138
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
inspired a flurry of interest in spaceflight; the member Archibald M. Low established
a branch of the BIS in London, where soon became the location for the Society’s
headquarter; the Explosive Act 1875 was repealed by the British government; a
Technical Committee of the BIS, led by John H. Edwards, was organized whose tasks
were studies on spacecraft’s design and equipment, including two core members Ross
and Smith [8].
For the Technical Committee, the first of these tasks was the Lunar Spaceship
Project, in which both Ross and Smith made significant contributions to looking at the
feasibility of landing men on the Moon. Comparing to more than 100 combinations
of liquid and solid propellant rockets, it was considered that the escape velocity could
be achieved by using the multi-stage solid rocket in parallel. They had designed a
tremendous rocket for landing on the Moon, with a height of 32 m, a diameter of 6 m
and a total weight of 1000 metric tons (including propellants of 900 metric tons),
of which a total of 2490 solid-fueled motors are connected in a six-stage parallel
structure, installing a group of small liquid-fueled motors between each stage shell
and the rocket body to precisely control flight attitude. Ross was responsible for a
conceptual design of the Lunar Spaceship [9], whose head is equipped with skin to
block meteors and solar radiation. In the cabin of the Lunar Spaceship, there are
three elastic seats and the devices processing air, water and food. The spaceship
would carry a crew of three safely to the Moon, permit them to land for a stay of
14 days, provide for a safe return to the Earth with a final payload of half a ton.
In order to facilitate the safety of astronauts on the surface of the Moon, the Lunar
Spacesuit was specially designed by Ross. The 68-kg Lunar Spacesuit, equivalent
to 11 kg on the Moon, could be worn for up to 12 h, within the temperature range
from plus 120 degrees to minus 150 degrees Celsius, suiting to the night and day on
the lunar surface. The Spacesuit design was four-ply, made up of a thin exterior skin
of closely woven cloth, and had 1 cm layer of cellular heat-resisting material and a
1−2 mm main airtight sheath of fabric-backed natural or synthetic rubber. It also had
an interior lining of non-hygroscopic material, mainly for comfort, to manage contact
between the rubber and skin and absorption of the water vapor. During the flight,
the astronauts could maintain the observation of a specific sky area all the time by
using a device “Orientation Scope”, to determine the flight direction. The navigation
parameters were obtained by using the altimeter, gyroscope, accelerometer and stable
control device to realize the autonomous flight of the Spaceship. In order to make the
best use of the centrifugal force of the Earth’s rotation, and avoid or reduce casualties
and property losses as the explosion accident occurs possibly, it was assumed that the
launch site was selected near Lake Titicaca in the Andes on the border of Bolivia and
Peru, at 16-deg south latitude and 3800-m altitude. It is an extremely detailed design
of the spaceship landing on the Moon. The object of the exercise was to demonstrate
that, within the capabilities of propellants that could theoretically be specified at that
time, such a mission was not merely technologically possible but be economically
viable.
During the Second World War, the BIS suspended its activities, and its members
could only independently carry out researches within their capabilities. Cleator was
upset that he could not persuade the military to support the development of rocket
3 A Brief History of Space Flight
inspired a flurry of interest in spaceflight; the member Archibald M. Low established
a branch of the BIS in London, where soon became the location for the Society’s
headquarter; the Explosive Act 1875 was repealed by the British government; a
Technical Committee of the BIS, led by John H. Edwards, was organized whose tasks
were studies on spacecraft’s design and equipment, including two core members Ross
and Smith [8].
For the Technical Committee, the first of these tasks was the Lunar Spaceship
Project, in which both Ross and Smith made significant contributions to looking at the
feasibility of landing men on the Moon. Comparing to more than 100 combinations
of liquid and solid propellant rockets, it was considered that the escape velocity could
be achieved by using the multi-stage solid rocket in parallel. They had designed a
tremendous rocket for landing on the Moon, with a height of 32 m, a diameter of 6 m
and a total weight of 1000 metric tons (including propellants of 900 metric tons),
of which a total of 2490 solid-fueled motors are connected in a six-stage parallel
structure, installing a group of small liquid-fueled motors between each stage shell
and the rocket body to precisely control flight attitude. Ross was responsible for a
conceptual design of the Lunar Spaceship [9], whose head is equipped with skin to
block meteors and solar radiation. In the cabin of the Lunar Spaceship, there are
three elastic seats and the devices processing air, water and food. The spaceship
would carry a crew of three safely to the Moon, permit them to land for a stay of
14 days, provide for a safe return to the Earth with a final payload of half a ton.
In order to facilitate the safety of astronauts on the surface of the Moon, the Lunar
Spacesuit was specially designed by Ross. The 68-kg Lunar Spacesuit, equivalent
to 11 kg on the Moon, could be worn for up to 12 h, within the temperature range
from plus 120 degrees to minus 150 degrees Celsius, suiting to the night and day on
the lunar surface. The Spacesuit design was four-ply, made up of a thin exterior skin
of closely woven cloth, and had 1 cm layer of cellular heat-resisting material and a
1−2 mm main airtight sheath of fabric-backed natural or synthetic rubber. It also had
an interior lining of non-hygroscopic material, mainly for comfort, to manage contact
between the rubber and skin and absorption of the water vapor. During the flight,
the astronauts could maintain the observation of a specific sky area all the time by
using a device “Orientation Scope”, to determine the flight direction. The navigation
parameters were obtained by using the altimeter, gyroscope, accelerometer and stable
control device to realize the autonomous flight of the Spaceship. In order to make the
best use of the centrifugal force of the Earth’s rotation, and avoid or reduce casualties
and property losses as the explosion accident occurs possibly, it was assumed that the
launch site was selected near Lake Titicaca in the Andes on the border of Bolivia and
Peru, at 16-deg south latitude and 3800-m altitude. It is an extremely detailed design
of the spaceship landing on the Moon. The object of the exercise was to demonstrate
that, within the capabilities of propellants that could theoretically be specified at that
time, such a mission was not merely technologically possible but be economically
viable.
During the Second World War, the BIS suspended its activities, and its members
could only independently carry out researches within their capabilities. Cleator was
upset that he could not persuade the military to support the development of rocket