Kris Achten
Ken ShirriffHow did Russian cosmonauts know where they were? The Globus INK (1967) showed the position of their Soyuz spacecraft on a rotating globe. It is an analog computer built from tiny gears. I reverse-engineered the wiring (which inconveniently had been cut) and we powered it up. 🧵
The Globus is driven by solenoids. We "overclocked" the Globus and ran it at 10 hertz instead of 1 hertz because its motion is too slow to see otherwise: 90 minutes for an orbit and 24 hours for the Earth to rotate. Here's a clip showing the Globus running at its correct speed.
For more about the internals of the Globus, see my blog post:
https://www.righto.com/2023/01/inside-globus-ink-mechanical-navigation.html
https://www.righto.com/2023/01/inside-globus-ink-mechanical-navigation.html
Peter Jakobs ⛵@kenshirriff I love this stuff, so quirky and simple yet it was good enough to get people safely back from orbit.
Essentially, you could draw a straight line from the Antkiythera mechanism to this.
Essentially, you could draw a straight line from the Antkiythera mechanism to this.
Susa
M Horstmeier@kenshirriff This is glorious. Thank you
D2@kenshirriff thanks for sharing these details. I’ve been fascinated by the Globus since seeing a reference & a few images years ago.
Micah Pollak@kenshirriff Wow, this was an incredible read! Thank you for posting.
V_Mags_Fox 🏳️⚧️:3@kenshirriff Pair that with the clock clicking away and that capsule had to be incredibly noisy.
ES Michelson@kenshirriff Thanks and interesting! I'm thinking fire hazard and risk to other instrumentation. Given the electric gear and solenoid mechanism it must have been carefully constructed to avoid overheating and carefully wired to avoid short circuit and ground faults. As far as you know, were there other similarly complex clockwork mechanisms running alongside?
chkaloon@kenshirriff very cool. Open loop? Or is there gyro feedback of some sort?
craquemattic 🏳️🌈@kenshirriff That is AMAZING, I need one! Were the cosmonauts also constantly hearing that sound? Could they discern velocity or change in position by listening to the clicks?
@dtauvdiodr Note that we're running the Globus at 10 hertz to make the motion more visible. In use, it just clicks once per second. Also, it's probably quieter when the case is on and it is installed in the console.
@kenshirriff Aaah that all makes sense. Still marvelous!
Tinker Worm
big ole spiderbox@kenshirriff In an orbiting Soyuz, was the solenoid clockwork the dominant background noise inside the capsule?
Cosmonaut: You get to float weightless in orbit around our planet, but you're trapped in a small space with a loud clock.
keplerniko@kenshirriff I would have thought they would just look out the window
FozzTexx@kenshirriff From the way it sounds I half expect there should be a paper tape coming out of it. I guess I've watched too many of Curious Marc's teletype videos.
michel416 
@kenshirriff Fantastic! Thanks for sharing.
A. Jesse Jiryu Davis
Techronic9876@kenshirriff @SwiftOnSecurity no IMU input, so really kind of a fancy clock 🤔
Ian Watson@kenshirriff excellent
gavin@kenshirriff Great device, but presume they could just look out of a window?
Andreas, DJ3EI, he/him@gavin
Those spaceships don't fly very high. An altitude of, say, 400 km gives you a horizon a mere 2000-some km away.
@kenshirriff
Those spaceships don't fly very high. An altitude of, say, 400 km gives you a horizon a mere 2000-some km away.
@kenshirriff
Mike@kenshirriff that's bitchin'
Bytebro 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇬🇱@kenshirriff Love it. Got a link to the original vid?
MasterEmit@kenshirriff This is amazing. Thanks! Really would love to see more details of the mechanism inside a video for better understanding.
gavinisdie 
@kenshirriff that's a pretty cool machine
pink~@kenshirriff this is incredible.... this has gotta be my new favorite machine
Sass, David@kenshirriff @SwiftOnSecurity now we need this to be built from Lego!
Strawanzen
Simon I Groove musically@kenshirriff AWESOME 👀🧠💞
@kenshirriff nice to see you here too!
Noel B Poirier he/him 🇺🇦🌻@kenshirriff We exhibited one of these in an exhibit on exploration at the National Watch & Clock Museum back in 2009 I think. It was a hit with visitors, though the one we borrowed wasn’t operational.
Christine Donaldson@kenshirriff wow, how did you find that out?
Computeforloot 
@kenshirriff frikkin cool
Azul Buho@kenshirriff Strong want!
book dragon@kenshirriff not russian. soviet union.
@kenshirriff i’m this pedantic about correct naming because space achievements came at a steep price for union republics of ussr
Maskim605@kym @kenshirriff so, we were not Russians in Soviet period?😂
aeandra@kenshirriff @kym @maksim605 it wasn't *only* russians who contributed to and paid the cost of those achievements, it was also other countries colonized by russia at the time.
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛@kym @martin_piper @kenshirriff They may not all have been ethnic Russians, but they were still subjects of the Russian empire running on a communist constitution. They worked for a space agency (the "Ministry of General Machine-Building") headquartered in Moscow.
Calling them Soviet is more precise, but calling them Russian isn't entirely wrong.
Calling them Soviet is more precise, but calling them Russian isn't entirely wrong.
@clacke @martin_piper @kenshirriff you are not wrong. what i would like to add is that from my point of view (someone who grew up in Kazakhstan) calling soviet era space achievements russian feels like erasure of the rest of the soviet republics. for crying out loud, they still fly their rockets from our land - Baikonyr is in the middle of Kazakhstan
@kym @martin_piper @kenshirriff That's a fair point. Kazakhstan and other parts of the empire were exploited.
Martin Piper (he/him) 💙💛🌻💉@kenshirriff *soviet* cosmonauts, not Russian.
@martin_piper @kenshirriff this is the same
Niels Nielsen, geographer@kenshirriff The most atompunk thing I'll see this week! What else could I call the style/genre?
@nichni @kenshirriff the most atomicpunk thing I’ll see in my *life*.
LAUREN
Karen Strickholm@kenshirriff Wow! Technology has come a long way! I like this old stuff.
Tom Horn@kenshirriff This is awesome :)
British Tech Guru@kenshirriff That looks much more reliable than most modern electronics.
David J White@kenshirriff Do you have more vid of how you did that? That's a YT vid just waiting to go viral for all the nerds and OCD freaks like me!
@DJWhite CuriousMarc is making some YouTube videos about the Globus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmHaCQ8Ul6E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCogLM-R8FU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmHaCQ8Ul6E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCogLM-R8FU
Soyuz "Globus" Mechanical Navigation Computer Part 1: Grand Opening
jorge fernando@kenshirriff so cool!!
Darryl Ramm@kenshirriff You guys really should stop all this messing around with space artifacts on the ground and just launch a manned flight. 🙂
nedhamson
John Mullinax@kenshirriff Wow! Really amazing to get it running again, and such a clever design!