In 1959, a cement mixer with a full load of cement, wrecked near Winganon, Oklahoma 🇺🇸
By the time a tow truck came to haul it away, all of cement had hardened inside of mixer. Tow truck was not able to remove all wreckage at same time because of weight, and decided to haul only cab/frame and would come back for detached mixer later, which never happened.
Today, 67 years later, it still sits where it fell. Locals have painted it and added "rocket thrusters" to make it look like a space capsule.
@LanceJZ @isaackuo @archaeohistories
That's a piece of Art, and congratulations to the locals for maintaining it.
(Actually the capsule would have had thrusters: there would be Capsule:Flotation Bag:Heat Shield:Thruster Pack, with the thruster pack held on by straps so it could be jettisoned after deceleration but before hitting atmosphere. On one mission they re-entered with the thruster pack attached because the flotation bag light had come on and they were concerned about the heat shield.)
@LanceJZ @isaackuo @archaeohistories
Back then they were still in the Mercury or Gemini programmes, and the capsule *did* have thrusters.
I don't have my copy of "The Right Stuff" to hand, but the incident with the "Air Cushion Inflation" warning light and the decision to re-enter with the thruster pack attached was given to the astronaut _without_ telling them why. (So it would have been Mercury.) Continued... (1/2)
@LanceJZ @isaackuo @archaeohistories
Mission Control were "concerned" that if the air cushion (meant to absorb the shock of landing) had inflated prematurely it would have dislodged the heat shield, and they'd have a total loss of the capsule (with extra-crispy occupant). They elected to re-enter with the thruster pack attached, and it melted with bits going past the window as the descent continued. Thankfully the warning light was due to a wiring fault. (2/last)
@LanceJZ @Cadbury_Moose @archaeohistories This is what people think of when they think of the Apollo "capsule". It has a big main thruster in the tail, and lots of thruster clusters all over the place.
That's the reason why the artists modifying the cement mixer tank felt the need to add thrusters. It didn't look right without them, because the overall shape looks like a capsule plus its service module.
@LanceJZ @Cadbury_Moose @archaeohistories I know what you mean, but that's what people think of.
One reason they think of the Apollo "capsule" as the Command Module and Service Module is that there isn't any footage of the Command Module by itself in space. No one left on the Service Module to shoot the Command Module after separation.
(The Command Module is just the return capsule.)
@NovaNaturalist @LanceJZ @Cadbury_Moose @archaeohistories It's okay for a boilerplate mass simulator.
@Cadbury_Moose @LanceJZ @archaeohistories While this is true of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules (including the Apollo service module), a reusable capsule could enter nose first rather than tail first.
Nuclear missile reentry heat shields are blunt cones entering nose first.
That said, Dragon does do tail first reentry, placing the thrusters on the sides rather than the tail. I just think it "looks" wrong.
@isaackuo @Cadbury_Moose @LanceJZ @archaeohistories That is only true for modern ballistic missile RVs, initially they were launched blunt end forward, since the materials of that time didn't allow a more accurate short end forward reentry because these cause higher temperatures. (That is also why the Space Shuttle got a rather blunt nose)
Also, there are far more than just one kind of capsule. Imagine this as a biconic lifting body, and it isn't that much fictive to retain its aft thrusters.
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