[meteorite-list] Spaceflight and Meteoroids

From: branchw_at_bellsouth.net <branchw_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jul 5 08:52:21 2004
Message-ID: <001401c4628e$1ca3ee40$6101a8c0_at_launchmodem.com>

Hello Everyone,

I am an enthusiast of the US space program and I finally got around to reading Gordon Cooper's book Leap of Faith. Cooper was the pilot of Faith 7, the last Mercury flight and the command pilot of Gemini 5. On pages 125-126, he talks about being hit by "meteorites" on his Gemini flight. I think his description is interesting (overlookling innaccurate terminology). Does anyone else know of any more reports by astronauts or cosmonauts of their spacecraft being hit by meteoroids while in flight.

Here is the text:

We were told by astronomers to expect front-row seats for a regular meteorite shower that occurs in the latter part of every August. It would be the frist one to be observed by man from space. The first night of the shower was a sight to behold - thousands of meteorites passing under our spacecraft as they entered the Earth's atmosphere and burned up like falling stars.

We knew there was a chance that a meteorite might strike our spacecraft but there was nothing we could do to prevent it and only hoped that if it happend it would be a small one. We carried a patch kit with rubber plugs to repair any tiny puncture holes (tiny was the operative word) to try to keep from losing our cabin pressure. But we were not prepared for what it sounded like when one actually hit.

A hard metallic BANG!

Pete and I both jumped.

It sounded like a major-league fastball hurled against the side of our pacecraft, but we knew it was no bigger than a grain of sand. If the meteorite had been anywhere near the size of a baseball, it would have gone right through the side of the spacecraft - ending, in a nanosecond, oor mission and our lives.

Over the course of the next couple of days, we were struck four or five times. When the spacecraft was dismantled upon it's return to the Cape - every returning spacecraft was taken apart piece by piece as part of a total engineering report to assess how it handled the stresses of flight - impresions were found on the outside wall, as if someone had driven home an ice pick with a hammer. The meteorites had actually reshaped the outer titanium wall of the spacecraft, pushnig in the toughest metal known to man as much as a quarter -inch. (Titanium takes more heat with less damage than any metal on Earth.) It seemed unbelievable that such a mall particle had so much energy and caused so much sound, but these cosmic fastballs were a bit faster than any Hall of Fame pitcher's - a speed gun would have clocked them in the range of thirty thousand miles per hour.

-Walter
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Received on Mon 05 Jul 2004 08:46:37 AM PDT