A space capsule is an often manned spacecraft which has a simple shape for the main section, without any wings or other features to create lift during atmospheric reentry. Capsules have been used in most of the manned space programs to date, including the world's first Vostok and Mercury manned spacecrafts, as well as in later Soviet Voskhod, Soyuz, Zond/L1, L3, TKS, US Gemini, Apollo, Chinese Shenzhou and currently developing US, Russia, India manned spacecrafts. A capsule is the specified form for the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
A manned space capsule must have everything necessary for everyday life, including air, water and food. The space capsule must also protect astronauts from the cold and radiation of space. A capsule must be well insulated and have a system that controls the inside temperature and environment. It also must have a way that the astronauts won't be knocked around during launch or reentry. Additionally, since the inside will be weightless, there must be a way for the astronauts to stay in their seats and beds during the flight. For this each seat, bed, table, and chair has a complicated system of straps and buckles. One of the most important things that a space capsule must have is a way to communicate with people back on Earth, or mission control.
Famous quotes containing the words space and/or capsule:
“I would have broke mine eye-strings, cracked them, but
To look upon him, till the diminution
Of space had pointed him sharp as my needle;
Nay, followed him till he had melted from
The smallness of a gnat to air, and then
Have turned mine eye and wept.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“In the capsule biography by which most of the people knew one another, I was understood to be an Air Force pilot whose family was wealthy and lived in the East, and I even added the detail that I had a broken marriage and drank to get over it.... I sometimes believed what I said and tried to take the cure in the very real sun of Desert D’Or with its cactus, its mountain, and the bright green foliage of its love and its money.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)