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

82 Colombo, Giuseppe “Bepi”
Colombo, Giuseppe “Bepi” (1920–1984)
An Italian mathematician and ground-breaking theorist
in orbital mechanics at the University of Padua. He proposed
space tethers for linking satellites together, was
one of the initiators of the ESA (European Space
Agency) Giotto mission to Halley’s Comet, and suggested
how to put a spacecraft into an orbit that would
bring it back repeatedly to the planet Mercury. His calculations
were used to determine the course taken by
Mariner 10 in 1974–1975, which enabled the probe to
make three passes of the innermost planet. Colombo also
explained, as an unsuspected resonance, Mercury’s habit
of rotating three times for every two revolutions of the
Sun. His name has been given to ESA’s own proposed
mission to Mercury, Bepi Colombo.
Columbia
(1) Space Shuttle Orbiter involved in the first orbital
Shuttle mission (STS-1) on April 12, 1981. Milestones of
the Orbiter Columbia, aside from the first launch and test
mission of a Shuttle, include the first Department of
Defense payload carried aboard a Shuttle (STS-4), the
first operational mission of a Shuttle (STS-5), the first
satellites deployed from a Shuttle (STS-5), and the first
flight of Spacelab (STS-9). (2) Nickname of the Apollo
11 Command Module. (3) American commercial sloop
based at Boston Harbor. On May 11, 1792, Captain
Robert Gray and the crew of Columbia maneuvered past a
dangerous sandbar at the mouth of a river, later named in
honor of the sailing vessel, that extends more than 1,600
km through what is today southeastern British Columbia,
Washington State, and Oregon. Gray and his crew
went on to complete the first American circumnavigation
of the globe, carrying a cargo of otter skins to Canton,
China, and back to Boston. Other American sailing
vessels have also been named Columbia, after Christopher
Columbus, including a frigate launched in 1836 that
became the first U.S. Navy ship to circle the globe.
Columbiad
Jules Verne’s Moon gun, as described in his 1865 novel
From the Earth to the Moon. It consisted of a cannon, 274
m long with a bore of 2.74 m, cast in a vertical well in
Florida. The first 61 m of the barrel were filled with 122
tons of guncotton, which when ignited were supposed to
propel an aluminum capsule (containing three men and
two dogs) at a speed of 16.5 km/s. After deceleration
through Earth’s atmosphere, the shell would have a residual
velocity of 11 km/s—sufficient to reach the Moon.
Although Verne made some scientific errors, he used real
engineering analysis to arrive at the design of his cannon
and lunar projectile.
Columbiad The Columbiad fires Jules Verne’s three-man
spacecraft toward the Moon.
Columbus
The largest single contribution of ESA (European Space
Agency) to the International Space Station: a laboratory
module scheduled for launch in 2004. See International
Space Station for details.
combustion
A chemical process in which a great deal of heat is produced.
Commonly, it involves the chemical reaction of a
fuel and an oxidizer, but it may also involve the decomposition
of a monopropellant or the burning of solid
propellants.
combustion, incomplete
A state in which not all the fuel in the combustion
chamber burns. Incomplete combustion may result from
inadequate chamber design, or it may be deliberately