January 2005 - Tampa Bay Mensa

January 2005 29
German "Paris Gun," whose shell reached an altitude of 25
miles. In the next World War, the German V-2 rocket made
sub-orbital space flights on their way to London, reaching
altitudes between 50 and 60 miles. Similar test flights to
somewhat higher altitudes were made in the 1950's by
Americans and Soviets using recovered V-2 missiles. Sputnik
upped the ante considerably in 1958 by going into full orbit at
an altitude of about 150 miles.
The next step in space exploration was putting people into
space, but these beginnings are not limited to the Mercury
Program. Before the Cold War Soviets put the first person in
space, the United States was developing a reusable spacecraft
that would return and land, just like the Space Shuttle. (The
project was scrapped due to Cold War pressures for the
"spam in the can" method using space capsules, which greatly
accelerated the timetable for putting our own pilots in space.
One could argue that the Cold War delayed the evolution of
space flight by 20 years, but it did lead to our getting to the
moon.) This reusable craft was part of Project Dynosoar,
which began in 1959 and continued through the Mercury and
Gemini years until 1968. As part of the testing for the
program pilots flew rocket powered X-15 planes above the 50-
mile limit required for space flight. One flew higher than the
100-kilometer international boundary of space. Those pilots
were called astronauts and received astronaut status. Alan
Sheppard’s and Virgil “Gus” Grissom’s Mercury flight’s were
much higher, but otherwise similar to those X-15 flights: a
high, arcing trajectory up into outer space before returning to
Earth’s surface a few hundred miles down range, and only 15
minutes after lift off. It actually was a crude method of
reaching outer space, consisting of a powerful initial blast
followed by a long period of coasting, not too different from
being shot out of a cannon. All of these pilots were called
astronauts – some were a lot more famous.
30 Tampa Bay Sounding
orbital flight, NASA also sent up a dog, a monkey, and a
chimpanzee in the same, crude, suborbital trajectories.
Perhaps the "right stuff" for these flights had more to do with
having the "right cute." More recently, the pilot of the
privately financed SpaceShipOne received the astronauts
“wings" for his flights above 100 kilometers. He had the right
money and the right rocket scientist. The space shuttle has
launched scientists, politicians, and an old man (77 year-old
John Glenn) and still plans to put a teacher in orbit. The
Russians even launched a rich guy into space! Private
corporations are presently developing rockets for placing
satellites in space with an eye toward eventually placing
people in space. Maybe their programs are how the first cat
will get into orbit.
In light of recent and near future developments and the
history of space flight, perhaps your definition of astronaut
will require orbit around Earth. Looking ahead to the
possibility that civilians may routinely fly into space on
reusable craft could lead one to regard the current astronaut
definition cumbersome because every passenger would be
qualified as one. It would be comparable to calling all airline
passengers pilots because they left the ground for a period of
time. At this point in time I feel this matter is up in the air.
Were all astronauts human Have all astronauts been
military pilots During the same years as the pre-Glenn