Page 73 - (DK) Danger! Open with Extreme Caution!

32
31

33

29 30

Parachutes: the dangers of reentry

4 No strings attached
28 In 1967, the lone occupant of a Soyuz 1 capsule,
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, made it
into space and back, only to die when a faulty
20 19 the ground at 186 mph (300 km/h).
parachute caused his capsule to slam into

10 Flying a brick
In April 2010, bad weather meant that the landing
of flight STS-131 was delayed by two days. When
21 18 the pilot had only one shot at landing as there are
the shuttle finally reentered Earth’s atmosphere,

17 a shuttle is said to be like flying a brick!
the difficult process of gliding and then landing
16 no engines to circle around and try again. In fact,

12 Lucky escape
In 1961, Virgil “Gus” Grissom became
the second American to make it into space.
7 to Earth when his Mercury capsule began to
Cheers almost turned to tears on his return
sink after landing in the ocean—a hatch
blew open and Grissom almost drowned
10 as water filled his space suit.
9 8 21 No pressure

6 Today’s astronauts wear pressurized
space suits following an accident
in 1971: a valve in the Soyuz 11
5 air pressure inside killed the three
capsule became loose during
reentry, and the rapid change in
4 Soviet cosmonauts onboard.

25 Delayed disaster
3 Columbia, a small piece of foam insulation broke
In 2003, during the launch of the space shuttle

loose and hit the left wing at high speed, creating
a hole. The intense heat generated during reentry
burned into the hole, destroying the wing.
The entire spacecraft broke up as it hurtled
toward Earth, killing all seven crew members.

THE DANGERS OF SPACE TRAVEL 73
(c) 2011 Dorling Kindersley. All Rights Reserved.