Before our very eyes there is coming into being a new engineering discipline - the science of spacecraft engineering. The origins of this science go back to the end of the fifties, to the creation of the first spacecraft, the 'Vostok', and later the ships of the 'Mercury', 'Voskhod', and 'Gemini' series. These crafts already incorporate the principal features which will characterize future developments as well. The first spacecraft ('Vostok' and 'Mercury') pursued a very limited and specific goal - that of making possible manned space flights within the orbit of an Earth satellite and of providing a base for studies into the effect of flight-related conditions on the human organism. Formulation of the problem in these terms resulted in a substantial simplification of the overall spacecraft design effort and had the effect of clearly limiting the range of the craft's operational modalities. The acquisition of updated information, its processing, and on the basis of this processing, the re-acquistion of fresh data - this will be the primary task of spacecraft crews of the future, if for no other reason than because to obtain information on the Universe in which we live is the principal goal which mankind will pursue as it sends its ships into space. (Author)
Spacecraft of the Future
1967
7 pages
Report
Keine Angabe
Englisch
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