AIRFIX VOSTOK ROCKET PART 3 - SPUTNIK OR LUNIK?

Mat Irvine discusses Vostok's background

To finish this three-part appraisal of the reissued Airfix Vostok launcher, it’s worth pointing out that you don’t just get the version that launched the Vostok spacecraft. Because 2011 is the 50th year of humans in space, the kit has been issued with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin’s orbital version to the forefront, but other options have included Soyuz and Sputnik - or have they?

The first satellite

First, a bit of background. Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite to be launched, on October 4, 1957, and so began the ‘Space Age’. The launcher as a whole, usually called the A-type in the west, or R-7 or Semyorka (‘Seven’) by the Soviets, was based on the SS-6 Sapwood ICBM.

AIRFIX VOSTOK ROCKET PART 2 - IS WHITE RIGHT?

Airfix Vostok launchers built up, with empty tanks (left) and full ones (right).

Mat Irvine solves a question of colour

Last time (article here) I pointed out that whatever colour Vostok space launchers really were, they were not white. However photos have often made them appear partially white, so what was going on?

Super-cold liquid
The truth is that the ‘white’ in published pictures was correct, but it was not paint - instead, it was actually frost. This is because Vostok’s rocket motors used cryogenic fuels, or to be totally accurate, a cryogenic oxidizer in the form of LOX, or liquid oxygen (the ‘fuel’ was the far more mundane liquid kerosene). LOX is cold - very cold** - and once the rocket is fuelled, it chills water vapour in the atmosphere immediately outside the tanks, and ice forms on the metal skin - which of course shows up white!

A real Vostok, almost certainly Yuri Gagarin’s Vostok 1. Note the icing.

YURI GAGARIN AND THE AIRFIX VOSTOK KIT - MAT IRVINE TALKS KIT UPDATES

Mat Irvine on a question of colour

Further to last week’s report on the Airfix 1:144 scale Vostok kit reissue (see it here) celebrating Yuri Gagarin's famous 1961 flight, as I provided the change of details needed to Airfix, here’s more of an explanation.

Secret Vostok shape

The kit itself was released way back in 1969, when we in the West had only recently found out what this Soviet rocket actually looked like. Although flown as early as 1957 to launch Sputnik 1, it wasn’t until 1965, four years after the Gagarin flight, that the shape was revealed.

AIRFIX VOSTOK 1 - CLASSIC KIT TO CELEBRATE FIRST MAN IN SPACE, YURI GAGARIN

SMN report

Last week’s 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first human spaceflight - 12 April 1961 - had Mat Irvine looking at the well-produced magabook Space published at the same time. So now let’s have a look at the Airfix reissue of Vostok 1, the rocket that blasted the 27-year old cosmonaut Gagarin into his 108 minute orbital flight, and a certain place in the history books.

SPACE - CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF HUMAN SPACE FLIGHT

Mat Irvine reports on a magabook for space fans

Space is a colourful new release from Key Publishing, the outfit behind the recently-launched Airfix Model World magazine. Space is written by David Baker, a well-known space writer, as well as once being a NASA space scientist.

CELEBRATING 39 YEARS OF A DISTANT GOLF SHOT

Report by Mat Irvine
Yesterday in 1971 astronaut Alan Shepard Jr performed a sports manoeuvre that has since become a staple pub-quiz question, usually along the lines of: “What is the farthest a golf ball has ever travelled?”. For Shepard was commander of the Apollo 14 Moon mission, and, as a golf fanatic, took a golf club and several golf balls on the journey.

In fact, Alan Shepard didn’t use a whole golf club, just the head of a Number 6 iron, which he attached to the end of one of the mission’s soil sampling scoops. Then he plucked the ball from a spacesuit pocket, dropped it on to the lunar surface and hit the ball - albeit in rather ungainly fashion, as the stiffish suit allowed only one arm to be used for the purpose. It was probably not the ‘longest’ drive ever, but was certainly the ‘farthest’ in the sense that the drive was some 385,000 km (239,000 miles) from planet Earth! Besides the publicity exercise, the shot did have some scientific merit in showing ball behaviour in an airless, one-sixth gravity environment.

The scenario was celebrated some years ago in one of UK-based ReHeat Models’ excellent astronaut figure kits, depicting the actual club-hits-ball moment. ReHeat, which was the brainchild of Mike Holloway, did a number of astronaut figure kits all to 120mm scale, (approximately 1:15), and made from resin. Others included Yuri Gagarin in his Vostok ejector seat, both Apollo 11 astronauts, and John Glenn.

Unfortunately ReHeat is no longer making these astronauts, but the kits are well worth looking out for on web-based auction sites.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1 My assembled and painted ReHeat Models astronaut.
2 Parts laid out.
3 Shepard working on the Moon.
4 A video frame-grab of the actual stroke.