WEBVTT - The First Manned Spacecraft 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.920 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.320 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.720 How Stuff Works not love all things tech, and recently 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:25.000 I got an email from tech Stuff listener Lim asking 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:27.720 me to do an episode about the Space Shuttle program. 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:30.479 And I'm gonna do that, but it really sent me 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:32.880 down a very long rabbit hole, and I thought it 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:34.600 might be fun to look at some of the early 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.199 manned spacecraft and a couple of the unmanned ones to 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.720 that preceded the Space Shuttle programs. So we're actually gonna 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:45.879 do a block of space related episodes. This is the 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:49.560 first one. We're gonna have several more, including ones about 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.559 different eras of space exploration, the different rockets that have 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:57.840 been used in space exploration, and the Space Shuttle program. 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.440 So we're blasting off into out space for a few episodes. 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:04.800 I hope you enjoy the ride. Now, before I get started, 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:07.839 I want to give you guys some trigger warnings early 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:10.600 on in this episode. So I'll be talking a bit 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.800 about some early space missions that involve animals, and not 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:17.160 all of those are happy stories. So if you are 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:20.759 distressed by sad stories about animals, and there is one 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:23.120 coming up later in this episode, I'll point it out 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:25.480 when I get to that section, just be aware that 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:29.120 that's going to happen. And second trigger warning, I'm one 0:01:29.160 --> 0:01:33.040 of those people who gets distressed about sad stories about animals. 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:37.600 So if you get distressed by bald tech podcasters who 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.080 are barely able to keep it together on microphone because 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.560 they're talking about a sweet doggie, then this is your 0:01:42.560 --> 0:01:46.520 trigger warning for that as well. Before there were spacecraft 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:49.760 with actual human beings in them, there were many earlier 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:55.200 experiments and projects and thought experiments that provided valuable information 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.320 about what it would take to get people into space. 0:01:58.880 --> 0:02:02.840 The scientists and engineers responsible for those experiments came from 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:05.720 all over, and much of their work was advanced not 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.639 through a pursuit of knowledge but through conflict. And I've 0:02:09.680 --> 0:02:12.480 mentioned this in other episodes, but the space race was 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:17.080 largely fueled by pretty ugly political rivalries and a need 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:21.000 to demonstrate a position of technological dominance and capability. Now, 0:02:21.040 --> 0:02:25.200 I don't say that to diminish the incredible contributions of 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.800 countless individuals who have dedicated their lives to exploring the unknown, 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.320 whether it is piloting a spacecraft or working on Earth 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.520 so that others can do that. I I say it 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:39.840 to illustrate that much of the work they did was 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:43.000 made possible because the people in charge of the purse strings, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.480 the ones who were actually paying the checks, were really 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.240 interested in their country being seen as the most powerful 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:55.440 and more importantly unassailable entity on Earth. So double edged sword. 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:58.440 Before I talk about any specific spacecraft, I want to 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.520 give an overview about some of the early scientists and 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.960 engineers who helped pave the way. Now, I could go 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:07.640 all the way back to the Renaissance, when folks like 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:12.760 Galileo made astronomical observations that challenged the prevailing geocentric view 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:16.160 of the universe, but that would make this show way 0:03:16.200 --> 0:03:19.000 too long, and I've already got five episodes planned in 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:21.639 this block. I don't need to add more to them, 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:24.040 so I'm gonna skip ahead of bit. One person I 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.000 do feel I must mention published a work at the 0:03:27.120 --> 0:03:31.040 end of the nineteenth century that was incredibly important. His 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:37.360 name was Konstantine Siolkovsky, a Russian scientist. In eighteen ninety six, 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.200 he began writing a work the English title of this 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:45.160 work is Exploration of Cosmic Space by means of Reaction Devices, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:49.840 and essentially Siolkovsky was working out the logistics of escaping 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:54.080 Earth's gravity, going to space and using rockets to do it. 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:56.720 He did this at a time when Russia was still 0:03:56.800 --> 0:03:59.560 under the control of the Czar. In fact, it really 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.320 wasn't an after the Russian Revolution of nineteen seventeen in 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:06.360 the formation of the Soviet Union in nineteen twenty two 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.640 that Siolkovsky really received any support for his work. The 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.800 Soviet government was very interested in rockets that could go really, 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.000 really far. Siolkovsky wasn't just a theorist either. He would 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.000 also test his ideas. He introduced the concept of using 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:26.160 wind tunnels to judge rocket aerodynamic design, for example, so 0:04:26.520 --> 0:04:29.880 he was practical as well well as a theoretical physicist. 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:33.960 Over in the United States, meanwhile, a physicist named Robert 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.760 Goddard was also working out the requirements to send a 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.080 rocket to space. He he came out along a little 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:43.919 bit after Sulkovsky. He also invented liquid fueled rockets. He 0:04:43.960 --> 0:04:47.240 received patents for his designs in nineteen fourteen, and he 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:50.560 build the first working liquid fueled rocket In the mid 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:55.359 nineteen twenties. He pioneered work in elements like gyroscopic control 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.719 to help with flight stability, and also power driven fuel 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.279 pumps for fuel managed it and a couple of years 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:05.880 later scientists in Europe would create similar designs, largely independently, 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.320 which would be put to use in Germany's V two 0:05:08.480 --> 0:05:11.360 rockets during World War Two. The V two is short 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.640 for fair Gel tongs FAFA s VY or retribution weapon 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:19.080 to which, yeah, that kind of tells you the purpose 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:21.840 of that particular piece of technology. It was not meant 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:26.440 to explore space, however. On June twenty, nineteen forty four, 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.640 engineers conducted a test of a V two rocket that 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:33.360 saw it reach an altitude of one D seventy six kilometers. 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.360 That made the V two the first rocket to cross 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.640 the Carmen line, which you could call the edge of space. 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:43.000 The Carmen line is at a hundred kilometers above mean 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.560 sea level, and it's named after Theodore Fawn Karmen, who 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.919 was an Hungarian American engineer. He proposed that that altitude 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:53.240 would mark the point where it would be impossible to 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:58.479 maintain your your flight through UH lift alone at least 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.120 through conventional means, because the atmosphere would be too thin 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.720 to support an aircraft via lift unless the aircraft were 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:09.480 actually traveling faster than orbital velocity. Now, interestingly, in the 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:12.039 United States, it doesn't take as far to get up 0:06:12.080 --> 0:06:13.320 to space. You don't have to go up to a 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:16.039 hundred kilometers to be in space. Now, I don't mean 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:19.640 that space is magically closer to the United States soil 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:22.640 or anything. Rather, I mean the United States Air Force 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:26.200 calls anyone who has traveled at an altitude higher than 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:30.880 eighty kilometers over sea level an astronaut. So if you 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.000 go higher than eighty kilometers and you're in the U. S. 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:37.160 Air Force, you're an astronaut. If you are anywhere else 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:38.800 in the world, they would say, you haven't actually been 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.000 to space yet. You need to go another twenty kilometers. 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:43.640 But I just thought that was an interesting little side point. 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:46.400 At the end of World War Two, there was a 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:49.640 scramble among allied powers to grab up some of the 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.520 more important assets that were formally held by the excess powers. 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:58.360 Two of the assets that the United States really wanted 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:01.120 were the V two rockets Germany had been using to 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:05.400 bombard various countries and the scientists who had helped design 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:08.440 those rockets, and the US did not want to put 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.880 the scientists on trial for developing weapons of mass destruction, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:16.400 even though they had killed countless civilians. Instead, they wanted 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:18.760 those scientists to build rockets for the good old U. 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:22.640 S of A. This was called Operation paper Clip. In 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.040 ninety six, the United States launched some V two rockets 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.480 to the edge of space, but that would be the U. S. 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:31.720 Air Force definition of the edge of space, meaning it 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:35.120 was around eighty kilometers altitude, not a hundred and work 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:37.840 on the V two lead to the development of two 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.320 stage rockets, which, as their name suggests, means the rockets 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.120 have two segments designed to provide the energy needed to 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:48.080 boost the rocket out into space. I'll cover more details 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.640 about rockets and stage rockets and what that all means 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.800 in an upcoming episode of tech Stuff. Now here's the 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:58.200 part of the episode where I get really sad, the 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:00.720 bit that I warned you about earlier, because I'm a 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:04.520 softie and I love dogs, so this could be a 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:06.400 little hard for me to get through. It was hard 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:08.600 for me to research, and right I don't know if 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:10.200 it's gonna be hard for me to talk about. But 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:13.920 we'll find out together. So just take my hand. We'll 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.800 make it through this. Beginning in the early nineteen fifties, 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:22.000 the Soy Union began to experiment with simple spacecraft capsules, 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.400 and they put dogs in these capsules to test and 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.360 see if it might be viable to send a human 0:08:27.400 --> 0:08:30.520 into space. No one was really sure yet. The first 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:33.880 two dogs to do this were named Desik and Saigon. 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:37.720 These were both put in very tiny capsules. They were 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:42.800 actually trained by being put into increasingly smaller crates over 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.000 prolonged periods of time, because they would have to sit 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.480 in these very tiny capsules for quite some time. They 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.680 were carried by our one rockets to an altitude of 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.760 one kilometers, which meant that they were actually crossing the 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:58.719 carm online. They were not going into orbit though, they 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.559 were just going very very high up into the atmosphere 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.720 and then coming back down. They were in special pressure 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.880 suits and they were inside a little pressurized cabin, so 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.280 the case they were in was a pressurized case. Both 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.800 of them returned from that first test flight alive and well. 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:21.280 On July twenty, nineteen fifty one. Desert would be put 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:25.080 on another test flight on July one with another dog 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:29.320 named Lisa. But at that occasion we weren't so lucky. 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.360 The two dogs died when the parachute for their capsule 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.040 failed to deploy. Saigon, however, would be adopted by a 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:39.439 Soviet scientist and would not go on any more flights 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.800 and lived out her life fine. The Soviets did several 0:09:42.840 --> 0:09:46.440 more tests. They gradually would increase the altitudes until they 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.400 reached about four fifty kilometers and by then they were 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.200 using our five A rockets in the late nineteen fifties, 0:09:53.520 --> 0:09:58.040 and then there was like okay. So on October four, 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.560 ninety seven, the Oviots launched sput Nick one that was 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.880 the first man made satellite to reach Earth orbit, to 0:10:06.000 --> 0:10:10.080 actually orbit the Earth in full. It was a silver 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:14.839 sphere that went beep. That's essentially all it did. It 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:18.000 sent out a radio signal and it orbited the Earth. 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:20.680 It was also a huge wake up call to people 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:24.000 in the United States. Scientists and government officials had known 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:28.160 about Russian work in the space program and also about 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.360 their advances in rocketry for a while. But sput Nick, 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:34.319 which could be detected by amateur radio operators and it 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:38.680 was ham operators were detecting this satellite in real time 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.160 as it crossed overhead. It was proof the Soviets could 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:44.840 put something up into space that could travel to the 0:10:44.880 --> 0:10:46.920 other side of the world. And if they could do 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.640 it with a sphere what went beep, they might be 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:52.439 able to do it with a bomb. And this was 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.240 when the USSR and the USA were engaged in a 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.400 Cold war, so this was a big deal. It really 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:00.600 lit fires in the United States, not just in the 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.720 space program, but for a host of other technological research projects, 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.200 some of which would even evolve into stuff like the Internet. 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.200 So that's spot Nick one, and I did a full 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.000 episode on it in the past, so I'm not going 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.839 to go into further detail right here. When we come 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.800 back after I've stealed myself, will tell the sad story 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:22.840 of sput Nick two and like a But first let's 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:33.559 take a quick break and thank our sponsor. So Sputnik 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.080 one was an unmanned satellite. Sputnik two would be the 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:40.960 first spacecraft to carry a living creature inside of it 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.640 and go into Earth orbit, and that living creature was 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:49.040 like a spot Nick two launched on November third, nineteen 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:53.640 fifty seven, just a month after Sputnik one launched, and 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.200 inside the capsule was like a a dog that would 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:58.839 become the first animal to into Earth orbit, and unlike 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.199 the earlier tests with dogs, this was a one way 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.599 ticket from the beginning. The other experiments were designed in 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:10.200 an effort to ensure the dog's survival. The scientists wanted 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.640 the dogs to come back down and and safely land, 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:17.280 but they had no such plans for spot Nick two. 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:19.960 Like it was going to go up into orbit, and 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:21.920 the Soviets didn't have any way to bring her back 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.160 down safely. They knew the satellite would encounter drag, it 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.959 would lose speed, it would eventually have its orbit decay, 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:31.920 and the spacecraft would re enter their atmosphere. They had 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:37.400 no way of controlling its descent or mitigating the problems 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:41.200 of heat build up. Like, uh, no matter what, was 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.760 not going to survive that trip. She didn't live very long. 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.640 When she died is actually a matter of some mystery. 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.040 The Soviet Union originally reported that she actually survived a 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.560 full week in orbit, which is kind of horrifying to me. 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:59.760 But equally horrifying are the points of evidence that point 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.160 other wise. Later documents said she died only a few 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:06.520 hours after launch. Because the temperature inside the capsule reached 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.679 more than a hundred degrees, the forces she endured were 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:14.080 pretty rough. Uh. Data from Spotnik two indicates the capsule's 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.079 temperature increased after it orbited the Earth three times, and 0:13:17.640 --> 0:13:19.640 that was the beginning of the end for her. And 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:22.600 the story really rips me up every time I think 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.200 about it, because, on the one hand, I certainly understand 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:28.120 the need to test whether or not it might be 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.600 possible to send a person to space and into orbits safely. 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.520 That is a huge, huge risk, and it was full 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.240 of unknowns. We had never done it before, so you 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.880 have to be sure that's going to be safe before 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:44.480 you put a human life at risk. And it's not 0:13:44.559 --> 0:13:47.960 like we had the technological capabilities at that time to 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.840 do this without an actual organism on board to see 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:54.520 what happens to that organism. But it's still a really 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.960 hard story for me to get through. Ole Gazinco, who 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.600 was one of the scientists who worked on spot Nick two, 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.400 would later say that the mission wasn't designed to gather 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:09.640 sufficient information that would justify the death of Lyca. He 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:13.040 expressed regret in his involvement and the decision to sacrifice, 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:17.160 or essentially said we didn't get enough information from this 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:22.760 experiment to justify killing an animal in this way. By 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.400 the way, Laca's legacy lives on in multiple forms of media. 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:31.360 There's nick about Ziz novel Likeca, it's a fictional account 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:35.040 of her story. The animation studio Lika is named after her. 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.680 That's the studio that did films like Coraline and Cubo 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.840 and The Two Strings. There are poems about her. There 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.560 are songs, and my favorite in case you want to listen, 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:47.360 but I warn you it is emotional as a sad 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.000 song by Jonathan Colton. It's called Space Doggedy. It's actually 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.280 an homage to David Bowie's Space Oddity song. He was 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:59.240 given a challenge to transform a song and the specific 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.240 song was Space Audity Audity by David Bowie. So he 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.840 took that and he said, I'm known for doing all 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:06.720 these songs about monkeys, so I wasn't going to do 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:08.640 one about the first monkey in Space. I decided to 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.160 do one about the first dog. And it's a really 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.240 sweet song. If you're a dog lover, it's uh, it's 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.160 it's very sad, but it's worth a Lessen. It's a 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.160 very good song, all right. I gotta get it back 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.520 together and talk more about spacecraft. So we're through with 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:26.600 the animal cruelty stuff. I think while spot Nick two 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.520 did not gather that much useful information, it did show 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.200 that was possible to keep a living organism alive in 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.880 orbit barring technological failures. And so now the race was 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:37.920 on to see who could get a human being into 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:40.960 orbit first. Over in the United States, efforts were rushing 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:45.640 along with the Mercury program. Understandably, there were many launches 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.040 with unmanned versions of the Mercury capsule. They wanted to 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.080 test its space worthiness before ever putting an actual human 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:54.960 being inside of it and sending that human off into space. 0:15:55.760 --> 0:16:00.400 And there was one test with a special pilot. It 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:05.720 was for the Mercury Redstone to mission. Mercury missions were 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:10.280 given different designations. The Mercury Redstone missions were suborbital, meaning 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:13.320 these were tests where the Mercury capsule was sent up 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.640 into space, but not into an orbit around the Earth. 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:18.960 It would just go up and then come back down. 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:22.200 This was late in the testing phase, after they had 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:26.520 fired off multiple Mercury capsules that were unmanned. The special 0:16:26.520 --> 0:16:31.320 pilot was a chimpanzee later named Ham. Ham's name comes 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.800 from the lab that trained him for the mission. It's 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:37.200 the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, so it was kind of 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.440 an acronym. Ham was trained to activate switches when presented 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:43.880 with the stimulus of a lit indicator, so a light 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:46.760 lights up and the chimpanzee would reach out and hit 0:16:46.760 --> 0:16:49.280 a switch. It was trained this way. He was trained 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.920 this way by he was given a banana pellets whenever 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.680 he did it correctly, so he was rewarded. If he 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.280 didn't do it, he would get a very mild electric 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:02.400 shock on his feet, which sounds pretty awful, but it 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:05.000 was mild. It was not something that was enough to 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.320 harm him, but to you know, to sting a bit 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:13.080 and and to essentially train him into this behavior. The 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:17.639 whole point of it was the the the medical center 0:17:17.680 --> 0:17:24.239 wanted to train Ham to perform repetitive routine tasks and 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:27.760 to be able to do it on command, because they 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:30.560 weren't sure what would happen when someone was in orbit. 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:34.119 Would they maintain that ability, would they be able to 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:38.200 continue to do these routine tasks while they were in orbit, 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.800 or would weightlessness affect you in such a way that 0:17:40.840 --> 0:17:44.600 you you were no longer able to do this. Because 0:17:44.640 --> 0:17:47.760 if you put a pilot up into orbit and it 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.600 turns out after a short while that weightlessness or micro gravity, 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:55.880 if you want to be more specific, has a negative effect, 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.119 then you could condemn that person to die because are 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.560 no longer able to do whatever they need to do 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.720 in order to return to Earth safely. So this was 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:10.000 a test to see would waitlessness or microgravity have that 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:14.760 negative impact on cognitive abilities. So Ham got trained in 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.440 this way, learned how to flip switches according to lights 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.160 being lit up. Ham was not, by the way, piloting anything. 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.160 Ham was again acting acting on these little these little 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:27.040 lights that would blink on a console and would react 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:30.920 to that. On January thirty one, nineteen sixty one, Ham 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:33.000 who at that point did not actually have a name 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:35.879 yet because NASA thought it might be a bad idea 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:39.080 to name the chimpanzee just in case something did go wrong. 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.280 If something went wrong and they had named the chimpanze, 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.240 it would create kind of an emotional anchor point that 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:46.879 might make it even more difficult to move forward with 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:49.600 the space program. So he was just number sixty five 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.080 until he came back anyway, he got into a mercury capsule, 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.720 or was put into a mercury capsule. I should say, 0:18:55.760 --> 0:18:57.919 I'll talk more about what those capsules were like in 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:00.560 just a little bit. And he would perform his duties 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:04.120 of switching switches on command pretty much as he would 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:06.960 on Earth. So he sent up into orbit, and he 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:09.640 saw the little lights, and he flipped the little switches, 0:19:10.280 --> 0:19:13.040 and apparently it was pretty much the same as he 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:15.199 would have done back at home. It was a little slower, 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:17.399 but not by much. It was like a split second, 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:21.560 So it wasn't it wasn't statistically important. It appeared that 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.600 the rigors of space and effects of microgravity were not 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:30.960 negatively impacting his ability to think and react in that way, 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:35.040 which was a relief because there were also other issues 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:41.159 that happened that fortunately did not affect Ham's health. For 0:19:41.240 --> 0:19:45.960 one thing, the spacecraft lost air pressure. There was a problem, 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:49.880 a breach, but Ham Ham was inside a pressure aze 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:55.040 capsule inside the spacecraft. The capsule part maintained its pressure, 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:58.720 so while the spacecraft itself lost some air pressure, Ham 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.600 was still safe inside. His flight was suborbital. It did 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:04.320 not go all the way up into orbit. It lasted 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.720 about sixteen and a half minutes long. He landed safely 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:10.680 in the ocean, because that's how the mercury capsules were 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:14.520 designed to make an ocean landing. There was a bit 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.919 of a scare because the capsule had that small breach 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:20.679 it actually started or not the capsule, but the spacecraft 0:20:20.920 --> 0:20:23.399 had that small breaches actually started filling up with water 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.119 upon landing in the ocean. But the retrieval crew was 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:28.200 able to get to Ham in plenty of time, and 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:32.680 so Ham was extracted from the spacecraft. There was otherwise 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:35.080 a danger that Ham, really very real danger that Ham 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:38.320 could have drowned if they hadn't gotten to him in time. Uh. 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:41.800 He then was transitioned to live out most of his 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:44.800 life at the National Zoo in Washington, d C. Part 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:48.280 of the Smithsonian, but in nineteen eighty was transferred to 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.520 the North Carolina Zoo, and that's where he passed away 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:55.000 on January nineteenth. And he was in his mid twenties, 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:57.640 probably twenty five or twenty six. It's actually pretty young 0:20:57.720 --> 0:21:01.080 for a chimpanzee, which can live up to age fifty. 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:05.720 Not entirely certain what caused his demise. I don't know 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.199 if he just got a disease or what. I couldn't 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:11.480 find a whole lot of information about what led to that, 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:14.800 but uh, he did get that name upon landing, and 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:19.480 he made history is the first non human hominid in space. Meanwhile, 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:23.600 over in the Soviet Union there was the Vostok program 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:27.240 that was going strong, So Mercury was starting to work 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.119 with these unmanned missions and the one with the chimpanzee. 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.439 Over in the Soviet Union there was a push to 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:37.520 go toward into space with a program called Vostok v 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.880 O S t O K. The Vostok looked like kind 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.000 of a giant circuitry component to me. There was a 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.680 re entry capsule that's where the crew member would say. 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:52.240 It was a one person spacecraft, and that was a 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.960 sphere essentially, and then had sort of a conical base 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.560 to it. That's where the retro rocket would be, and 0:21:58.680 --> 0:22:01.760 it was supposed to jettice and off the spherical part. 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:05.600 And the sphere was two point three meters in diameter 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:08.680 that's about seven and a half feet in diameter, So 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:11.760 the cosmonaut didn't have a whole lot of room inside, 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:15.959 but it wasn't the most cramped quarters of any spacecraft, 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:18.920 it did have some odd designs to it. Apparently, the 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:24.360 instrumentation was at a ninety degree angle from the the 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:27.320 forward facing position of the cosmonaut, meaning that the cosmonaut 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:29.040 was going to have to turn his or her head 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:32.199 ninety degrees in order to see the instrumentation panel. That 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:36.679 seems like a weird design to me, but that's, I guess, 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:40.960 just the product of having to do this so quickly. Also, 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:44.760 there was an important part of figuring out where to 0:22:44.800 --> 0:22:49.240 distribute the weight in this spacecraft see its spherical because 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:51.439 there was no way to control the capsule's path and 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:55.600 orientation once it re entered Earth's atmosphere and separated from 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.880 its engine system that was in that that conical section. 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.440 The sphere icle design meant it had to be shielded 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:04.480 on all sides because there was no way to be 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:07.240 absolutely certain how it might be oriented once it began 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:10.880