Lost In Space: Missing Cosmonauts

“Come in… come in… come in… Listen! Come in! Talk to me! I am hot! I am hot! Come in! What? Forty-five? What? Fifty? Yes. Yes, yes, breathing. Oxygen, oxygen… I am hot. This… isn’t this dangerous?”

This is a great news story on how two Italian kids hacked into the Russian and American space missions transmissions!

Link To Article

[edit on 21-7-2008 by MrMicrophone]

Cool article but I curious as to whether they captured any audio that mentioned other objects following the crafts as has been reported from other various ham radio operators. Maybe that was part of the "secret deal" they made with NASA.

His body, perfectly preserved, is frozen at –270 degrees C

Wrong. -270C is approximately absolute zero, impossible to achieve anywhere in our solar system, or any place that receives light. How do they know that this mythical dead floating cosmonaut even broke earth orbit, let alone reached interstellar space? We know about cosmonaut casulties, but none of their manned missions involved interstellar trajectories.

reply to post by ngchunter


-270 C is the temperature of space, it would make sense he was frozen at that temperature. -273 C would be absolute zero.

Very interesting story, and I wouldn't be too surprised if it was true. In the cold war the soviets would have done anything to win, and anything to hide their mistakes.

Originally posted by GrooveCat
reply to post by ngchunter

 

-270 C is the temperature of space, it would make sense he was frozen at that temperature. -273 C would be absolute zero.

Wrong, space has no temperature, by definition it is nothing. A particle found in space has a given temperature, but if -270 was really the temperature objects "in space" are expected to reach, why does the ISS need huge radiators and why is the lunar surface temperature 123 degrees celsius at maximum and -233 celsius at minimum?

[edit on 21-7-2008 by ngchunter]

reply to post by ngchunter


It's not that space itself has that temperature but just the general amount of energy and radiation in free space is enough to raise anything in it to at least -270 C.

Of course that's only a general temperature, it changes closer to stars and depending on the material, the ISS is metallic so is very susceptible to heat exchange and the moon is huge so absorbs a lot of solar radiation heating it up, whilst the dark side does not.

The point being it's not unlikely that an object at the edge of the solar system only the size of a human body would be at a very low temperature. All that's keeping it from absolute zero would be radiation from the sun and the universe in general.

Very interesting article, good find!

Originally posted by GrooveCat
reply to post by ngchunter

 

It's not that space itself has that temperature but just the general amount of energy and radiation in free space is enough to raise anything in it to at least -270 C.

Actually, according to the temperature on the night side of the moon, it's enough to raise it to -233 degrees, and here in the solar system where we have our sun spewing out all kinds of radiation it's enough to raise the surface temp to at least 123 degrees, but in any case you're forgetting something very important - temperature depends on the properties of the object the radiation is affecting. A highly reflective object will have a different temperature than a dark, absorbing object. So no, you really can't say there's a "temperature of space" because there is no ambient medium to have a temperature.

Of course that's only a general temperature, it changes closer to stars and depending on the material, the ISS is metallic so is very susceptible to heat exchange and the moon is huge so absorbs a lot of solar radiation heating it up, whilst the dark side does not.

You just proved my point.

The point being it's not unlikely that an object at the edge of the solar system only the size of a human body would be at a very low temperature. All that's keeping it from absolute zero would be radiation from the sun and the universe in general.

I have not accepted the supposition that it's on the edge of the solar system in the first place. There's no evidence for that in even the most ridiculous "transmissions" that they claimed to have received; even the article itself had to admit that some of those were probably made-up, but in none of them do I see evidence that the cosmonaut was on a trajectory that would have ejected them to the edge of the solar system.

Well there is a medium in space, or else space would have no temperature and it would become an energy vacuum. This is essentially the Big Freeze hypothesis, the medium becomes too spread out due to the universe expanding and there isn't enough heat energy from stars to stop the universe reaching absolute zero. This medium is basically just gases and dust, though the density is extremely low, almost negligible.

I don't think it's all that unlikely that the events purported by the article could happen, if you think about the tension at the time of course the Soviets would want to hide their mistakes. The sacrifice of a few cosmonauts would have undoubtedly been seen as being worth the prestige and glory of being the superpower of space.

Likewise, some transmissions may have been exaggerated or fabricated all together, but there is still easily enough evidence to suggest something was going on.

Think about it: wouldn't it be even more shocking if the Soviets WEREN'T trying to dominate space?

[Edit for grammar]

[edit on 21/7/2008 by GrooveCat]

With so many things being kept secret from the public and the chances that a lot of those involved on the ground are dead by now, there could be any number of bodies floating around out there.
I can imagine that at least half of the supposedly unmanned missions of the early sixties did infact have someone aboard and it was kept quiet for one reason or another.

Who of us down here on tera firma actually know what really happend to those manned missions that went wrong.
An unscheduled firing of rocket engines could of sent a craft off course and on an exrta solar trajectory.
Some experiment with propulsion could of gone wrong and sent the craft on an unknown trajectory.
It is even possible (though improbable based on current theories) thaat the craft was caught in some kind of extra strong solar wind or other force when it broke earth orbit.

It isn't imposible to imagine that first contact any extra solar entities may have with human life could be from finding a frozen human body in an old earth capsule.

Scientists can surmise and hypothesise and try to offer explanations for various things but who for sure really knows what lies beyond the solar system and what forces or phenomena could cause a craft of earth design to end up thousands of light years away even.

As for the original point, i think it is entirely possible for there to be lost cosmonaughts and astronaughts floating around in space from missions no one but those involved have any knowledge about.

[edit on 21-7-2008 by full997]

Originally posted by GrooveCat
Well there is a medium in space, or else space would have no temperature and it would become an energy vacuum.

Photons need no medium to travel through, so just because there is no medium does not mean that space is an "energy vacuum." Heat will still transfer through irradiation at infrared wavelengths of light. But what I've been saying all along is that space has no set temperature. A given object in space will be a certain temperature depending on the radiation present in that region of space, but another object with different properties sitting right next to the first object can have a totally different temperature.

This is essentially the Big Freeze hypothesis, the medium becomes too spread out

What medium????? There is no medium to speak of. Heat travels through space as photons of infrared light, not through a physical medium.

due to the universe expanding and there isn't enough heat energy from stars to stop the universe reaching absolute zero. This medium is basically just gases and dust, though the density is extremely low, almost negligible.

Sorry, but gases and dust are not the method by which heat is generally transmitted in space, except for the inside of thick globules in the process of condensing into new solar systems.

I don't think it's all that unlikely that the events purported by the article could happen, if you think about the tension at the time of course the Soviets would want to hide their mistakes.

There were indeed many lethal mistakes made by the soviet space program. In one case, an american astronaut was a pallbearer at the funeral (soyuz-11). There may be more, but that's not my beef with the article. My beef is that there is no way that they "accidentally" ejected a cosmonaut into an interstellar trajectory. They never even had a working manned booster capable of pulling off such a feat.

Likewise, some transmissions may have been exaggerated or fabricated all together, but there is still easily enough evidence to suggest something was going on.

Personally I don't trust a person to reveal previously unknown information once it's shown that they lied about at least some portion of it.

Think about it: wouldn't it be even more shocking if the Soviets WEREN'T trying to dominate space?

Has nothing to do with whether or not they put a cosmonaut into an interstellar trajectory. Dominating space does not require doing this, in fact, such a trip would be an utterly pointless one-way trip given the limitations of the Soyuz spacecraft.

[edit on 22-7-2008 by ngchunter]

Originally posted by full997

An unscheduled firing of rocket engines could of sent a craft off course and on an exrta solar trajectory.

Oh really? Please show me a manned spacecraft, any manned spacecraft, that had the delta-V necessary for an extra-solar trajectory? It doesn't exist. Even the saturn V, the mightiest rocket ever launched, would only have been able to put the astronauts into a solar orbit at best.

I saw the "Space Hackers" documentary only last week on SBS. Cool find OP.

Here we go, found it on youtube
Space Hackers (1/6)


S&F

I never claimed to have any knowledge of rocketry, i was simply suggesting possible things.
Though as far as the most powerfull rocket we know that they have not being able to make it, then what about as i also sugested some experimental rocket that we the public have no knowledge of.
And saying that about they not having a known rocket that could reach an extra solar orbit, what about an experimental or prototype version of the rocket used to go to the moon intentionally sent on an extra solar or a lunar trajectory in order to test teh true viability of said engine to make it to the moon.

As i said i have never claimed to have any specific knowledge of rocketry and i was just making sugesstions.
However if you shoot down any who makes a sugesstion then i suppose all future threads may contain only your theorys as no one elses laymans opinions seem to be met with a good nature.

Originally posted by full997
I never claimed to have any knowledge of rocketry, i was simply suggesting possible things.
Though as far as the most powerfull rocket we know that they have not being able to make it, then what about as i also sugested some experimental rocket that we the public have no knowledge of.

Then why not use this amazing rocket to beat the US to the moon? If it can put a man into an extrasolar orbit, reaching the moon should be incredibly easy by comparison. As I said, there's no proof of this and no reason to believe it ever existed, so it's not fair to assume it must exist just because the claim was made that a cosmonaut is on an extra-solar trajectory, all without a shred of evidence of said claim.

And saying that about they not having a known rocket that could reach an extra solar orbit, what about an experimental or prototype version of the rocket used to go to the moon intentionally sent on an extra solar or a lunar trajectory in order to test teh true viability of said engine to make it to the moon.

The soviet moon rocket prototypes blew up every time they tried to launch it. It never made it to orbit, let alone a lunar trajectory. Even if it hadn't been fatally flawed in its design, even given the best case scenario, it did not have the thrust necessary to put a manned spacecraft into an extra-solar orbit.

As i said i have never claimed to have any specific knowledge of rocketry and i was just making sugesstions.
However if you shoot down any who makes a sugesstion then i suppose all future threads may contain only your theorys as no one elses laymans opinions seem to be met with a good nature.

All I'm doing is explaining why some of the claims made in the article are wrong. I'm sorry that you do not wish to see layman claims critiqued, but I think it's healthy for the level of debate on this forum. After all, I thought the motto here was "deny ignorance."

The motto is deny ignorance but i am just trying my best to add to a debate that really interests me but i know little about.
One good thing though is that it has inspired me to do a bit of research into the Soviet space program which i'll do later as i've got a pretty free night tonight (not much on t.v. lol).

One thing i your last post has made me think is that the prototypes that exploded on the lauch pad may have been intentionally destroyed to hide something or for some other reason.
I wouldn't be suprised if American sabotage was involved or sabotage by an opponant of the Soviet government of the time.

If the Soviets didn't have it to put a rocket in an extra solar orbit, then perhaps what i said in my previous posts but changed to refernce the Americans rather than the Soviets?

I do like healthy debate i was just having a bad day, sorry.

Originally posted by full997
One thing i your last post has made me think is that the prototypes that exploded on the lauch pad may have been intentionally destroyed to hide something or for some other reason.
I wouldn't be suprised if American sabotage was involved or sabotage by an opponant of the Soviet government of the time.

There were quite a number of soviet safety failures on the pad that resulted in death, something that never happened to NASA's pad workers (though we did lose 3 astronauts on the pad). Considering that the KGB seemed to have the upper hand on the CIA in those days, I highly doubt we could have been responsible for sabotage.

If the Soviets didn't have it to put a rocket in an extra solar orbit, then perhaps what i said in my previous posts but changed to refernce the Americans rather than the Soviets?

Even the saturn V couldn't put an astronaut into an extra-solar orbit. Where is there even a rationale for this to be the case, that an astronaut of some kind MUST be frozen on the outer edges of the solar system, let alone proof? I guess I'm missing something here because I just don't see a reason for this claim to even be made.

I suppose the reasons for these claims being made is that it is always fun to speculate on the possibilities of things.
The angle that got me was the thought that somewhere out there that there could of been a perfectly preserved human body floating around in space for some other civilisation to find and study.
I like the thought that some other civilisations could make first contact based on what they found in the capsule.

So why the speculation, becuase some of us just love to dream.

The part about the dead cosmonaut on an interstellar trajectory is BS. It's hard enough to accelerate a relatively small unmanned probe to solar escape velocity, never mind a bulky manned spacecraft. The Voyager and Pioneer probes that are leaving the Solar System required gravity assists from the giant planets to gain the necessary kinetic energy (actually, Jupiter did the job on its own, but the planet's gravity was also used to direct the probes to their next targets).

In fact, the only spacecraft that has ever been accelerated to solar escape velocity by rocket propulsion alone is New Horizons, which is currently on its way to Pluto. That is only a tiny fraction of the mass of a manned spacecraft.

Isn't this what happened to Captain Buck Rogers? Admittedly he wasn't dead, but he was frozen and ended up in a trajectory that took him to the far reaches of the solar system ......