diringshofen. In 1941 he was appointed as a faculty member at the Academy of Medicine of the Luftwaffe.
At the end of the war, without any possibility to continue his research in Germany, von Beckh contacted the Embassy of Argentina in Genoa and was offered a job in Buenos Aires. Once there he became a member of the Sociedad Argentina Interplanetaria [Argentine Interplanetary Society] and actively worked to popularize the new field of space medicine. He wrote a number of articles for the national magazine of aeronautics and gave a number of talks on the subject, some of them in collaboration with Dr. von Diringshofen who also immigrated to Argentina.
Working for Argentina’s National Institute of Aeronautical Medicine, he performed the first microgravity flights in the country where he tested the inner ear response on turtles and other animals. Von Beckh developed a test to understand the effects of reduced gravity on the psychomotor system, which was performed in Argentine Air Force and civilian planes.
He also formulated the bases for the understanding of eye-hand coordination in microgravity, which was essential years later with the advent of manned spacecraft. Several of his protégés from the Air Force were later in charge of biomedical experiments conducted during Argentine suborbital rocket flights carrying animals for experimentation such as the BIO-1 and BIO-2 tests.
In 1955 von Beckh published the book, Fisiología del Vuelo [Physiology of Flight]. It was the first book written in Argentina on the subject and was an invaluable contribution to aerospace medicine for Latin American flight surgeons.
In 1956 von Beckh accepted an offer from the American company Glen L. Martin Co. and went to work for the Aeromedical Research Laboratory in New Mexico as Chief Scientist (1964-1970). Years later he became the Director of Medical Research for the Naval Air Development Center in Pennsylvania where he would remain until his retirement after a life dedicated to the advancement of aerospace medicine.

Spirit, Power and Axis of everything, in our mortal eyes there is Emptiness: for the truly complete in these empty ones is empty. The Moon, the Axis of everything in our world, is therefore empty for them, and SHOULD BE empty. // Дух, Сила и Ось всего, в смертных очах — Пустота: ибо истинно полное в них, пустых, пусто. Луна, Ось всего в нашем мире, для них посему и пуста, и ДОЛЖНА БЫТЬ пустой.

Paper given at the 2017 HOTCUS Annual Conference at University College Dublin.

The 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) saw an unprecedented display of international cooperation in space when American and Soviet spacecraft docked together in orbit. Outer space had long been synonymous with the future in both the American and Soviet imaginations and Apollo-Soyuz drew on these associations. The “handshake in space” was intended to be a visionary dramatisation of detente, Nixon and Ford’s policy of reducing Cold War tensions by entangling the USSR in a web of cooperative agreements. Detente’s supporters contended the project’s three years of intense cooperation between the former space race adversaries was an exemplary form of US-Soviet collaboration. If we can live and work together in space, went the argument, why not on earth?

This paper explores ideas that I hope to adapt into a journal article and was commended with an “Honourable Mention” from the HOTCUS Committee in the competition for best postgraduate conference paper. It examines the ideology behind Apollo-Soyuz and how its architects claimed its extremely specific form of scientific-technical cooperation was a blueprint that could be followed in wider US-Soviet relations. Apollo-Soyuz was held as the realisation of astronaut-cosmonaut kinship, an emotive and unbreakable bond between spacefarers that transcended ideological rivalry. Detente was construed as politicians catching up to a certainty that space travellers were supposedly well aware of: all men were brothers.  Ultimately, though, Apollo-Soyuz’s model of cooperation was not robust enough to survive the challenge posed by a decline in US-Soviet relations.  NASA had characterised space cooperation as a unique “window” to the USSR’s scientific-technical elite but, in an increasingly tense and mistrustful atmosphere, detente’s critics were able to caricature the ASTP as a conduit for Soviet technological espionage. The Apollo-Soyuz blueprint collapsed under the weight of the grand expectations placed on it and proved to be an anomaly during the Cold War rather than the beginning of a new cooperative paradigm.

After half a century hiatus the moon flights are progressing to resume in 2023 with moon landings now scheduled to take place in December 2023. Here is my flight crew interview where I outline my reasons for applying for the historic moon flight which Yusaku Maezawa 前澤友作 of Japan has funded and which Elon Musk's SpaceX corporation of the United States is the flight organiser. My aim to enrol for a moon flight (until September 2022) has been to draw attention to our very rapidly deteriorating environment and the fact that there appears to be a systematic bias in the West to underestimate the speed of climate change in the forecasts. (This bias to much later dates stands in stark contrast to the First Nations of Americas United Nations General Assembly Ethnoclimatology Motion 101292 which stipulated a much faster progression on climate change than the Western academia has been generally forecasting or even admitting - based on indigenous people's ancient ethnohistories how the last Ice Age was ended by then global warming with ice sheets destabilised rapidly. As a result, it is likely, if not almost certain that much faster changes in our climate will occur than those stipulated in the official documents released by UNFCCC, IPCC, WMO, UNEP, IEA, and WTO. Despite my setback in September 2022 regarding my plans to shout about climate change from the moon to get more attention to this important matter, I continue my efforts from this platform to continually remind world's nations that there are "red lines" laid down by others on climate inaction: what they will tolerate and what they will not. We need to avoid a crisis over our sharing of the atmospheric resource of our planet that needs protected against greedy users. This is important as in the past when men were fighting over access to the water holes and clubbing themselves to the death, today such fighting over global warming, climate change, Asia's monsoon rains, and sea level rise would automatically occur in industrial scale with deployment of nuclear weapons (Asia's monsoon can be re-instated by 260 nuclear explosions after the Arctic Ocean sea ice cover melts away by so-called "nuclear winter" effect - but this would involve unacceptable death tolls in the North.)

The crash of Apollo 13 is the retribution of the lunar People to earthlings trying to penetrate into the Moon. // Сакральный закон строг: вандалу святилище — гибель. Авария, постигшая «Аполлон-13» на пути к Луне — плод незнанья: Луна — врата в Вечность, Отчизну нас, бренных, и гибельны пробы ломиться в сей Храм.

A complemento di un articolo di carattere tecnico sul missile che Hermann Oberth (1894-1989) ha cercato di sviluppare a La Spezia per la Marina Militare italiana, si esaminano in questa sede le attività svolte in parallelo dal professore per rinverdire la sua fama, i canali per cui la notizia della sua presenza nella città ligure si è velocemente diffusa a livello internazionale, il motivo per cui è stato mantenuto un segreto più stretto proprio a La Spezia, le conseguenze indirette della riservatezza mantenuta sui risultati di Oberth. Si accenna, inoltre, al contesto della vicenda, dove un movimento pacifista, guidato da Mosca, ha cercato di ostacolare il riarmo generale voluto dal Patto atlantico.

Through the twentieth century, the continual exploration of outer space and its imaginary colonization in science and fiction has led to a new understanding of the space-time continuum. While the physical space surrounding planet Earth was conceptualized ever more precisely, the encounter with the immensity of time has provoked less resonance. This article analyzes the temporal dimension of the Age of Space in three steps. First, it juxtaposes various ways of conceptualizing the so-called Space Age as a significant period in human history. Second, it examines orders of time inherent in West-European space thought, in particular the widespread appeal of time dilatation as seen in Eugen Sänger’s popular 1950s photon rocket scenario. Third, it charts the experience of time on board spaceships, as detailed in astronauts’ autobiographies. This article argues that the appeal of the Space Age lay not only in the promise of continued physical expansion but also in the total control over the fourth dimension envisioned for the future.

Benjamin Pothier is a French Film Director and an Artist-researcher.
A PhD candidate in the international research program of the Planetary Collegium, Plymouth University, UK. He participated to the ARCTIC CIRCLE RESIDENCY (2013) in the Arctic Ocean, the ARS BIO ARCTICA (2014) Residency at Kilpisjarvi's research Station , Arctic Circle, during the polar Night. And directed a 360° film project on the world's highest active volcano up to 5837 m during a Mars Analog Astronauts training in Feb 2017. This talk was presented during the Earth without Humans II Symposium at Kapelica Gallery (Slovenia) in collaboration with the European Space Agency and Ars Electronica .

One of the most important developers of liquid propellant rocket engines in Argentina was Polish-born Ricardo Dyrgalla.
Dyrgalla immigrated to Argentina from the United Kingdom in 1946, where he was studying German weapons during the Second World War. A trained pilot and aeronautical engineer, he understood the concepts of rocket propulsion and was eager to find practical applications to his recently gained knowledge.
Dyrgalla reached Argentina during Juan Perón first presidency, a time where technicians from all over Europe were recruited to work in several projects for the recently created Argentine Air Force.
Dyrgalla proposed to the Argentine authorities to develop a advanced air-launched weapon, the Tábano, based in a rocket engine of his design, the AN-1. The Argentine Air Force authorized its design and the development of the AN-1 and the Tábano started to take place. The Tábano was tested between 1949 and 1951 and the project was cancelled shortly after, however the AN-1 rocket engine is the first system of its type developed in South America.
Dyrgalla developed several rockets systems in Argentina, and was one of the designers of the PROSON, a solid-rocket launcher developed by the Argentine Institute of Science and Technology for the Armed Forces (CITEFA).  In the late ‘60s Dyrgalla, and his family decided to relocate in Brazil due mostly to the lack of continuation in rocket development in Argentina. There he worked for the Institute of Aerospace Technology (ITA) until his untimely death in 1970.
Ricardo Dyrgalla deserves a special place in history as one of the first rocket developers in South America.

One of the most important developers of liquid propellant rocket engines in Argentina was Polish-born Ricardo Dyrgalla. Dyrgalla immigrated to Argentina from the United Kingdom in 1946, where he had been studying German weapons development at the end of the Second World War. A trained pilot and aeronautical engineer, he understood the intricacies of rocket propulsion and was eager to find practical applications to his recently gained knowledge. Dyrgalla arrived in Argentina during Juan Perón's first presidency, a time when technicians from all over Europe were being recruited to work in various projects for the recently created Argentine Air Force. Shortly after immigrating, Dyrgalla proposed to develop an advanced air-launched weapon, the Tábano, based on a rocket engine of his design, the AN-1. After a successful development program, the Tábano was tested between 1949 and 1951; however, the project was canceled by the government shortly after. Today, the AN-1 rocket engine is recognized as the first liquid propellant rocket to be developed in South America. Besides the AN-1, Dyrgalla also developed several other rockets systems in Argentina, including the PROSON, a solid-propellant rocket launcher developed by the Argentine Institute of Science and Technology for the Armed Forces (CITEFA). In the late 1960s, Dyrgalla and his family relocated to Brazil due mostly to the lack of continuation of rocket development in Argentina. There, he worked for the Institute of Aerospace Technology (ITA) until his untimely death in 1970. Ricardo Dyrgalla deserves to be recognized among the world's rocket pioneers and his contribution to the science and engineering of rocketry deserves a special place in the history of South America's rocketry and space flight advocacy programs.

One of the most important and active pioneers of the space activities in Argentina was Miguel Sánchez
Peña, aeronautical engineer and an officer of the Argentine Air Force. Sánchez Peña was the organizer of
Argentina´s governmental space program in the 1970s and part of the 80s, and contributed immeasurably
to the Nation’s sounding rocket program. Born in Mendoza, Argentina in 1925, Sánchez Peña attended
the Military Aviation School (Escuela de Aviación Militar) in Córdoba, and later the Air Force
Engineering School. Graduated as an engineer in 1959 he was sent to the University of Michigan in the
United States to complete his graduate studies earning a Masters of Science degree in Aerospace
Engineering. There he had the opportunity to study with several future NASA astronauts such as
Theodore Freeman, Edward White and James McDivitt. After his return to Argentina in 1961 he was put
in charge of the Space Development Group (Grupo de Desarrollos Espaciales) of the Air Force in
Córdoba. While with the Air Force he managed the development of a family of various sounding rockets
for high altitude research. Sánchez Peña was also in charge of the first Argentine rockets launched from
Antarctica in 1965, as well as the first tests on an Argentine-fabricated rocket (Orión) from Wallops
Island in the United States, in 1966. The Orion was the first operational sounding rocket constructed in
South America. In the middle of the 1970s Miguel Sánchez Peña was named president of the CNIE
(National Space Research Commission). Starting with just a modest one-desk office at the Argentine Air
Force headquarters, in only a few years he turned CNIE into a multi-center organization with several
hundred employees, three operational launch centers across the country and a family of research rockets
open to the international scientific community. He was also actively representing Argentina in many IAF
congresses, and was a member of the International Academy of Astronautics. After leaving CNIE he
became president of the Asociación Argentina de Ciencias Espaciales (AACE), an IAF Member
organization which was the continuation of the space organization created by Teófilo Tabanera in 1951.
Miguel Sánchez Peña was, without doubt, the most active president of CNIE and thanks to his vision,
hard work and the international trust he created, his efforts made it possible for Argentina to participate in
many cooperative space experiments with partners like France, Germany, Perú, the United Kingdom and the United States,

The proposed NASA Crew Exploration
Vehicle (CEV) has been labeled “not as a
repetition of Apollo, but instead what Apollo
should have been.” While this designation is
certainly ripe for debate, there is no debating
that the space suit community has, up to this
point, had limited or no input into the on-going
design of the CEV. However, it is important
that the community take the opportunity to
influence the configuration of the proposed
CEV so as to optimize its orbital and
planetary/lunar EVA capability, flexibility and
safety. This “window of opportunity” will not
remain open for long, as the CEV’s
configuration is rapidly congealing.

This paper covers:

1. Brief space suit configurations,
employment and history.

2. Brief descriptions and comparisons of
IVA, EVA and IEVA space suits.

3. How history can be a guide to optimize
EVA for the Crew Exploration Vehicle.

This is a Podcast for popularising my research on the anthropological history of radio astronomy's engagement with extraterrestrial intelligence in the Soviet Union:
For now, the material is aimed at Romanian-speaking audiences.
https://anchor.fm/gabriela-radulescu

in: Das Meer der Stille. Nicole Six und Paul Petritsch. Herausgeber: Landesgalerie Linz / Gabriele Spindler und Barbara Schröder, Revolver Verlag, Berlin, 2014
See. www.landesmuseum.at/landesgalerie/ueber/ausstellungen/archiv/event-detail/nicole-sixpaul-petritsch-1/

The key astronautic objectives. // Ключевые задачи астронавтики.

The modern approach of a human to knowledge of the Universe is barren and dangerous, because it is based on the presumption of its isotropy - the deadness, emptiness and deprivation of Center. All this is a lie.

Современный подход человека к познанию Вселенной  бесплоден и опасен, ибо основан на презумпции  ее изотропности — мёртвости, пустоты  и лишенности Центра. Всё это есть ложь.

In the sands of the Moon, at a place called the Marsh of Decay, there lies an item which should not have been there. It is a tiny figurine, shaped to look like a man, and he is dead. Behind him, a plaque is set in the soil, bearing fourteen names. Some are American, some Russian. This figurine was called the Fallen Astronaut. The crew of Apollo 15 took it there, without knowledge of their superiors, and they placed it on the Moon to commemorate their colleagues from two countries whom doom had struck before men landed on the Moon. 

But there are more names than these, others which are not even mentioned on that plaque, and knowledge of their unhappy fates was lost. Who now remembers those failed spacefarers like Charles Bassett, Dr. Graveline, Dr. Lawrence or Edward Givens? These men are the Forgotten Astronauts, who were chosen to go to the moon, but history passed over them. Their fates tell darker chapters of the proud saga of the Apollo age that are now rarely recounted.

After the Second World War, Italy sought to equip itself with surface-to-air missiles: first with its own projects, then acquiring equipment already developed by the USA. The LAGO Project of the Marina Militare was born for defensive purposes: it was defined with Hermann Oberth in 1950 and was developed in La Spezia from 1951 to 1953. The Transylvanian physicist was one of the founding fathers of the astronautics for his theoretical studies and gained various field experiences, up to Peenemünde with V2 and Reinsdorf with a ground-to-air missile. The team he gathered in Italy, however, did not reach the goal: the delivery of two prototypes that could fly. The news of the presence of Oberth in La Spezia spread rapidly outside of Italy, but the result of his research has been kept secret for a long time: this favoured the personal success of the scientist after the war. Increasingly popular digital resources on the web, integrated with traditional bibliographical research methods, allowed us to collect new elements on this episode in Oberth's life and to reconsider its overall significance. The probable declassification of the documents pertaining to the project, still preserved by the Marina Militare, will allow to define what remains unclear.

Sacral cause of death of cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov.

According to the scrolls of ancient times, Eight is the number of death. Vladimir Komarow, the cosmonaut  no.8, shouldn't have tease it by the second flight: sacral law prohibits this. But he did it — and died.
_______________

В свитках древних времен Восемь есть число смерти. Владимир Комаров, космонавт №8, не должен был дразнить его вторым полётом: сакральный закон запрещает это. Но он полетел — и погиб.

The modern apprehension of the Universe as an dimensionless isotropic bag is not true. The truth is that the Universe is an Undivided Integral System — the Wheel which has the Axis and the border. Тhe mysterious Axis is the God, the Maker of existing, and the obvious Axis is the Moon, the God's throne and our sacred Origin. // Современное представление о Вселенной как безграничном изотропном мешке — в розни с истиной. Истина ж в том, что Вселенная есть системное Целое — Колесо, имущее Центр и границу; и Центр втайне — Бог, Творец сущего, в яви ж — Луна, трон Его и исток наш святой.

«España, ¿me reciben»: Astronáutica y cultura popular (1957-1989) es una mirada exploratoria que tiene como meta cartografiar la incidencia de los viajes espaciales en el ámbito de la cultura de masas. Desde el lanzamiento del primer objeto artificial emplazado en órbita con éxito —la sonda Sputnik el 4 de octubre de 1957— y, con ella el comienzo de la carrera espacial, hace más de sesenta años, hasta el fin de la misma tras la caída del sistema socialista a finales de los años ochenta, en este libro se reflexiona sobre la emergencia de la tecnología aeroespacial en los albores del siglo XX y cuál ha sido su incidencia en términos culturales en la sociedad española. La interpretación que hacen los españoles sobre los hitos astronáuticos es, sin duda, discontinua, alterada y condicionada por los medios de masas, pero produce discursos susceptibles de ser analizados con los instrumentos que provee la historia cultural y de las imágenes. En última instancia, «España, ¿me reciben» traza un itinerario, entre los muchos posibles, que intenta comprender fenómenos como la construcción de la identidad nacional, los imaginarios colectivos y la interacción de la cultura popular con los medios de comunicación de masas.

«España, ¿me reciben»: Astronáutica y cultura popular (1957-1989) es una mirada exploratoria que tiene como meta cartografiar la incidencia de los viajes espaciales en el ámbito de la cultura de masas. Desde el lanzamiento del primer objeto artificial emplazado en órbita con éxito —la sonda Sputnik el 4 de octubre de 1957— y, con ella el comienzo de la carrera espacial, hace más de sesenta años, hasta el fin de la misma tras la caída del sistema socialista a finales de los años ochenta, en este libro se reflexiona sobre la emergencia de la tecnología aeroespacial en los albores del siglo XX y cuál ha sido su incidencia en términos culturales en la sociedad española. La interpretación que hacen los españoles sobre los hitos astronáuticos es, sin duda, discontinua, alterada y condicionada por los medios de masas, pero produce discursos susceptibles de ser analizados con los instrumentos que provee la historia cultural y de las imágenes. En última instancia, «España, ¿me reciben» traza un itinerario, entre los muchos posibles, que intenta comprender fenómenos como la construcción de la identidad nacional, los imaginarios colectivos y la interacción de la cultura popular con los medios de comunicación de masas.

The figure of the astronaut mother in sf represents a site of confluence between the seemingly incompatible cultural ideals and archetypes of the astronaut and the mother. These two identities are perceived to exist on opposite ends of the continuum between traditional binary conceptions of science and nature, masculinity and femininity, rationality and irrationality, detachment and attachment, technology and biology, and of course – space and the Earth. Contemporary sf stories struggle to merge these identities without breaking the mother in the process of making her an astronaut. In order to explore the complexities of the astronaut-mother figure, this article provides a close reading of four female astronaut characters in sf whose motherhood stories are constructed in strikingly similar ways: Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in James Cameron’s special edition of Aliens (1992), Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) in Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity (2013), Dr Molly Woods (Halle Berry) in the television series Extant (2014–15) and Ava Hamilton (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) in The Cloverfield Paradox (2018). Each of these narratives features a female protagonist who goes to space, whose job is the impetus for her space journey, and whose backstory features a dead child.

The impudent warrior of the Universe Elon Musk is looking forward to Mars and beyond. But the whole matter of Elon's life is the Moon, the Mother of the living: her seal in this name burns with fire.                                 

Дерзкий ратник Вселенной Илон Маск стремит взор свой к Марсу и дальше. Но смысл его жизни — Луна, Мать живущих, на имени этом печать.

Artykuł komentuje jedno z największych osiągnięć w zakresie badań kosmosu - dotarcie europejskiej sondy Rosetta do komety 67 P, związanie sondy z kometą w taki sposób, że sonda stała się satelitą okrążającą kometę na stałej orbicie - i posadowienie lądownika Philae na powierzchni komety. Artykuł nie wdaje się w szczegóły samego startu i lotu sondy, a także nie komentuje szerzej faktu, że lądownik Philae odbił się od komety i spadł na nią w sposób nie kontrolowany, co wykluczyło jego misję naukową - ale próbuje wyjaśnić powody, dla których włożono tak dużo wysiłku w ten specyficzny kosmiczny wyczyn.

No other figure was able to organize and catalyze the seminal interest of space exploration in Argentina more than Teófilo Tabanera. Born in 1909, Tabanera showed an early interest in the possibilities of space travel and dedicated most of his life to popularize it in his country. He created the Sociedad Argentina Interplanetaria (1949), which was the first space enthusiast's organization in Latin America.
Present in the first meeting of representatives of various space societies, which led to the creation of the International Astronautical Federation, Tabanera was able to bring his enthusiasm to this new organization.
A prolific writer, Tabanera wrote the first books about space exploration in Spanish, and organized many courses and conferences on the subject.
When the Comisión Nacional de Investigaciones Espaciales (the Argentine Space Agency) was created in 1960 by a decree of President Arturo Frondizi, Tabanera was appointed as its first administrator. There, with meager funds, he organized launch campaigns and international projects on sounding rockets. Thanks to his knowledge of the international space sector, Tabanera invited many experts to Argentina, among them Wernher von Braun and even the Apollo XI crew, just a few months after their return from the Moon.
He continued his activities in the IAF (International Astronautical Federation) serving as vice president for seven terms, and was a cofounder of the International Academy of Astronautics (I.A.A.).
His many contributions, both to the Argentine and international space sector, are a testimony to his undying enthusiasm and interest in space as a way of advancing humankind.

The surname Armstrong, “strong hand,” is a direct sign of the mission of the great earthling. The ancients said that the Hand of God is the Beginning of the universal movement, the Mother Goddess: the creative aspect of the Creator, personified by the Moon. The strongest hand biologically is the wing, the hand of our soul. He who is winged with soul is a hero, a winner. The hero was the chosen one of Heaven, Neil. // Фамилия Армстронг, «сильная рука» — прямой знак миссии великого землянина. Рукой Бога Древние называли Начало вселенского движения — Богиню-Мать: созидательный аспект Творца, олицетворением какого есть Луна. Самой сильной рукой биологически является крыло — рука души нашей. Крылат душой — герой. Им был избранник Неба Нил.