The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity

118 Einstein Observatory
other ideas for the development of space, including a
space plane design and a strategy for lunar colonization.
As a child, he was influenced by Fritz Lang’s film Woman
in the Moon and formed a rocket society at age 12. He
studied celestial mechanics and nuclear physics at Berlin
Technical University. Injured during World War II, he
was transferred to Peenemünde, where he served as a
propulsion engineer from 1942 to 1945. Upon moving to
the United States, he became an American citizen (1954)
and during the 1950s, with General Dynamics, helped
develop the Atlas missile and then the Centaur upper
stage. Later, he carried out advanced studies at Rockwell
International while also working independently on
schemes for the commercialization and colonization of
space. His ashes were placed in orbit aboard the first
Celestis flight.
Einstein Observatory
See HEAO-2.
Eisele, Donn F. (1930–1987)
An American astronaut and Air Force colonel involved
with the Apollo program. Eisele was selected as an astronaut
in October 1963, and he served as Command Module
(CM) pilot on Apollo 7 and as backup CM pilot for
Apollo 1 and 10. He received a B.S. from the U.S. Naval
Academy in 1952 and an M.S. in astronautics from the
Air Force Institute of Technology in 1960. After earning
his wings in 1954, he flew as an interceptor pilot for four
years before attending the Air Force Institute of Technology
at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. After graduating,
he worked there as a rocket propulsion and aerospace
weapons engineer from 1960 to 1961, attended the Aerospace
Research Pilot School, and then worked as a project
engineer and experimental test pilot at the Air Force Special
Weapons Center at Kirtland Air Force Base. As an
astronaut, Eisele was assigned to pilot the first manned
Apollo flight but broke his shoulder during training and
was replaced by Roger Chaffee. The accident saved his
life because Chaffee, along with Virgil Grissom and
Edward White, died in a launch-pad fire during a
rehearsal for the mission. Eisele resigned from NASA’s
Astronaut Office in 1970 and became the technical assistant
for manned spaceflight at the Langley Research
Center, a position he occupied until his retirement from
both NASA and the Air Force in 1972.
Eisenhower, Dwight D. (1890–1969)
An American president (1953–1961), and the supreme
allied commander in Europe during World War II. As
president he was deeply interested in the use of space
technology for national security purposes and directed
that ballistic missiles and reconnaissance satellites be
developed on a crash basis. However, he was not an
enthusiast of manned spaceflight and in his last budget
message advised Congress to consider “whether there are
any valid scientific reasons for extending manned space-
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flight beyond the Mercury Program.”
ejection capsule
(1) A detachable compartment in an aircraft or manned
spacecraft that serves as a cockpit or cabin and may be
ejected as a unit and parachuted to the ground. (2) A boxlike
unit in an artificial satellite, probe, or unmanned
spacecraft that usually contains recording instruments or
records of observed data and may be ejected and
returned to Earth by parachute or some other deceleration
device.
Ekran
A series of Russian geosynchronous communications
satellites. Work on Ekran (“screen”) began in the late
1960s, initially using hazardous technologies. The satellite
was to have been boosted into orbit by a Proton rocket fitted
with a new high-performance upper stage using fluorine/amine
propellants, and the satellite itself was to have
been powered by a 5-kW nuclear reactor. However, by
1973 both these ideas had been abandoned. The first
Ekran was launched in October 1976, 27 months after
Molniya 1S, the first Soviet geostationary experiment.
Early Ekrans were used mainly for test purposes, but they
also enabled 18 to 20 million additional Soviet citizens to
watch programs of the Central Television. Problems with
the Proton booster led to delays in putting the system into
operation. The original Ekrans were very short-lived and
carried just a single transponder. In the second half of the
1980s, they were replaced by Ekran-Ms, which carried two
transponders and generally kept on working well beyond
their three-year design life. The final satellite in the Ekran-
M series was launched on April 7, 2001, on the maiden
flight of Russia’s new Proton-M booster.
Ekspress
A series of Russian communications satellites in geostationary
orbit. Ekspress will gradually replace the Gorizont
series.
elasticizer
An elastic substance or fuel used in a solid rocket propellant
to prevent cracking of the propellant grain and to
bind it to the combustion chamber case.
ELDO (European Launcher
Development Organisation)
A multinational consortium formed in the 1960s to build
an indigenous European space launch vehicle. It came