by Mark Kelly
In the story, Barry, Mark, and Scott read about the tragic deaths of the first three cosmonauts to live aboard Salyut 1. In the summer of 1976, when the story takes place, Salyut 4 was still in orbit. The fate of the fictional Major Ilyushin’s Salyut is not the same as the actual fate of Salyut 4, which orbited until intentionally being brought back to Earth in 1977. Also, in reality, the Soviet Union sent only teams of three cosmonauts, not individuals, to live there.
sextant: (Page 83) A tool to measure the angle between any two objects, for example stars. The primary use of a sextant is to determine the angle between an object in space and the horizon to help with navigation. A traditional sextant is made up of a frame shaped like a piece of pie one-sixth of a circle in size, two mirrors and a telescope.
Skylab: (Page 14) The United States’ first space station, Skylab was launched in 1973. Three crews of three astronauts visited it in orbit, each mission establishing a new record for human endurance in space. Skylab included a solar observatory, a workshop, closet-sized private sleeping areas for the astronauts, and even a shower. Hundreds of experiments were carried out, improving understanding of Earth’s geography, the sun’s corona, and the comet Kohoutek, among many other things.
NASA was ready in case the Skylab astronauts got into trouble. They had two astronauts standing by to launch a rescue in a modified Apollo CSM fitted with seats for five astronauts instead of the usual three. Happily, no rescue mission ever had to fly, and the last astronauts left Skylab in 1974.
NASA officials expected Skylab to remain in orbit until the early 1980s and even made plans to refurbish it. What they didn’t count on was a glitch in the sunspot cycle yielding high radiation that caused orbit to deteriorate. The anticipated crash of the 77-ton space station created a worldwide sensation complete with Skylab-themed disco parties and souvenir hard hats even as NASA reassured earthlings that the odds of anyone being hurt were a mere one in one hundred fifty two.
As it happened, no one was hurt when Skylab re-entered the atmosphere on July 13, 1979. Most of it burned up or fell into the Indian Ocean as expected, but some debris did land in and around the small town of Balladonia, Australia. Today museums in the region commemorate the event.
Soyuz: (Page 84) The word, which means “union,” refers both to the human space flight program begun by the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, to the Soyuz spacecraft, and to the Soyuz rocket. As of this writing, everyone visiting the International Space Station has traveled there on a Soyuz spacecraft and will travel back home the same way.
In the story, Major Ilyushin is expecting to ride home from his Salyut space station on the Soyuz spacecraft that is docked outside. Like the Apollo CSM, the Soyuz spacecraft has room for a crew of three.
thrust: (Page 11) The verb means the same as push, so you can thrust something into the sky, like a rocket or a javelin. In aerospace, thrust is the measurement of how much force fuel provides when it combusts and expels gasses.
Thrust is often measured in units called newtons, named for Sir Isaac Newton, the English scientist who first described the laws of motion. One newton is the amount needed to accelerate a kilogram (which on Earth would weigh roughly 2.2 pounds) of mass at the rate of one meter (roughly 39 inches) per second squared. As Mark explains to his mom in the story, if you are trying to move something heavy up beyond the atmosphere, you need a lot of thrust.
Titan rocket: (Page 46) A family of seven American rockets built from 1959 until 2005, Titan rockets were designed to serve as ICBMs to launch weapons and for launching vehicles into space. NASA’s ten Gemini missions of the mid-1960s were lifted into orbit atop Titan II rockets. The first Titan rockets were powered by liquid oxygen, which had to be stored at very low temperatures and was therefore impractical. Starting with Titan II, the rockets were powered by hypergolic fuel, meaning two chemicals that ignited when combined.
In the story, the Titan rocket is powered by the fictional Drizzle fuel, which delivers enough thrust to launch an Apollo CSM, bigger and heavier than the Gemini capsules. The real Apollo missions, which include the extra weight of lunar landers, were launched atop Saturn rockets. Today you can see a real Titan II rocket, six stories tall, at the Titan Missile Museum near Tucson, Arizona.
trigonometry: (Page 78) The word comes from the Greek and means measuring triangles. As Barry explains to Scott and Mark in the story, it is used in astronomy, geography, and navigation. It is also fundamental to the study of light and sound waves and so has applications in music, medicine, chemistry, seismology, meteorology and even videogame development.
The trigonometric functions sine, cosine, and tangent are the relationships between the angles of a right triangle (one with one 90-degree angle) and its signs. If you know the length of one side of the triangle and the measure of one angle (besides the right angle), you can calculate the length of the other two sides.
Sources
Cadbury, Deborah, Spacerace: The Epic Battle between America and the Soviet Union for Dominion of Space. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.
Carpenter, M. Scott, et. al. We Seven: The Classic Story of the Heroes Who Launched America into Space. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1962, 1990.
Cernan, Eugene with Don Davis. The Last Man on the Moon. New York: St. Martin’s/Griffin, 1999.
Collins, Michael. Carrying the Fire: An Astronaut’s Journey. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1974, 2009.
Fishman, Charles. (2015 January/February) “5200 Days in Space.” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 315, No. 1, pages 50–59.
Floca, Brian. Moonshot, The Flight of Apollo 11. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.
Kranz, Gene. Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000, 2009.
Mullane, R. Mike. Do Your Ears Pop in Space? New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997
Mullane, R. Mike. Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut. New York: Scribner, 2006.
Pogue, William R. How Do You Go to the Bathroom in Space? New York: Tor, 1999.
Hitt, David, Owen Garriott and Joe Kerwin. Homesteading Space, The Skylab Story. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press: 2008.
Excellent online resource
https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/index.html
Author photo © NASA
Photo of Mark and Scott Kelly courtesy of the Kelly family
Mark Kelly was a captain in the United States Navy when he commanded the final mission of Space Shuttle Endeavour in May 2011. A veteran of four space flights to the International Space Station, he is a graduate of the United States Merchant Marine Academy and holds a master’s degree from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. As a naval aviator he flew thirty-nine combat missions in Operation Desert Storm in 1991. His first book for kids, Mousetronaut, was a #1 New York Times bestseller. He has also written Enough and Gabby with his wife, Gabrielle Giffords. He lives in Arizona.
Martha Freeman is the author of more than twenty books for young readers, including the Chickadee Court Mystery series and the First Kids Mystery series. She lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
A PAULA WISEMAN BOOK
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
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Also by Mark Kelly
Astrotwins—Project Blastoff
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Text copyright © 2016 by Mark Kelly
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kelly, Mark E.
Astrotwins : project rescue / Mark Kelly with Martha Freeman.—First edition.
pages cm.—(Astrotwins)
“A Paula Wiseman Book.”
Includes bibliographical references.
Summary: “Mark Kelly and his twin brother are back for more outer space adventure, this time fixing up an abandoned Apollo command module and taking off to rescue a Russian cosmonaut who is stranded in space”—Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4814-2458-5 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-4814-2460-8 (eBook)
1. Kelly, Mark E.—Childhood and youth—Juvenile fiction. 2. Kelly, Scott, 1964– —Childhood and youth—Juvenile fiction. [1. Kelly, Mark E.—Childhood and youth—Fiction. 2. Kelly, Scott, 1964– —Childhood and youth—Fiction. 3. Brothers—Fiction. 4. Twins—Fiction. 5. Space flight—Fiction. 6. Rockets (Aeronautics)—Fiction. 7. Grandfathers—Fiction.]I. Freeman, Martha, 1956– II. Title. III. Title: Project rescue.
PZ7.K296395Asw 2016
[Fic]—dc23
2015017968
