space trackers: judica cordiglia bros.

A memorial weekend italiano extraterrestre stravaganza provided for your pleasure! Let's go Space Truckin'. First, the amazing Judica Cordiglia brothers who tracked radio transmissions of early space missions. In the late fifties, Achille and Giovanni set up an amateur tracking station just outside Turin, Italy in a former convalescent home at a place they called Torre Bert. Soviet secrecy inspired the two to seek out their communications. Turin, in Northern Italy, made Soviets the program of choice, since launches in the Caucasus flew over them. The brothers soon realized the need for additional help to make their station work. Maria Theresa, a sister, learned Russian to become their interpreter. Giovanni's fiancee, Laura Furbatto, became organizer of a worldwide network of amateur tracking stations: the Zeus Network.

The Cordiglia brothers became local space experts that led to a invitation on The Fair of Dreams (Fiera dei Sogni), a quiz show. The brothers won and the winnings afforded a personal visit in 1964 to NASA, a dream fulfilled. The amateur space trackers successfully intercepted beeps of Sputnik 1, Explorer 1, heard the dog Laika's heartbeat during Sputnik 2 and John Glenn's Mercury Friendship 7 flight. The amateur space trackers' career culminated with the Apollo 11 moon landing on June,20, 1969. The brothers soon realized though, television had taken away the mystery and with it their hobby was "finito", ended.

Notoriety follows the Cordiglia brothers with allegations their purported recordings of lost cosmonauts are fake. A prior post on the topic is also available, "lost cosmonauts: airbrushed from memory." The recordings include an "SOS to the World" in Morse Code from a soviet spacecraft as it fades into outer space on November, 28, 1960. The labored breathing and heartbeat of an unconscious cosmonaut near death recorded February 2, 1961. A heartrending plea of a woman cosmonaut as she burns up on re-entry May 23, 1961. A good list of dead cosmonauts can be found here, which includes several early suborbital fatalities. The wikipedia entry for Lost Cosmonauts is a valuable resource.

"Space Hackers The Judica Brothers" is a recent documentary of the Cordiglia brothers and the Torre Bert enclave and a wonderful story! Soviets irritated by the brothers' monitoring, once threw an aspersion the two were "space gangsters". Don't miss it! While others are enjoying la dolce vita this weekend, you can get a really sweet story!

50th anniversary: first man in space

50th anniversary of first manned space flight
Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin blasted off aboard Vostok 1, on April 12, 1961, to become first man in space. The event proved a second political coup for the Soviet Union. The Communists had put Sputnik the first satellite in orbit. You can view a condensed version of Gagarin's story in just 39 seconds on YouTube.


related: vladimir ilyushin - the real first man in space?

space junk: vanguard 1

Debris in space is a growing concern. Space Junk has made a necessity of cataloging space objects, the launch of a surveillance satellite, and will result in more near earth collisions. Vanguard 1 launched on March 17, 1958, the fourth artificial satellite and first to use solar cells(pictured), remains in medium earth orbit at a minimum altitude 400 miles above Earth. The orbit insures the satellite remains aloft for centuries and the oldest surviving man-made object in space.

At the time of launch, for perspective, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre first aired "the Sharpshooter," which later ran as a series, "The Rifleman". This was a Navy launch as NASA only became operational on October 1, 1958. "Tequila" by the Champs became a surprise hit and number 1 song on pop charts.

Vanguard 1, six inches in diameter and a weight of three pounds, was dubbed "the grapefruit satellite" by Nikita Kruschev an unfavorable comparison to the more muscular 200lb. Sputnik. Vanguard 1 has orbited the Earth over 200,000 times. Will private enterprise clean up space with salvage operations? A small Vanguard 1 would make a great piece of space memorabilia! There are over 20,000 large objects in earth orbit. Will smaller objects provide plausible cover for laser fire by parties engaged in covert space wars?