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

General Hospital, then joined the U.S. Navy and
attended the Navy School of Aviation Medicine at Pensacola,
Florida. He became a naval flight surgeon in 1958
and earned his wings in 1962. NASA selected Kerwin in
its first group of six scientist-astronauts in June 1965. Following
his mission aboard Skylab, Kerwin became director
of Space and Life Sciences at the Johnson Space
Center. He then resigned from NASA and from the Navy
as a captain, and from 1987 to 1996 held management
positions with Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space
Company. Since 1996 he has headed Krug Life Sciences,
which has a major research contract with NASA.
Kettering Bug
Along with the British A.T. (Aerial Target), one the earliest
guided missiles. The development of the Kettering
Bug, under the direction of Charles Kettering, began at
the Delco and Sperry companies in 1917. It was an
unpiloted biplane bomber made of wood, weighing just
270 kg (including a 135-kg bomb as payload), and was
powered by a 40-hp Ford engine. Engineers employed
an ingenious method of guiding the Kettering Bug to its
target. Once wind speed, wind direction, and target distance
had been determined, the number of revolutions
the engine needed to take the missile to its target was
calculated. A cam was then set to drop automatically
into position when the right number of engine revolutions
had occurred. The Kettering Bug took off using a
four-wheel carriage that ran along a portable track.
Once airborne, it was controlled by a small gyroscope,
its altitude measured by an aneroid barometer. When
the engine had completed the prescribed number of
revs, the cam dropped into position, causing bolts that
fastened the wings to the fuselage to be pulled in. The
wings then detached, and the bomb-carrying fuselage
simply fell onto its target. The Kettering Bug was successfully
demonstrated in 1918 before Army Air Corps
observers in Dayton, Ohio. However, World War I hostilities
ended before the missile could be put into production.
Key Hole (KH)
The name used by the intelligence community for various
series of U.S. military reconnaissance satellites. Missions
in the Corona series, for example, were designated
KH-1 to KH-4B. Argon missions were known as KH-5
and Lanyard as KH-6. Several launches with Key Hole
designations, including KH-11, KH-12, and KH-13, have
taken place since 1992. KH-11 photos of Osama bin
Laden’s training facilities at the Zhawar Kili Base Camp
in Afghanistan were used in preparing for the cruise missile
attack on this target in 1998. The ninth and final
KH-11 satellite was launched in 1998, after which the
Kittinger, Joseph W. 221
KH-12 program, involving satellites about the size of the
Hubble Space Telescope, began.
Kibalchich, Nikolai Ivanovitch (1854–1881)
A Russian medical student, journalist, and revolutionary
who may have been the first person in history to propose
using rocket power as a means of transport in space.
Kibalchich had attempted several times to kill Czar
Alexander II, who, ironically, had tried to introduce
reforms in Russia during his reign. Along with his accomplices,
Kibalchich finally succeeded in assassinating the
czar on March 13, 1881, and was himself put to death on
April 3, at the age of 27. While in prison awaiting execution,
Kibalchich wrote a remarkable paper illustrating the
principle of space propulsion. In it, he describes a means
of propelling a platform by igniting gunpowder cartridges
in a rocket chamber. Changing the direction of
the rocket’s axis, he realized, would alter the vehicle’s
flight path. In his notes, he explains: “I am writing this
project in prison, a few days before my death. I believe in
the practicability of my idea and this faith supports me in
my desperate plight.”
He was a close contemporary of two other rocket pioneers,
his compatriot Konstantin Tsiolkovsky and the
German Hermann Ganswindt. The great American rocketeer
Robert Goddard was born a year after Kibalchich’s
execution.
kick stage
A propulsive stage used to provide an additional velocity
increment required to put a spacecraft on a given trajectory.
Two particular forms are the apogee kick motor
and the perigee kick motor.
Kiku
See ETS (Engineering Test Satellite).
kinetic energy
The energy that an object possesses by virtue of its
motion. It is given by the expression 1 ⁄2 mv 2 , where m is
the object’s mass and v its velocity.
Kiruna
See Esrange.
Kittinger, Joseph W. (1928–)
A U.S. Air Force test pilot who took part in extreme highaltitude
balloon experiments in the years immediately
preceding manned spaceflight. He flew the first mission
in Project Manhigh in June 1957, reaching 29,500 m in a
closed gondola, then bettered this in 1960 by jumping
out of an open gondola at 31,300 m (102,800 feet) and
plummeting 26 km (the longest free fall in history, during