Lone Star Flight and Space

Like, this is probably the most deranged manned spacecraft ever flown.

The Soviet Union finds out that those Filthy American Pigs are going to put three people in space with the Apollo program

Being the Soviet Union, they immediately decide that they have to do it first.

They don't actually have something to do it with though

So they take a Vostok and modify it so they can squeeze three people into it.

Now, Vostok is really small. It's a one-person vessel, and the crew module is only 2.3 metres wide on the exterior. And now they want to put three people in it.

Solution Part 1: Remove the ejector seat!

This produces some interesting new issues. Firstly, the ejector seats are the entire Launch Escape System for the vehicle.

Secondly, Vostok used its ejector seat to bail out of the vehicle before landing, because the USSR had no viable waters to land in and they had to come down on dry land. As such, if the cosmonaut landed inside the vehicle, they'd probably die.

So they added a roll cage to the capsule and a braking rocket to the parachute to hopefully not turn the cosmonauts to pasta sauce when Voskhod smashed back into the Earth.

Solution Part 2: Remove the space suits!

Yeah they just fired these guys into space in unsealed jumpsuits.

Hope it doesn't spring a leak or you're all dead!

They select the crew of Boris Volynov, Georgi Katys, and Boris Yegorov for Voskhod 1.

The crew gets rejected.

Turns out that Katys' dad got murdered during the Great Purge and the KGB don't want him flying.

#justsovietunionthings

Also it turns out that Volynov is partially Jewish by ancestry and apparently that wasn't allowed either.

(They did eventually let Volynov fly on Soyuz 5 and Soyuz 21)

They are replaced by Vladimir Komarov and Konstantin Feostikov

Yegorov gets to stay because his dad has Politburo connections.

Also they only got four months of training.

Also also they had to diet to fit in the capsule

Because it was 2.3 metres wide and made for one person.

But hey fuck being logical GOTTA BEAT THE YANKS

They did in fact beat the yanks to a multi-crewed flight, launching on March 18th, 1964, almost a year before the first crewed Gemini flight.

That said, it was internally regarded as a "circus" by Soviet leadership, because of the issues with crew selection (not just the guy whose dad got murdered by the state or the guy who was too Jewish, but also the slapfighting between Sergei Korolev and the military over who the crew should be in general), the dieting, the extremely dangerous "Let's launch without spacesuits or an LES" plan, and also a bit of political upheaval during the mission.

Yeah, during the mission, the USSR had a USSR Moment and couped its leader.

The crew had a phone call with Nikita Khrushchev, who shortly thereafter went home and found that he'd been kicked out of the party and the role of premier. The crew landed and were met by Leonid Brezhnev's Eyebrows and also the rest of Leonid Brezhnev.

If I had a nickel for every Soviet space mission that happened to coincide with dramatic regime change, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?

Anyway this is probably why the mission was only 24 hours long, despite some impressive endurance records on Vostok flights.

Well hey they managed to not kill the cosmonauts (they did eventually kill Komarov on Soyuz 1, but that's its own terrible story), what's next?

Spacewalk.

Okay are we going to use a vehicle that's actually good for this?

No we're gonna take out one of the seats and replace it with an inflatable airlock.

And give one of the cosmonauts a spacesuit.

Great, now if there's a leak, only one of them will die and the other has to spend the rest of the flight with a floating corpse.

Oh god why

BEAT THE YANKS

(Gemini 4 was fast approaching)

At least there's no (recorded on Wikipedia) drama with the crew this time.

Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyayev are chosen. Leonov will make the spacewalk.

Leonov's dad did get Purged, but he was arrested and not killed, and later released, so I guess the KGB were okay with that.

Voskhod 2 launches on March 18th, 1965.

Once he gets outside of the ship, Leonov's suit immediately starts to inflate. He can't bend his arms enough to operate his camera shutter, he just floats around like the Michelin Man.

Footage of her dad floating around up there terrified Leonov's daughter

In fairness the stills are kinda spooky

Leonov is forced to start bleeding air out of his suit in order to be able to move his limbs.

He also starts verging on heat-stroke.

When he tries to get back inside the vehicle, the suit is still too fat, so he has to bleed so much air out that he risks decompression sickness (AKA the bends), going well below the safe limits.

I'm starting to see why they gave him a suicide pill.

Fortunately he didn't have to take it, and got back in the vehicle.

They then jettisoned the airlock and oriented for re-entry.

However, the capsule is so cramped that it takes them a while to get back into their seats, which throws off the centre of mass.

Also the service module failed to detach properly and sent the capsule spinning out of control until the re-entry heat burned through the tether.

This meant that Voskhod 2 came down wildly off-course.

It landed in a forest 386 kilometres from the target zone.

They're in bear country.

And also wolf country.

Fortunately they have a gun.

Yes really.

Mandatory equipment for Voskhod missions: Suicide pill, gun. Not mandatory equipment for Voskhod missions: Spacesuits.

They were quickly located by helicopter, but the area was so heavily forested that the helicopters couldn't land to recover them and I guess these helicopters didn't have door-winches or long enough cables.

So all they could do was throw warm clothes at them.

Also the government lied to the cosmonauts' families and told them that they'd already been recovered and were resting.

Meanwhile Leonov and Belyayev are hiding in a cramped metal ball with a single handgun for protection.

The hatch had automatically been blown open with explosive bolts and it dropped to -5 celsius overnight.

Also the heating system malfunctioned, the radiator stopped working entirely and the fans were stuck on full blast.

A rescue party found them on skis the next day.

When the advance party finally arrived, they built a small log cabin and a big fire, resulting in a slightly more comfortable second night, before having to ski back to the nearest safe spot for the helicopter to land.

They did again manage to beat the yanks, but only by three months this time. The gap was rapidly narrowing, and it's generally agreed that by the end of the Gemini program, the US were ahead in terms of practical space progress.

They wisely chose not to launch Voskhod 3 and 4, and moved straight on to Soyuz. And then immediately killed a man the first time they launched a manned flight.

2026 May 19

NGC 2170: The Angel Nebula

A starfield surrounds a colorful nebula that glows both red and blue but is filled with dust, both light brown and dark brown.

Image Credit & Copyright: Jason Marriott

Explanation: Is this a painting or a photograph? In this celestial abstract art composed with a cosmic brush, dusty nebula NGC 2170, also known as the Angel Nebula, shines just above the image center. Reflecting the light of nearby hot stars, NGC 2170 is joined by other bluish reflection nebulae, a red emission region, many dark absorption nebulae, and a backdrop of colorful stars. Like the common household items that abstract painters often choose for their subjects, the clouds of gas, dust, and hot stars featured here are also commonly found in a setting like this one -- a massive, star-forming molecular cloud in the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros). The giant molecular cloud Mon R2, is impressively close, estimated to be only 2,400 light-years or so away. At that distance, this canvas would be over 60 light-years across.

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)

NASA Official: Amber Straughn

A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,

NASA Science Activation

2026 July 25

Tranquility and Serenity Image Credit & Copyright: Nyêrdson Ferreira

Explanation: The Seas of Tranquility and Serenity are calm today. They’re calm most every day though, since they are actually lunar maria, ancient lava flows filling in large impact basins on the Moon. Also known by Latin names Mare Tranquillitatis (right) and Mare Serenitatis, the smooth dark lunar “seas” are in stark contrast to the bright cratered lunar highlands surrounding them in this telescopic view. Of course their names are based on the historical, pre-telescopic designations of lunar maria. Easily visible to the unaided eye, the broad features on the Moon’s near side were imagined to be like the expansive oceans of planet Earth. On July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle touched down on the Mare Tranquillitatis (at lower right), establishing Tranquility base and the first human presence on the Moon.

Pismis 24 !

The small open star cluster Pismis 24 lies in the core of the large emission nebula NGC 6357 in Scorpius, about 8,000 light-years away from Earth.

The brightest object in the picture is designated Pismis 24-1. It was once thought to weigh as much as 200 to 300 solar masses. This would not only have made it by far the most massive known star in the galaxy, but would have put it considerably above the currently believed upper mass limit of about 150 solar masses for individual stars.

However, Hubble Space Telescope high-resolution images of the star show that it is really two stars orbiting one another. They are estimated to each be 100 solar masses.

This image captures the Tarantula Nebula in all of its cosmic glory. Astronomers study nebulae like this one to learn about how elements form and disperse throughout the galaxy, seeding space with planetary building blocks.

Clouds of dust and gas called nebulae speckle our galaxy. Some are ferocious cosmic factories that churn out baby stars by the hundreds of thousands, while others are grave markers of stars long dead. Astronomers study them to learn about how stars and planets form, and how ingredients are recycled in space.

But all that dust is difficult to see through, and nebulae are often so large that today’s most powerful space telescopes can only realistically study tiny patches of them. That’s where our soon-to-launch Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope comes in.

2026 July 24

RCW 86: Historical Supernova Remnant Image Credit & Copyright: David Cowland

Explanation: In 185 AD, Chinese astronomers recorded the appearance of a new star in the Nanmen asterism. That part of the sky is identified with part of the southern constellation Centaurus on modern star charts. In fact, the new star was reported to be visible to the naked-eye for months before it faded from view, and is now thought to be the earliest recorded supernova. In this 21st century telescopic image, the wispy outlines of a faint emission nebula recognized as the remnant of that historical stellar explosion can be traced against a starry background. The ragged but roughly circular extent of the nebula, cataloged as RCW 86, represents interstellar gas ionized by the supernova’s still expanding shock wave. Space-based images indicate an abundance of the element iron in RCW 86 and the absence of a neutron star or pulsar within the remnant, suggesting that the original supernova was Type Ia. Unlike the core collapse supernova explosion of a massive star, a Type Ia supernova is a thermonuclear detonation on a white dwarf star that has accreted material from its companion in a binary star system. Near the plane of our Milky Way galaxy and larger than the full moon on the sky this supernova remnant is too faint to be seen by eye though. RCW 86 is some 8,000 light-years distant and around 100 light-years across.

2026 July 23

The Large Magellanic Cloud Image Credit & Copyright: Monica Mesa Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Explanation: Have you ever seen another galaxy with your own eyes? The featured image shows the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), one of the closest neighbors of our Milky Way. If you are anywhere south of latitude 20° N (but the further south, the better), you can see it with the unaided eye if you go to a dark sky location, away from big cities and light polution. It is a dwarf irregular galaxy about 163,000 light-years away, and a member of our Local Group of galaxies. Despite being small, with a total mass approximately equivalent to 10% - 20% of the mass of the Milky Way, the LMC is very actively forming stars. This is likely due in part to the gravitational push and pull of tides caused by the Milky Way on the LMC. Some astronomers have predicted that it will collide with the Milky Way in in about 2 billion years.

I refer, of course, to the time Buzz Aldrin (age 72 at the time) cold-cocked a moon landing conspiracy theorist straight in his smug face after being accused of being a coward, liar, and thief.

Yes, someone was indeed dumb enough to tell a man so unafraid of death that he was willing to go into the void on a fragile explosive rocket, a coward.

Said dumbass was filming this confrontation as some sort of proof of moon fraud, but has instead captured this glorious moment of near-cosmic justice for us to loop for all time.

one more time, HAPPY MOON LANDING DAY!

Date: July 16, 1969

NASA ID: GPN-2000-000627

After the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975, NASA completely shifted all of its resources to the Space Shuttle program. However, NASA still had a large inventory of the Apollo hardware and much of it was given to museums and/or put on display at NASA space centers.

Much of the leftover hardware would have been used to support Skylab B missions.

At one point, the Skylab B was going to be used for the Apollo-Soyuz mission. This was scaled back to just the command module with a special docking port due shifting focus to the Space Shuttle.

The breakdown of the hardware and their current location:

Saturn V (SA-500 series)

SA-513: only third stage left after the first and second stages were used to launch Skylab. This stage is displayed at Space Center Houston. Originally slated to launch Apollo 18.

SA-514: first, second and third stages with the IU (ie the rocket's computer). The first stage displayed at Space Center Houston, the second and third stages are at Kennedy Space Center. Originally slated for Apollo 19, briefly considered for Apollo 18.

SA-515: first, second and third stages with the IU (ie the rocket's computer). The first stage is displayed at the Infinity Science Center in Mississippi, the second stage is displayed at Space Center Houston, and it's third stage was converted to the second Skylab. Originally slated for Apollo 20, later would have launched Skylab B. The backup Skylab is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.

Saturn IB (SA-100 series)

SA-109: on standby for a Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz rescue. Late, the cancelled Skylab 5 mission to lift Skylab workshop's orbit to endure until Space Shuttle was ready to fly. (In hindsight, this mission should have been flown considering since it took the shuttle longer than anticipated to fly. But it was not known at the time Earth's atmosphere would expand like it did in the late 1970s, causing drag on the station and reentering the atmosphere in 1979.)

SA-110: was used for the Apollo-Soyuz mission.

SA-111: Unused, possibly slated for a Skylab mission. The first stage is displayed at Alabama Welcome Center on I-65 in Ardmore, Alabama. The second stage is displayed outdoors with Skylab underwater training simulator hardware attached at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

SA-112: Unused, possibly slated for a Skylab mission. The first stage was scrapped and the second stage converted to Skylab.

SA-113: Unused, possibly slated for a Skylab mission. Only the first stage was completed when the Apollo Applications Program was curtailed in 1969. This stage was later scrapped.

SA-114: Unused, possibly slated for a Skylab mission. Only the first stage was completed when the Apollo Applications Program was curtailed in 1969. This stage was later scrapped.

Command/Service Module (block II CSM-100 series)

CSM-111: originally slated for Apollo 15 when it was a H-type mission, this mission was swapped for a J-type when the lunar missions would be cancelled after Apollo 17. Later, it was used for the Apollo-Soyuz mission.

CSM-115: Incomplete, systems were installed and all hardware was available for it to be completed but was placed into storage. Currently it lacks the SPS nozzle. It was originally slated for Apollo 19, later Apollo 18. Note: there are some discrepancies in the documents between 115 and 115A. Some list two different CSM and some list 115A as a modification of 115. My research has yet to determine which is the case. On displayed at Space Center Houston.

CSM-115A: Incomplete, 70% of hardware was completed but interior structures were never installed. It was originally slated for Apollo 20, later Apollo 19. On display at Space LABO in Kitakyushi, Japan.

CSM-119: on standby for Rescue mission for Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz. Later, the cancelled Skylab 5 mission. On display at Kennedy Space Center.

Lunar Excursion Module (LEM or LM)

LM-9: originally slated for Apollo 15 when it was a H-mission, this mission was swapped for a J mission when the lunar missions would be cancelled after Apollo 17. The J-mission LMs differed from earlier LMs with the inclusion of the lunar Rover. It is displayed at the Kennedy Space Center

LM-13: originally slated for Apollo 19, later Apollo 18. Partially completed, it was later restored by Grumman workers. It is on display at Cradle of Aviation Museum in Long Island, New York.

LM-14: originally slated for Apollo 20, later Apollo 19. It was about 15% complete when it's construction was cancelled, later scrapped.

LM-15: unknown which mission this LM was original for, possibly Apollo 20. It was later intended for modification into Apollo Telescope Mount. It was about 5% completed when it's construction was cancelled and later scrapped.

The ATM was later incorporated into Skylab sans the Ascent Stage.