Sunday, December 06, 2009

Today In History: Kaputnik.



Oops.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some bad, sad days, back then. Kids whose fathers worked at the Cape learned to count funny: "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one--Aw, shit."

Lotsa folks learned that Mr. Murphy never goes on vacation--and we lost Grissom, Chaffee and White. Hoist a drink to all those guys, and never forget...

Art

Anonymous said...

And bob Hope famously commented "This is the first time that the government has had trouble making money go up in smoke".

cap'n chumbucket

T.Stahl said...

Reminds me of the videos of the first V2 tests I saw:
V2 lifts off a meter, comes down again, tips over, breaks, fuel spills out, BOOOM!!!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps not a failure, just a conclusive demonstration of an unworkable method.

Jim

Kristophr said...

Almost all of those NASA disasters were caused by one OCD machinist in the plant making the LOX pumps.

He was told to not put protectant on the rotors he was responsible for machining, but kept oiling them anyway and wiping them off afterward. He couldn't bring himself to kick this lifelong habit.

Just like putting lube on a welder's O2 regulator, it was a disaster in the making.

Once they caught him doing it, and fired his ass, the pad explosions stopped.

Moriarty said...

How about this: The Russians won't mention Vanguard if we don't mention the N1s.

Don M said...

Well, we established that it works, we just need to work on the range.

Chuck Pergiel said...

One OCD machinist? Sounds plausible, but is it true? Hmm. It's a good story. Does it matter if it's true?

Anonymous said...

They should put background music like that on the network news today.

Kristophr said...

Might be apocryphal. But its the rumor I heard, so I'm sticking with it.

roy in nipomo said...

I remember the old joke making the rounds after the series of launch failures.

Did you hear that the next satellite launch will be called the Civil Service: won't work - can't fire it.

Borepatch said...

Rearguard

markm said...

"Almost all of those NASA disasters..."

Vanguard was a Navy project. NASA didn't exist yet when the first one blew up on the pad.