Reaching The Moon (Soyuz 1)

 In 1960s, there was a race, the race between two nations. The race was called "Space race", it is a race to go to the moon. On the land of the red, a program was created by Soviet Space Program for the space race. the program was called the "Soviet Lunar Program". One of it's spacecraft projects was the Soyuz spacecraft and it's first spacecraft was called "Soyuz 1". Soyuz 1's main mission was to go outside of the earth's orbit and exchange crew members with the Soyuz 2. Two cosmonauts was selected to command the Soyuz 1 spacecraft, one as the main commander, and the other as the backup. They were Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov (a hero of the soviet union) and Yuri Gagarin. 

 The spacecraft was no way near in a "ready to launch" condition according to failures that had happened on the test flight. But the engineers of this spacecraft was "pressured" to launch it due to mark the anniversary of a political figure's birthday and beating "the States" on the space race. Yuri noticed this, he tried to take Komarov's seat as the main commander. But Komarov refused, "No,  I won't let you,  You know what would happen. I can't, please". He couldn't risk Yuri's life even though he knew he was doomed.

 On 23 April 1967 at 00:32 UTC, Soyuz 1 was launched carrying Komarov. Not that long after the launch, Problems started to appear, one solar panel was not unfolding. Following that, the orientation detector of the craft and the auto stabilizer was not working. Komorov has to control the craft manually. The crew of the Soyuz 2 redirected their mission to help Soyuz 1. But at that night, a thunderstorm was occurred. So that rescue mission was canceled.

 When the Soyuz 1 reached 13th orbit, the flight director decided to abort the mission and go back to earth with the hope of Komarov's safety, so Komarov did. Komarov detached the spacecraft from the rockets and let it fall towards earth. When he deployed the drogue chute, it didn't unfold. So he manually deployed the second chute, but it got tangled with the drogue chute. He crash landed in Oreburg Oblast with the speed of 40m/s (140km/h). The capsule was burning with black smoke coming out of it. The rescuer arrived, but sadly Komarov has gone. He was named a Hero of the soviet union for the second time. He was given a state funeral.





https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ipZ_KxLnf8p7Mpn4vE4ybw-PDaLDeNbf

Questions
1. What is the moral of the story?
2. Why did the flight director decided to abort the mission?
3. What's the synonyms of "drogue" in "When he deployed the drogue chute, it didn't unfold."?
4. Base on the text, who was Vladimir Mikhaylovich Komarov before the event happened?
5. What's the meaning of "doomed" in "But Komarov refused, he couldn't risk Yuri's life even though he knew he was doomed."?

Exercise
Change this sentence into a indirect speech
'But Komarov refused, "No,  I won't let you,  You know what would happen. I can't, please". '

Comments

Popular Posts