Space History for February 2: Rocketmail, ICBMs, Progress

[CalliArcale]

February 2, 1931 saw the world's first mail sent by rocket! A V7 rocket (not to be confused with the later Vengeance series of Nazi weapons) built by Austrian engineer Friedrich Schmiedl was launched from Schoeckel bei Graz to Sankt Radegund, carrying a hundred letters as its payload. This was technically a test flight, and it was a complete success, travelling two kilometers. The first operational flight occured in September with a slightly larger rocket, designated R1. Schmiedl continued to operate a regular rocket-mail service for two years, with the final flight being made by a two-stage S1 rocket capable of a 5 km range. All of the rockets used black powder as their propellant. Rocket mail was used in other applications, including some comparatively recent uses of the concept in Russia to deliver mail to Kamchatka using decommissioned ICBMs. But the ubiquity of modern airline service has rendered it obsolete.<br /><br />Speaking of ICBMs, February 2, 1961 saw the first successful launch of the Soviet R-16 rocket. Well, it was considered a success, but in fact the second stage failed to ignite, and the rocket impacted 520km downrange of Baikonur Cosmodrome. The R-16 was a major advance in technology, and represented the first ICBM with storable propellants: highly toxic hypergolic propellants. But it would become infamous after perestroika, when its true cost became known. The R-16 was supposed to have seen its first flight in October of 1960. October was an auspicious month to Soviet politicians, so there was often a tremendous push to get things to fly in that month. For R-16, the result was the worst accident in the entire history of spaceflight. On October 24, 1960, due to poor design of switches, deliberately violated safety protocols, and a serious case of pointy-haired-boss (in this case, Field Marshall Nedelin), the first test vehicle exploded on the pad. Seventy-four people died instantly. They were the lucky ones. Forty-eight more died i <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>