Soyuz 7K-T No.39, (also named Soyuz 18a or Soyuz 18-1) was an unsuccessful launch of a manned Soyuz spacecraft by the Soviet Union on April 5, 1975. The mission was expected to dock with the orbiting Salyut 4 space station, but due to a failure of the Soyuz launch vehicle the crew failed to achieve orbit.
The accident was the result of a failure of a rocket staging event; the core booster of the Soyuz rocket did not separate from its upper stage. Since the accident took place after the escape tower had jettisoned, the Soyuz 7K-T spacecraft needed to use its own propulsion module engines to escape the failing rocket.
The escape exerted excessive g forces on the crew, consisting of commander Vasili Lazarev, an Air Force major, and flight engineer Oleg Makarov, a civilian. Both cosmonauts were injured, with Lazarev suffering injuries serious enough to end his career. The descent module landed near Aleysk, in the Altai Mountains; the crew initially feared they landed in the People's Republic of China, leading them to burn their paperwork in case they were captured by the Chinese, whom the Soviet Union were at odds with at the time.
The accident was disclosed by the normally secretive Soviets, as it occurred during preparations for their joint Apollo–Soyuz Test Project with the United States three months later. This would prove to be the last manned Soyuz mission launched with the original Soyuz rocket; future missions would be launched by the updated Soyuz-U rocket.
Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet cosmonaut and the first human to orbit the earth. Yuri Gagarin joined the Soviet Air Force in 1955 and graduated with honors from the Soviet Air Force Academy in 1957. Soon afterward, he became a military fighter pilot. By 1959, he had been selected for cosmonaut training as part of the first group of USSR cosmonauts. Yuri Gagarin flew only one space mission. On April 12, 1961 he became the first human to orbit Earth. Gagarin's spacecraft, Vostok 1, circled Earth at a speed of 27,400 kilometers per hour. The flight lasted 108 minutes. At its highest point, Gagarin was about 200 miles (327 kilometers) above Earth. Once in orbit, Yuri Gagarin had no control over his spacecraft. Vostok's reentry was controlled by a computer program sending radio commands to the space capsule. Although the controls were locked, a key had been placed in a sealed envelope in case an emergency situation made it necessary for Gagarin to take control. As was planned, Cosmonaut Gagarin ejected after reentry into Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 20,000 feet and landed by parachute. As pilot of the spaceship Vostok 1, he proved that man could endure the rigors of lift-off, re-entry, and weightlessness. As a result of his historic flight he became an international hero and legend. Colonel Gagarin died on March 27, 1968 when the MiG-15 airplane he was piloting crashed near Moscow. He was given a hero's funeral, his ashes interred in the Kremlin Wall. He is popularly known as “The Columbus of the Cosmos”.
An Atlas V 551 rocket launches from SLC-41, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, on January 19, 2006, carrying the New Horizons probe, which would visit Pluto on July 14, 2015. It was the first launch with the 551 configuration, its launch augmented by five AerojetAJ-60A solid-rocket motors, providing a total of 2.7 million lb-f of thrust at liftoff. New Horizons would achieve the fastest velocity at launch of any spacecraft, at 58,000 kilometres per hour (36,000 mph). It was the first spacecraft launched directly into a solar escape trajectory.
...that the Saturn V rocket (pictured) was 365 feet (111 metres) tall?
…that when investigating the Challenger accident, Richard Feynman threatened to remove his name from the report unless it included his personal observations on the reliability of the shuttle?
