title: Ravi Teja

text: Ravi Teja was born in Jaggampeta in the erstwhile East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh. His father, Bhoopatiraju Rajagopal Raju was a pharmacist and his mother, Bhoopatiraju Rajya Lakshmi was a homemaker. Ravi Teja is the eldest of three sons, the others being Bharath and Raghu, who are also actors.


title: Ravi Teja

text: He spent most of his childhood in Northern India because of his father's work. His schooling was done in Jaipur, Delhi, Mumbai, and Bhopal. He was fascinated with cinema right from his childhood. He idolized Amitabh Bachchan and would re-enact scenes from his films at home. Later on he moved to Vijayawada along with his family. He completed his Bachelor's degree in Arts at Siddhartha Degree College, Vijayawada. He is fluent in both Telugu and Hindi.


title: Ravi Teja

text: On May 26, 2002 Ravi Teja married Kalyani who hails Ganapavaram, West Godavari District. The couple has a daughter, Mokshadha and a son, Mahadhan.


title: Ravi Teja

text: Half way through his graduation, he went to Madras in 1988 to pursue a career in films. In his early years in Madras, YVS Chowdary and Gunasekhar were his roommates. He played small roles in the films "Karthavyam" (1990), "Abhimanyu" (1990), "Chaitanya" (1991), "Collector Gaari Alludu" (1992), and "Aaj Ka Goonda Raj" (1992). Ravi Teja became an assistant director, working in both television and film. As an assistant director, he worked in several Bollywood as well as Telugu projects including "Prathihnbandh", "Aaj Ka Goonda Raj", and "Criminal". He met Krishna Vamsi and worked as an assistant director under him for the 1996 hit film "Ninne Pelladata". Vamsi also gave Ravi Teja the opportunity to act in a small role in that film. He continued to work as an assistant director for a few other films.


title: Ravi Teja

text: In 1997, while still working as an assistant director, Ravi Teja got an opportunity to act in the film "Sindhooram" directed by Krishna Vamsi in a supporting role. The film won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Telugu.


title: Ravi Teja

text: Ravi Teja followed up with roles in the films "Seetha Rama Raju", "Padutha Teeyaga", "Manasichhi Choodu" and Krishna Reddy's "Premaku Velayara". In 1999, he was cast in a leading role by Srinu Vaitla for "Nee Kosam". The film won the Silver Nandi for Best Film. Ravi Teja won the Nandi Award for Best Actor Special Jury for his performance. Following this, he started appearing in more significant roles such as Krishna Vamsi's "Samudram", Chiranjeevi's "Annayya" and "Budget Padmanabham". He also appeared in lead roles in multi-starrer films such as "Kshemanga Velli Labanga Randi", "Tirumala Tirupathi Venkatesa", "Sakuntumba Sapari Vare Sametham" and "Ammayi Kosam".


title: Ravi Teja

text: In 2001, Ravi Teja's association with Puri Jagannadh began when he cast Ravi Teja as the lead role in "Itlu Sravani Subramanyam". The film was a commercial hit and got Ravi Teja credibility as a solo lead actor. In 2002, his next film "Avunu Valliddaru Ista Paddaru!", directed by Vamsy and co-starring Kalyani was released. The film was a successful at the box office and won Ravi Teja acclaim. The year also saw Ravi Teja in "Idiot". Directed by Puri Jagannadh and co-starring Rakshita, it was a blockbuster hit and Ravi Teja's performance and dialogue delivery were praised by critics and movie-goers alike.


title: Ravi Teja

text: The year also saw the release of Krishna Vamsi's "Khadgam". The film was a huge success at the box office and won the Sarojini Devi Award for a Film on National Integration. Ravi Teja's portrayal of a young wannabe actor won him the Nandi Special Jury Award for the second time. In 2003, Ravi Teja again worked with director Puri Jagannadh for "Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi". The film co-starring Asin became a blockbuster hit and Jeevi of Idlebrain praised him: "Ravi Teja did well. His strength lies in his dialogue delivery and reckless body language". The year also saw Ravi Teja working in commercially successful films such as "Dongodu", co-starring Kalyani and directed by Srinivas Bheemineni and "Veede", co-starring Aarthi Agarwal and directed by Ravi Raja Pinisetty. In the same year, Ravi Teja was also seen in films such as "Ee Abbayee Chala Manchodu", "Anveshana" and "Oka Raju Oka Rani", which failed to do well at the box office.


title: Ravi Teja

text: In 2004, Ravi Teja starred in "Venky", directed by Vaitla. Idlebrain wrote: "His comedy is very good in the first half. His antics with Siddanthi and the way he curses himself in front of the mirror is hilarious". He appeared in "Naa Autograph" directed by cinematographer turned director S. Gopal Reddy. A critic from nowrunning.com wrote: "Ravi Teja delivers a stunning performance as a dejected lover". "Chanti" was directed by Sobhan. In 2005, Ravi Teja's work included "Bhadra", directed by Boyapati Srinu and "Bhageeratha", directed by Rasool Ellore. He also worked in the crime film "Shock", directed by Harish Shankar and produced by Ram Gopal Varma.


title: Ravi Teja

text: In 2006, Ravi Teja worked with director S. S. Rajamouli for "Vikramarkudu". The film which grossed over proved to be his highest-grossing film until then. "Idlebrain" praised his performance: "Vikramarkudu is the best film of Ravi Teja so far in histrionics aspect. He did both characters of Athali Sathi Babu and Vikram Rathod equally well, His mannerism of "jintata" is simply superb". Consequently, Ravi Teja went on to play the lead in "Khatarnak" (2006) and "Dubai Seenu" (2007), his third collaboration with director Vaitla. In 2008, Ravi Teja acted in three films, V. V. Vinayak's "Krishna", "Baladur" and "Neninthe". "Neninthe" marked his fourth collaboration with director Puri. Although the film was not successful at the box office, Ravi Teja's portrayal of an up-and-coming director in the film received acclaim and won him Nandi Award for Best Actor.


title: Ravi Teja

text: In 2009, Ravi Teja worked with director Surender Reddy for action comedy "Kick". The film was a huge commercial success grossing over . Later that year, he appeared in "Anjaneyulu". In 2010, his films included "Shambo Shiva Shambo" and Gopichand Malineni-directed "Don Seenu",


title: Ravi Teja

text: In 2011, Ravi Teja appeared in four films. His first release was Harish Shankar's "Mirapakay". He later starred in Ram Gopal Varma's "Dongala Mutha" and made a cameo appearance as a body double of himself in "Katha Screenplay Darshakatvam Appalaraju", also directed Varma. His last release of the year was "Veera". Later after this film, he went on to be called ""Mass Maharaja"" for his mass action scenes.


title: Ravi Teja

text: In 2012, Ravi Teja starred in four films starring with Gunasekhar's "Nippu" and Siva's "Daruvu". He collaborated for the fifth time with director Puri for the fantasy comedy "Devudu Chesina Manushulu". He later appeared in Parasuram's "Sarocharu " Rediff.com wrote: "Ravi Teja is in a different avatar, a more subdued one. A change of image and role is necessary for an actor and Ravi Teja makes the transition fairly well".


title: Ravi Teja

text: In 2013, Ravi Teja started in Malineni's action comedy" Balupu". The Times of India wrote, "Ravi Teja has come up with an entertaining performance. His characterization and the flashback episode as Kancharapalem Shankar looked very powerful on the screen. He gets into the skin of the character and has done well." The film turned one of the biggest commercial successes of the year.


title: Ravi Teja

text: In 2014, he starred in "Power" with debutant director K. S. Ravindra along with a cameo appearance in Sairam Shankar's "Romeo". In 2015, he collaborated with director Surender Reddy again for "Kick"'s sequel. "Kick 2", produced by Nandamuri Kalyan Ram. Despite huge expectations, the film was a box office failure. He later played the lead in "Bengal Tiger" (2015), directed by Sampath Nandi. This film which grossed over , became one of the highest grossing Telugu films of that year.


title: Ravi Teja

text: After taking a sabbatical for one year, he played a blind man in Anil Ravipudi-directed "Raja the Great" (2017). The film was Ravi Teja's first grosser and his career's highest-grossing film. In 2018, Ravi Teja starred in three films, "Touch Chesi Chudu," "Nela Ticket" and "Amar Akbar Anthony", all three of them were critical and commercial failures. His 2020 film, "Disco Raja," where Ravi Teja played a dual role, also bombed at the box office.


title: Ravi Teja

text: Ravi Teja's 2021 film "Krack" marked his third collaboration with director Malineni, and was successful at the box office.


title: Printing press

text: A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the cloth, paper or other medium was brushed or rubbed repeatedly to achieve the transfer of ink, and accelerated the process. Typically used for texts, the invention and global spread of the printing press was one of the most influential events in the second millennium.


title: Printing press

text: In Germany, around 1440, goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press, which started the Printing Revolution. Modelled on the design of existing screw presses, a single Renaissance movable-type printing press could produce up to 3,600 pages per workday, compared to forty by hand-printing and a few by hand-copying. Gutenberg's newly devised hand mould made possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities. His two inventions, the hand mould and the movable-type printing press, together drastically reduced the cost of printing books and other documents in Europe, particularly for shorter print runs.


title: Printing press

text: From Mainz the movable-type printing press spread within several decades to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries. By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes. In the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies. By the mid-17th century the first printing presses arrived in colonial America in response to the increasing demand for Bibles and other religious literature. The operation of a press became synonymous with the enterprise of printing, and lent its name to a new medium of expression and communication, "the press".


title: Printing press

text: The arrival of mechanical movable type printing in Europe in the Renaissance introduced the era of mass communication, which permanently altered the structure of society. The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. The sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class. Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its peoples led to the rise of proto-nationalism, and accelerated the development of European vernaculars, to the detriment of Latin's status as lingua franca. In the 19th century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on an industrial scale.


title: Printing press

text: The rapid economic and socio-cultural development of late medieval society in Europe created favorable intellectual and technological conditions for Gutenberg's improved version of the printing press: the entrepreneurial spirit of emerging capitalism increasingly made its impact on medieval modes of production, fostering economic thinking and improving the efficiency of traditional work processes. The sharp rise of medieval learning and literacy amongst the middle class led to an increased demand for books which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating.


title: Printing press

text: Technologies preceding the press that led to the press's invention included: manufacturing of paper, development of ink, woodblock printing, and distribution of eyeglasses. At the same time, a number of medieval products and technological processes had reached a level of maturity which allowed their potential use for printing purposes. Gutenberg took up these far-flung strands, combined them into one complete and functioning system, and perfected the printing process through all its stages by adding a number of inventions and innovations of his own:


title: Printing press

text: The screw press which allowed direct pressure to be applied on a flat plane was already of great antiquity in Gutenberg's time and was used for a wide range of tasks. Introduced in the 1st century AD by the Romans, it was commonly employed in agricultural production for pressing wine grapes and olives (for olive oil), both of which formed an integral part of the Mediterranean and medieval diet. The device was also used from very early on in urban contexts as a cloth press for printing patterns. Gutenberg may have also been inspired by the paper presses which had spread through the German lands since the late 14th century and which worked on the same mechanical principles.


title: Printing press

text: During the Islamic Golden Age, Arab Muslims were printing texts, including passages from the Qur’an, embracing the Chinese craft of paper making, developed it and adopted it widely in the Muslim world, which led to a major increase in the production of manuscript texts. In Egypt during the Fatimid era, the printing technique was adopted reproducing texts on paper strips by hand and supplying them in various copies to meet the demand.


title: Printing press

text: Gutenberg adopted the basic design, thereby mechanizing the printing process. Printing, however, put a demand on the machine quite different from pressing. Gutenberg adapted the construction so that the pressing power exerted by the platen on the paper was now applied both evenly and with the required sudden elasticity. To speed up the printing process, he introduced a movable undertable with a plane surface on which the sheets could be swiftly changed.


title: Printing press

text: The concept of movable type existed prior to 15th century Europe; sporadic evidence that the typographical principle, the idea of creating a text by reusing individual characters, was known and had been cropping up since the 12th century and possibly before (the oldest known application dating back as far as the Phaistos disc). The known examples range from movable type printing in China during the Song dynasty; in Korea during the Goryeo Dynasty, where metal movable-type printing technology was developed in 1234; to Germany (Prüfening inscription) and England (letter tiles) and Italy (Altarpiece of Pellegrino II). However, the various techniques employed (imprinting, punching and assembling individual letters) did not have the refinement and efficiency needed to become widely accepted. Tsuen-Hsuin and Needham, and Briggs and Burke suggest that the movable-type printing in China and Korea was rarely employed.


title: Printing press

text: Gutenberg greatly improved the process by treating typesetting and printing as two separate work steps. A goldsmith by profession, he created his type pieces from a lead-based alloy which suited printing purposes so well that it is still used today. The mass production of metal letters was achieved by his key invention of a special hand mould, the matrix. The Latin alphabet proved to be an enormous advantage in the process because, in contrast to logographic writing systems, it allowed the type-setter to represent any text with a theoretical minimum of only around two dozen different letters.


title: Printing press

text: Another factor conducive to printing arose from the book existing in the format of the codex, which had originated in the Roman period. Considered the most important advance in the history of the book prior to printing itself, the codex had completely replaced the ancient scroll at the onset of the Middle Ages (AD500). The codex holds considerable practical advantages over the scroll format: it is more convenient to read (by turning pages), more compact, and less costly, and both recto and verso sides could be used for writing or printing, unlike the scroll.


title: Printing press

text: A fourth development was the early success of medieval papermakers at mechanizing paper manufacture. The introduction of water-powered paper mills, the first certain evidence of which dates to 1282, allowed for a massive expansion of production and replaced the laborious handcraft characteristic of both Chinese and Muslim papermaking. Papermaking centres began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy, reducing the price of paper to one-sixth of parchment and then falling further; papermaking centers reached Germany a century later.


title: Printing press

text: Despite this it appears that the final breakthrough of paper depended just as much on the rapid spread of movable-type printing. It is notable that codices of parchment, which in terms of quality is superior to any other writing material, still had a substantial share in Gutenberg's edition of the 42-line Bible. After much experimentation, Gutenberg managed to overcome the difficulties which traditional water-based inks caused by soaking the paper, and found the formula for an oil-based ink suitable for high-quality printing with metal type.


title: Printing press

text: A printing press, in its classical form, is a standing mechanism, ranging from long, wide, and tall. The small individual metal letters known as type would be set up by a compositor into the desired lines of text. Several lines of text would be arranged at once and were placed in a wooden frame known as a galley. Once the correct number of pages were composed, the galleys would be laid face up in a frame, also known as a forme, which itself is placed onto a flat stone, 'bed,' or 'coffin.' The text is inked using two balls, pads mounted on handles. The balls were made of dog skin leather, because it has no pores, and stuffed with sheep's wool and were inked. This ink was then applied to the text evenly. One damp piece of paper was then taken from a heap of paper and placed on the tympan. The paper was damp as this lets the type 'bite' into the paper better. Small pins hold the paper in place. The paper is now held between a frisket and tympan (two frames covered with paper or parchment).


title: Printing press

text: These are folded down, so that the paper lies on the surface of the inked type. The bed is rolled under the platen, using a windlass mechanism. A small rotating handle called the 'rounce' is used to do this, and the impression is made with a screw that transmits pressure through the platen. To turn the screw the long handle attached to it is turned. This is known as the bar or 'Devil's Tail.' In a well-set-up press, the springiness of the paper, frisket, and tympan caused the bar to spring back and raise the platen, the windlass turned again to move the bed back to its original position, the tympan and frisket raised and opened, and the printed sheet removed. Such presses were always worked by hand. After around 1800, iron presses were developed, some of which could be operated by steam power.


title: Printing press

text: Johannes Gutenberg's work on the printing press began in approximately 1436 when he partnered with Andreas Dritzehn—a man who had previously instructed in gem-cutting—and Andreas Heilmann, owner of a paper mill. However, it was not until a 1439 lawsuit against Gutenberg that an official record existed; witnesses' testimony discussed Gutenberg's types, an inventory of metals (including lead), and his type molds.


title: Printing press

text: Having previously worked as a professional goldsmith, Gutenberg made skillful use of the knowledge of metals he had learned as a craftsman. He was the first to make type from an alloy of lead, tin, and antimony, which was critical for producing durable type that produced high-quality printed books and proved to be much better suited for printing than all other known materials. To create these lead types, Gutenberg used what is considered one of his most ingenious inventions, a special matrix enabling the quick and precise molding of new type blocks from a uniform template. His type case is estimated to have contained around 290 separate letter boxes, most of which were required for special characters, ligatures, punctuation marks, and so forth.


title: Printing press

text: Gutenberg is also credited with the introduction of an oil-based ink which was more durable than the previously used water-based inks. As printing material he used both paper and vellum (high-quality parchment). In the Gutenberg Bible, Gutenberg made a trial of colour printing for a few of the page headings, present only in some copies. A later work, the Mainz Psalter of 1453, presumably designed by Gutenberg but published under the imprint of his successors Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, had elaborate red and blue printed initials.


title: Printing press

text: The Printing Revolution occurred when the spread of the printing press facilitated the wide circulation of information and ideas, acting as an "agent of change" through the societies that it reached.


title: Printing press

text: The invention of mechanical movable type printing led to a huge increase of printing activities across Europe within only a few decades. From a single print shop in Mainz, Germany, printing had spread to no less than around 270 cities in Central, Western and Eastern Europe by the end of the 15th century. As early as 1480, there were printers active in 110 different places in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, England, Bohemia and Poland. From that time on, it is assumed that "the printed book was in universal use in Europe".


title: Printing press

text: In Italy, a center of early printing, print shops had been established in 77 cities and towns by 1500. At the end of the following century, 151 locations in Italy had seen at one time printing activities, with a total of nearly three thousand printers known to be active. Despite this proliferation, printing centres soon emerged; thus, one third of the Italian printers published in Venice.


title: Printing press

text: By 1500, the printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million copies. In the following century, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies.


title: Printing press

text: European printing presses of around 1600 were capable of producing between 1,500 and 3,600 impressions per workday. By comparison, Far Eastern printing, where the back of the paper was manually rubbed to the page, did not exceed an output of forty pages per day.


title: Printing press

text: Of Erasmus's work, at least 750,000 copies were sold during his lifetime alone (1469–1536). In the early days of the Reformation, the revolutionary potential of bulk printing took princes and papacy alike by surprise. In the period from 1518 to 1524, the publication of books in Germany alone skyrocketed sevenfold; between 1518 and 1520, Luther's tracts were distributed in 300,000 printed copies.


title: Printing press

text: The rapidity of typographical text production, as well as the sharp fall in unit costs, led to the issuing of the first newspapers (see "Relation") which opened up an entirely new field for conveying up-to-date information to the public.


title: Printing press

text: Incunable are surviving pre-16th century print works which are collected by many of the libraries in Europe and North America.


title: Printing press

text: The printing press was also a factor in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through the establishment of widely disseminated scholarly journals, helping to bring on the scientific revolution. Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, "One Author, one work (title), one piece of information" (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before, the author was less important, since a copy of Aristotle made in Paris would not be exactly identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author has been entirely lost.


title: Printing press

text: Because the printing process ensured that the same information fell on the same pages, page numbering, tables of contents, and indices became common, though they previously had not been unknown. The process of reading also changed, gradually moving over several centuries from oral readings to silent, private reading. Over the next 200 years, the wider availability of printed materials led to a dramatic rise in the adult literacy rate throughout Europe.


title: Printing press

text: The printing press was an important step towards the democratization of knowledge. Within 50 or 60 years of the invention of the printing press, the entire classical canon had been reprinted and widely promulgated throughout Europe (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). More people had access to knowledge both new and old, more people could discuss these works. Book production became more commercialised, and the first copyright laws were passed. On the other hand, the printing press was criticized for allowing the dissemination of information that may have been incorrect.


title: Printing press

text: A second outgrowth of this popularization of knowledge was the decline of Latin as the language of most published works, to be replaced by the vernacular language of each area, increasing the variety of published works. The printed word also helped to unify and standardize the spelling and syntax of these vernaculars, in effect 'decreasing' their variability. This rise in importance of national languages as opposed to pan-European Latin is cited as one of the causes of the rise of nationalism in Europe.


title: Printing press

text: A third consequence of popularization of printing was on the economy. The printing press was associated with higher levels of city growth. The publication of trade-related manuals and books teaching techniques like double-entry bookkeeping increased the reliability of trade and led to the decline of merchant guilds and the rise of individual traders.


title: Printing press

text: At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, the mechanics of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press were still essentially unchanged, although new materials in its construction, amongst other innovations, had gradually improved its printing efficiency. By 1800, Lord Stanhope had built a press completely from cast iron which reduced the force required by 90%, while doubling the size of the printed area. With a capacity of 480 pages per hour, the Stanhope press doubled the output of the old style press. Nonetheless, the limitations inherent to the traditional method of printing became obvious.


title: Printing press

text: Two ideas altered the design of the printing press radically: First, the use of steam power for running the machinery, and second the replacement of the printing flatbed with the rotary motion of cylinders. Both elements were for the first time successfully implemented by the German printer Friedrich Koenig in a series of press designs devised between 1802 and 1818. Having moved to London in 1804, Koenig soon met Thomas Bensley and secured financial support for his project in 1807. Patented in 1810, Koenig had designed a steam press "much like a hand press connected to a steam engine." The first production trial of this model occurred in April 1811. He produced his machine with assistance from German engineer Andreas Friedrich Bauer.


title: Printing press

text: Koenig and Bauer sold two of their first models to "The Times" in London in 1814, capable of 1,100 impressions per hour. The first edition so printed was on 28 November 1814. They went on to perfect the early model so that it could print on both sides of a sheet at once. This began the long process of making newspapers available to a mass audience (which in turn helped spread literacy), and from the 1820s changed the nature of book production, forcing a greater standardization in titles and other metadata. Their company Koenig & Bauer AG is still one of the world's largest manufacturers of printing presses today.


title: Printing press

text: The steam-powered rotary printing press, invented in 1843 in the United States by Richard M. Hoe, ultimately allowed millions of copies of a page in a single day. Mass production of printed works flourished after the transition to rolled paper, as continuous feed allowed the presses to run at a much faster pace. Hoe's original design operated at up to 2,000 revolutions per hour where each revolution deposited 4 page images, giving the press a throughput of 8,000 pages per hour. By 1891, The New York World and Philadelphia Item were operating presses producing either 90,000 4-page sheets per hour or 48,000 8-page sheets.


title: Printing press

text: Also, in the middle of the 19th century, there was a separate development of jobbing presses, small presses capable of printing small-format pieces such as billheads, letterheads, business cards, and envelopes. Jobbing presses were capable of quick setup (average setup time for a small job was under 15 minutes) and quick production (even on treadle-powered jobbing presses it was considered normal to get 1,000 impressions per hour [iph] with one pressman, with speeds of 1,500 iph often attained on simple envelope work). Job printing emerged as a reasonably cost-effective duplicating solution for commerce at this time.


title: Krav Maga

text: Krav Maga ( ; , ; ) is an Israeli martial art. Developed for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), it is derived from a combination of techniques used in aikido, judo, karate, boxing, and wrestling. It is known for its focus on real-world situations and its extreme efficiency. Hungarian-born Israeli martial artist Imi Lichtenfeld, who made use of his training as a boxer and wrestler to defend Jews in Bratislava against fascist groups in the mid-to-late 1930s, developed Krav Maga through his experiences in street fighting. After his immigration to Mandatory Palestine in the late 1940s, he began to provide lessons on combat training to Jewish paramilitary groups that would later form the IDF during the Israeli War of Independence.


title: Krav Maga

text: From the outset, the original concept of Krav Maga was to take the most effective and practical techniques of other fighting styles (originally European boxing, wrestling, and street fighting) and make them rapidly teachable to conscripted soldiers. It has a philosophy emphasizing aggression and simultaneous defensive and offensive maneuvers, and has been used by Israeli special forces and regular infantry units alike. Closely related variations have been developed and adopted by Israeli law enforcement and intelligence organizations, and there are also several organizations teaching variations of Krav Maga internationally. Additionally, there are two forms of Krav Maga, with one type adapted for Israeli security forces and the other type adapted for civilian use.


title: Krav Maga

text: The term "krav maga" in Hebrew is literally translated as 'contact combat' – the three letter root of the first word is "k-r-v" (), and the noun derived from this root means either "combat" or "battle"; whereas the second word is a participle form derived from the verb root "n-g-'a" (), that literally means either "contact" or "touch".


title: Krav Maga

text: Like most martial arts, Krav Maga encourages students to avoid physical confrontation. If this is impossible or unsafe, it promotes finishing a fight as quickly and aggressively as possible. Attacks are aimed at the most vulnerable parts of the body, and training is not limited to techniques that avoid severe injury; some even permanently injure or cause death to the opponent.


title: Krav Maga

text: Students learn to defend against all variety of attacks and are taught to counter in the quickest and most efficient way.


title: Krav Maga

text: Training can also cover the study and development of situational awareness to develop an understanding of one's surroundings, learning to understand the psychology of a street confrontation, and identifying potential threats before an attack occurs. It may also cover physical and verbal methods to avoid violence whenever possible. It also teaches mental toughness, using controlled scenarios to strengthen mental fortitude in order for students to control the impulse and not do something rash, but instead attack only when necessary and as a last resort.


title: Krav Maga

text: Some of the key focuses of techniques in Krav Maga are—as described above—effectiveness and instinctive response under stress. To that end, Krav Maga is an eclectic system that has not sought to replace existing effective techniques, taking what is useful from available systems, for example:


title: Krav Maga

text: Imre Lichtenfeld (also known as Imi S'de-Or) was born in 1910 in Budapest, Austro-Hungary to a Jewish family and grew up in Bratislava (Slovakia). Lichtenfeld became active in a wide range of sports, including gymnastics, wrestling, and boxing. In 1928, Lichtenfeld won the Slovak Youth Wrestling Championship, and in 1929 the adult championship (light and middle weight divisions). That same year, he also won the national boxing championship and an international gymnastics championship. During the ensuing decade, Lichtenfeld's athletic activities focused mainly on wrestling, both as a contestant and a trainer.


title: Krav Maga

text: In the mid-1930s, anti-Semitic riots began to threaten the Jews of Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. Lichtenfeld became the leader of a group of Jewish boxers and wrestlers who took to the streets to defend Jewish neighborhoods against the growing numbers of anti-Semitic Nazis. Lichtenfeld quickly discovered, however, that actual fighting was very different from competition fighting, and although boxing and wrestling were good sports, they were not always practical for the aggressive and brutal nature of street combat. It was then that he started to re-evaluate his ideas about fighting and started developing the skills and techniques that would eventually become Krav Maga. Having become a thorn in the side of the equally anti-Semitic local authorities, in 1940 Lichtenfeld left his home with his family and friends on the last refugee ship to escape Europe.


title: Krav Maga

text: After making his way to Mandatory Palestine, Lichtenfeld joined the Haganah paramilitary organization. In 1944 Lichtenfeld began training fighters in his areas of expertise: physical fitness, swimming, wrestling, use of the knife, and defense against knife attacks. During this period, Lichtenfeld trained several elite units of the Haganah including Palmach (striking force of the Haganah and forerunner of the special units of the Israel Defense Forces) and the Pal-Yam, as well as groups of police officers.


title: Krav Maga

text: In 1948, when the State of Israel was founded and the IDF was formed, Lichtenfeld became Chief Instructor for Physical Fitness and Krav Maga at the IDF School of Combat Fitness. He served in the IDF for about 20 years, during which time he developed and refined his unique method for self-defense and hand-to-hand combat. Self-defense was not a new concept, since nearly all martial arts had developed some form of defensive techniques in their quest for tournament or sport dominance. However, self-defense was based strictly upon the scientific and dynamic principles of the human body. In 1965 judo training was added as part of the Krav Maga training. Until 1968 there were no grades in Krav Maga. Then a trainee's grades were determined largely by his knowledge in judo.


title: Krav Maga

text: In 1968 Eli Avikzar, Lichtenfeld's principal student and first black belt, began learning aikido. In 1971 Eli left for France, where he received a black belt in aikido. Upon his return, Avikzar started working as an instructor alongside Imi to integrate more traditional martial arts into krav maga. Then in 1974 Imre retired and gave Eli Avikzar control over the Krav Maga training center in Netanya. Shortly after, in 1976, Avikzar joined the permanent force of IDF, as head of the Krav Maga section. The role of Krav Maga in the army advanced greatly after Eli's appointment. More courses were given and every P.E. instructor was obliged to learn Krav Maga. Avikzar continued to develop Krav Maga within the IDF until his retirement in 1987. Up to this date, Eli had trained 80,000 male soldiers and 12,000 female soldiers.


title: Krav Maga

text: Further pursuing excellence as a student of martial arts, Eli went to Germany in 1977 and received a black belt in aikido from the European Federation. In 1978 the Krav Maga association was established, and in 1989, as an active member of the judo association, Eli Avikzar helped to establish the professional and rank committees by founding the Israeli Krav Maga Association (IKMA or KAMI). Eli retired as the Chief Krav Maga instructor in 1987 and Boaz Aviram became the third person to hold the position, being the last head instructor to have studied directly with both Lichtenfeld and Avikzar.


title: Krav Maga

text: The IDF offers a five-week Krav Maga instructor course. It has held an annual Krav Maga competition since May 2013.


title: Krav Maga

text: Upon Imi Lichtenfeld's retirement from the IDF, he decided to open a school and teach Krav Maga to civilians.


title: Krav Maga

text: The first Krav Maga course took place at the Wingate Institute, Netanya, Israel, in 1971, under his direct supervision.


title: Krav Maga

text: Most of the Krav Maga organizations in Israel use Imi Lichtenfeld's colored belt grading system which is based upon the Judo ranking system. It starts with white belt, and then yellow, orange, green, blue, brown and black belts. Black belt students can move up the ranks from 1st to 9th Dan. The time and requirements for advancing have some differences between the organizations.


title: Krav Maga

text: A patch system was developed by Eyal Yanilov in the late 1980s. The grades are divided into three main categories; Practitioner, Graduate and Expert. Each of the categories, which are often abbreviated to their initials, has five ranks. Grades P1 through to P5 are the student levels and make up the majority of the Krav Maga community. After P5 are G1-G5, and in order to achieve Graduate level the student has to demonstrate a proficiency in all of the P level techniques before advancing.


title: Krav Maga

text: Although there are some subtle differences, the various organizations teach the same core techniques and principles. Some other organizations have less formal grading ranks without belts or patches but do have levels by which students can monitor their progress.


title: Krav Maga

text: In some organizations sparring is slow and light until the student reaches G2 level. This takes approximately four to six years because rising one level in the Practitioner and Graduate categories takes at minimum half a year of consistent training. It is, however, more common to observe regular trainees grading only once a year from P3 and up.


title: Jayam Ravi

text: Mohan Ravi (born 10 September 1980), better known by his stage name Jayam Ravi, is an Indian actor who works in the Tamil film industry. He has won a Filmfare Award and three SIIMA Awards. The son of veteran film editor A. Mohan, Ravi made his debut as a Child artist in the Telugu film "Bava Bavamaridi" (1993), produced by his father.


title: Jayam Ravi

text: The success of a later film "Jayam" prompted the title to become a prefix to his stage name, and he continued to collaborate with his brother for other films including "M. Kumaran S/O Mahalakshmi" (2004), "Unakkum Enakkum" (2006), "Santhosh Subramaniam" (2008) and "Thani Oruvan" (2015).


title: Jayam Ravi

text: Jayam Ravi was born as Mohan Ravi in Tirumangalam, Madurai. His father is the veteran film editor A. Mohan, a Tamil Rowther. his elder brother Mohan Raja is a film director, with most of his films featuring Ravi in the lead role, while his sister Roja is a dentist. Ravi grew up in both Chennai and Hyderabad. He completed his schooling at Jawahar Vidyalaya in Ashok Nagar, Chennai. He studied dancing under the Bharatnatyam dancer Nalini Balakrishnan and performed his arangetram at the age of 12. After completing his degree in Visual Communication from Loyola College, Chennai, he decided to get into the film industry. He also trained in acting at the Kishore Namit Kapur Institute in Mumbai. Before debuting as an actor, Ravi had been an assistant director to Suresh Krishna for "Aalavandhan" (2001), starring Kamal Haasan. His mother is Telugu who hails from Andhra Pradesh.


title: Jayam Ravi

text: Ravi acted as a child actor in two Telugu films: "Bava Bavamaridi" and "Palnati Pourusham", which were produced by his father. Jayam Ravi made his acting debut in the action-masala film "Jayam", produced by his father and directed by his brother Mohan Raja. It was a remake of the 2002 Telugu film of the same name. His next venture was the sentimental drama "M. Kumaran Son Of Mahalakshmi" (2004), the remade version of the Telugu film "Amma Nanna O Tamila Ammayi", in which he starred alongside Asin Thottumkal. Of Ravi's performance, a critic from Sify wrote that he "makes you want to see more of him", while "The Hindu"s Malathi Rangarajan noted that he came out with an "appreciable portrayal throughout". The film, considered a family entertainer, received the Tamil Nadu State Film Special Award for Best Film and fetched Ravi himself the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Actor. It also emerged a financial success.


title: Jayam Ravi

text: His next release, "Daas" (2005), another action-masala flick, and his first original film following two remakes, featured him as a football player. The film took an even bigger opening than his previous ones. Sify's reviewer described his performance as "impressive", calling Ravi a "hundred percent convincing as an action hero". "Mazhai", a remake of the Telugu film "Varsham", was his other release that year, which was "lukewarm" at the box office.


title: Jayam Ravi

text: In 2006, he starred in Saran's "Idhaya Thirudan", which performed poorly at the box office, following which, he acted in "Unakkum Enakkum" (initially released and promoted as "Something Something Unakkum Enakkum"), again under his brother's direction in another remake of a Telugu film Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana. Ravi portrayed a rich, happy-go-lucky NRI from London, who has to live and fight for his love in dire conditions in a rural milieu. The film, which featured Trisha Krishnan alongside Ravi, became a high critical as well as financial success, emerging one of the highest-grossing and most-profitable films of the year. The N. Linguswamy-produced "Deepavali" under Ezhil's direction became his only 2007 release.


title: Jayam Ravi

text: In 2008, Ravi appeared in three films. Following a cameo appearance in "Velli Thirai", he acted in the family drama "Santhosh Subramaniam", once again under his brother's direction in a remake. In the Tamil version of the 2006 Telugu film "Bommarillu", starring opposite Genelia D'Souza, he played a young man, whose choices and wishes are continually subdued by his father. Ravi received a nomination for the Best Tamil Actor Award at the 56th Filmfare Awards South. Next, he starred in the action thriller "Dhaam Dhoom", directed by cinematographer-director Jeeva, who died in the midst of the film's shooting in Russia. Completed by Jeeva's assistant Manikandan, his wife Aneez Tanveer and his guru P. C. Sreeram, "Dhaam Dhoom" released in mid-2008 in which he portrayed Gautham Subramaniyam, a man accused in a murder he did not commit. Sify's reviewer wrote that he was "simply amazing in his role", label the film as an "out and out Jayam Ravi movie", while Indiaglitz noted that Ravi was "probably the perfect choice to play the character".


title: Jayam Ravi

text: In 2009, he starred in the action-adventure film "Peranmai". In 2010, he starred in the action-comedy "Thillalangadi", a remake of the 2009 Telugu-language film "Kick". In 2011, he starred in the romantic drama "Engeyum Kaadhal". In 2013, he starred in the action film "Ameerin Aadhi-Bhagavan". In 2014, he starred in the action film "Nimirndhu Nil", which was also shot simultaneously in Telugu as "Janda Pai Kapiraju" with Nani in the lead.


title: Jayam Ravi

text: In 2015, Ravi appeared in four films: the romantic comedy "Romeo Juliet", the action-comedy "Sakalakala Vallavan", the action-thriller "Thani Oruvan" (directed by his brother Mohan Raja) and the sports action film "Bhooloham". In 2016, he starred in the action-horror film "Miruthan" revolving around a zombie apocalypse. In 2017, he appeared in the action-thriller "Bogan" (reuniting with actor Arvind Swami after "Thani Oruvan") and the action-adventure film "Vanamagan".


title: Jayam Ravi

text: In 2018, he starred in the sci-fi action film "Tik Tik Tik" (considered as India's first space film) and the action-thriller "Adanga Maru". In 2019, he made a cameo in the adventure film "Thumbaa" and starred as the lead in the comedy film "Comali".


title: Jayam Ravi

text: In 2021, he made his debut in OTT platforms through his 25th film "Bhoomi". He was seen in Mani Ratnam's Magnum Opus "" as Arulmozhivarman who later became the great Chola Emperor Raja Raja Chola.


title: Jayam Ravi

text: He has been married to Aarti, daughter of noted television producer Sujatha Vijayakumar since 2009. They have two sons: Aarav (born on 29 June 2010) and Ayaan (born 10 August 2014). Aarav played a role in his film "Tik Tik Tik" (2018)."


title: Sputnik 1

text: Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for three weeks before its three silver-zinc batteries ran out, and continued in orbit for three months until aerodynamic drag caused it to fall back into the atmosphere on 4 January 1958.


title: Sputnik 1

text: It was a polished metal sphere in diameter with four external radio antennas to broadcast radio pulses. Its radio signal was easily detectable by amateur radio operators, and the 65° orbital inclination made its flight path cover virtually the entire inhabited Earth.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The satellite's unanticipated success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis and triggered the Space Race, part of the Cold War. The launch was the beginning of a new era of political, military, technological and scientific developments. The word "sputnik" is Russian for "satellite" when interpreted in an astronomical context; its other meanings are "spouse" or "traveling companion".


title: Sputnik 1

text: Tracking and studying Sputnik 1 from Earth provided scientists with valuable information. The density of the upper atmosphere could be deduced from its drag on the orbit, and the propagation of its radio signals gave data about the ionosphere.


title: Sputnik 1

text: Sputnik 1 was launched during the International Geophysical Year from Site No.1/5, at the 5th Tyuratam range, in Kazakh SSR (now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome). The satellite traveled at a peak speed of about , taking 96.20 minutes to complete each orbit. It transmitted on 20.005 and 40.002 MHz, which were monitored by radio operators throughout the world. The signals continued for 21 days until the transmitter batteries ran out on 26 October 1957. Sputnik 1 burned up on 4 January 1958 while reentering Earth's atmosphere, after three months, 1,440 completed orbits of the Earth, and a distance traveled of about .


title: Sputnik 1

text: , romanized as (), means 'Satellite-One'. The Russian word for satellite, , was coined in the 18th century by combining the prefix ('together') and ('traveler'), thereby meaning 'fellow traveler', a meaning corresponding to the Latin root ('guard, attendant or companion'), which is the origin of English "satellite". In the Russian language, "sputnik" is the general term for the artificial satellites of any country and the natural satellites of any planet.


title: Sputnik 1

text: On 17 December 1954, chief Soviet rocket scientist Sergei Korolev proposed a developmental plan for an artificial satellite to the Minister of the Defense Industry, Dimitri Ustinov. Korolev forwarded a report by Mikhail Tikhonravov, with an overview of similar projects abroad. Tikhonravov had emphasized that the launch of an orbital satellite was an inevitable stage in the development of rocket technology.


title: Sputnik 1

text: On 29 July 1955, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced through his press secretary that, during the International Geophysical Year (IGY), the United States would launch an artificial satellite. Four days later, Leonid Sedov, a leading Soviet physicist, announced that they too would launch an artificial satellite. On 8 August, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union approved the proposal to create an artificial satellite. On 30 August Vasily Ryabikov—the head of the State Commission on the R-7 rocket test launches—held a meeting where Korolev presented calculation data for a spaceflight trajectory to the Moon. They decided to develop a three-stage version of the R-7 rocket for satellite launches.


title: Sputnik 1

text: On 30 January 1956 the Council of Ministers approved practical work on an artificial Earth-orbiting satellite. This satellite, named "Object D", was planned to be completed in 1957–58; it would have a mass of and would carry of scientific instruments. The first test launch of "Object D" was scheduled for 1957. Work on the satellite was to be divided among institutions as follows:


title: Sputnik 1

text: Preliminary design work was completed in July 1956 and the scientific tasks to be carried out by the satellite were defined. These included measuring the density of the atmosphere and its ion composition, the solar wind, magnetic fields, and cosmic rays. This data would be valuable in the creation of future artificial satellites; a system of ground stations was to be developed to collect data transmitted by the satellite, observe the satellite's orbit, and transmit commands to the satellite. Because of the limited time frame, observations were planned for only 7 to 10 days and orbit calculations were not expected to be extremely accurate.


title: Sputnik 1

text: By the end of 1956 it became clear that the complexity of the ambitious design meant that 'Object D' could not be launched in time because of difficulties creating scientific instruments and the low specific impulse produced by the completed R-7 engines (304 sec instead of the planned 309 to 310 sec). Consequently, the government rescheduled the launch for April 1958. Object D would later fly as Sputnik 3.


title: Sputnik 1

text: Fearing the U.S. would launch a satellite before the USSR, OKB-1 suggested the creation and launch of a satellite in April–May 1957, before the IGY began in July 1957. The new satellite would be simple, light (), and easy to construct, forgoing the complex, heavy scientific equipment in favour of a simple radio transmitter. On 15 February 1957 the Council of Ministers of the USSR approved this simple satellite, designated 'Object PS'. This version allowed the satellite to be tracked visually by Earth-based observers, and it could transmit tracking signals to ground-based receiving stations. The launch of two satellites, PS-1 and PS-2, with two R-7 rockets (8K71), was approved, provided that the R-7 completed at least two successful test flights.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The R-7 rocket was initially designed as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by OKB-1. The decision to build it was made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on 20 May 1954. The rocket was the most powerful in the world; it was designed with excess thrust since they were unsure how heavy the hydrogen bomb payload would be. The R-7 was also known by its GRAU (later GURVO, the Russian abbreviation for "Chief Directorate of the Rocket Forces") designation 8K71. At the time, the R-7 was known to NATO sources as the T-3 or M-104, and Type A. A special reconnaissance commission selected Tyuratam for the construction of a rocket proving ground, the 5th Tyuratam range, usually referred to as "NIIP-5", or "GIK-5" in the post-Soviet time. The selection was approved on 12 February 1955 by the Council of Ministers of the USSR, but the site would not be completed until 1958. Actual work on the construction of the site began on 20 July by military building units. On 14 June 1956, Korolev decided to adapt the R-7 rocket to the 'Object D' (Sputnik 3), that would later be replaced by the much lighter 'Object PS' (Sputnik 1).


title: Sputnik 1

text: The first launch of an R-7 rocket (8K71 No.5L) occurred on 15 May 1957. A fire began in the Blok D strap-on almost immediately at liftoff, but the booster continued flying until 98 seconds after launch when the strap-on broke away and the vehicle crashed some downrange. Three attempts to launch the second rocket (8K71 No.6) were made on 10–11 June, but an assembly defect prevented launch. The unsuccessful launch of the third R-7 rocket (8K71 No.7) took place on 12 July. An electrical short caused the vernier engines to put the missile into an uncontrolled roll which resulted in all of the strap-ons separating 33 seconds into the launch. The R-7 crashed about from the pad.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The launch of the fourth rocket (8K71 No.8), on 21 August at 15:25 Moscow Time, was successful. The rocket's core boosted the dummy warhead to the target altitude and velocity, reentered the atmosphere, and broke apart at a height of after traveling . On 27 August, the TASS issued a statement on the successful launch of a long-distance multistage ICBM. The launch of the fifth R-7 rocket (8K71 No.9), on 7 September, was also successful, but the dummy was also destroyed on atmospheric re-entry, and hence needed a redesign to completely fulfill its military purpose. The rocket, however, was deemed suitable for satellite launches, and Korolev was able to convince the State Commission to allow the use of the next R-7 to launch PS-1, allowing the delay in the rocket's military exploitation to launch the PS-1 and PS-2 satellites.


title: Sputnik 1

text: On 22 September a modified R-7 rocket, named Sputnik and indexed as 8K71PS, arrived at the proving ground and preparations for the launch of PS-1 began. Compared to the military R-7 test vehicles, the mass of 8K71PS was reduced from 280 t to 272 t, its length with PS-1 was and the thrust at liftoff was .


title: Sputnik 1

text: PS-1 was not designed to be controlled; it could only be observed. Initial data at the launch site would be collected at six separate observatories and telegraphed to NII-4. Located back in Moscow (at Bolshevo), NII-4 was a scientific research arm of the Ministry of Defence that was dedicated to missile development. The six observatories were clustered around the launch site, with the closest situated from the launch pad.


title: Sputnik 1

text: A second, nationwide observation complex was established to track the satellite after its separation from the rocket. Called the Command-Measurement Complex, it consisted of the coordination center in NII-4 and seven distant stations situated along the line of the satellite's ground track. These tracking stations were located at Tyuratam, Sary-Shagan, Yeniseysk, Klyuchi, Yelizovo, Makat in Guryev Oblast, and Ishkup in Krasnoyarsk Krai. Stations were equipped with radar, optical instruments, and communications systems. Data from stations were transmitted by telegraphs into NII-4 where ballistics specialists calculated orbital parameters.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The observatories used a trajectory measurement system called "Tral", developed by OKB MEI (Moscow Energy Institute), by which they received and monitored data from transponders mounted on the R-7 rocket's core stage. The data was useful even after the satellite's separation from the second stage of the rocket; Sputnik's location was calculated from the data on the second stage's location which followed Sputnik at a known distance. Tracking of the booster during launch had to be accomplished through purely passive means such as visual coverage and radar detection. R-7 test launches demonstrated that the tracking cameras were only good up to an altitude of , but radar could track it for almost .


title: Sputnik 1

text: Outside the Soviet Union, the satellite was tracked by amateur radio operators in many countries. The booster rocket was located and tracked by the British using the Lovell Telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory, the only telescope in the world able to do so by radar. Canada's Newbrook Observatory was the first facility in North America to photograph Sputnik 1.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The chief constructor of Sputnik 1 at OKB-1 was Mikhail S. Khomyakov. The satellite was a diameter sphere, assembled from two hemispheres that were hermetically sealed with O-rings and connected by 36 bolts. It had a mass of . The hemispheres were 2 mm thick, and were covered with a highly polished 1 mm-thick heat shield made of an aluminium–magnesium–titanium alloy, AMG6T. The satellite carried two pairs of antennas designed by the Antenna Laboratory of OKB-1, led by Mikhail V. Krayushkin. Each antenna was made up of two whip-like parts, in length, and had an almost spherical radiation pattern.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The power supply, with a mass of , was in the shape of an octagonal nut with the radio transmitter in its hole. It consisted of three silver-zinc batteries, developed at the All-Union Research Institute of Power Sources (VNIIT) under the leadership of Nikolai S. Lidorenko. Two of these batteries powered the radio transmitter and one powered the temperature regulation system. The batteries had an expected lifetime of two weeks, and operated for 22 days. The power supply was turned on automatically at the moment of the satellite's separation from the second stage of the rocket.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The satellite had a one-watt, radio transmitting unit inside, developed by Vyacheslav I. Lappo from "NII-885", the Moscow Electronics Research Institute, that worked on two frequencies, 20.005 and 40.002 MHz. Signals on the first frequency were transmitted in 0.3 s pulses (near f = 3 Hz) (under normal temperature and pressure conditions on board), with pauses of the same duration filled by pulses on the second frequency. Analysis of the radio signals was used to gather information about the electron density of the ionosphere. Temperature and pressure were encoded in the duration of radio beeps. A temperature regulation system contained a fan, a dual thermal switch, and a control thermal switch. If the temperature inside the satellite exceeded , the fan was turned on; when it fell below , the fan was turned off by the dual thermal switch. If the temperature exceeded or fell below , another control thermal switch was activated, changing the duration of the radio signal pulses. Sputnik "1" was filled with dry nitrogen, pressurized to . The satellite had a barometric switch, activated if the pressure inside the satellite fell below 130 kPa, which would have indicated failure of the pressure vessel or puncture by a meteor, and would have changed the duration of radio signal impulse.


title: Sputnik 1

text: While attached to the rocket, Sputnik 1 was protected by a cone-shaped payload fairing, with a height of . The fairing separated from both Sputnik and the spent R-7 second stage at the same time as the satellite was ejected. Tests of the satellite were conducted at OKB-1 under the leadership of Oleg G. Ivanovsky.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The control system of the Sputnik rocket was adjusted to an intended orbit of , with an orbital period of 101.5 minutes. The trajectory had been calculated earlier by Georgi Grechko, using the USSR Academy of Sciences' mainframe computer.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The Sputnik rocket was launched on 4 October 1957 at 19:28:34 UTC (5 October at the launch site) from Site No.1 at NIIP-5. Telemetry indicated that the strap-ons separated 116 seconds into the flight and the core stage engine shut down 295.4 seconds into the flight. At shutdown, the 7.5-tonne core stage (with PS-1 attached) had attained an altitude of above sea level, a velocity of , and a velocity vector inclination to the local horizon of 0 degrees 24 minutes. This resulted in an initial orbit of by , with an apogee approximately lower than intended, and an inclination of 65.10° and a period of 96.20 minutes.


title: Sputnik 1

text: A fuel regulator in the booster also failed around 16 seconds into launch, which resulted in excessive RP-1 consumption for most of the powered flight and the engine thrust being 4% above nominal. Core stage cutoff was intended for T+296 seconds, but the premature propellant depletion caused thrust termination to occur one second earlier when a sensor detected overspeed of the empty RP-1 turbopump. There were of LOX remaining at cutoff.


title: Sputnik 1

text: At 19.9 seconds after engine cut-off, PS-1 separated from the second stage and the satellite's transmitter was activated. These signals were detected at the IP-1 station by Junior Engineer-Lieutenant V.G. Borisov, where reception of Sputnik 1's "beep-beep-beep" tones confirmed the satellite's successful deployment. Reception lasted for 2 minutes, until PS-1 fell below the horizon. The Tral telemetry system on the R-7 core stage continued to transmit and was detected on its second orbit.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The designers, engineers and technicians who developed the rocket and satellite watched the launch from the range. After the launch they drove to the mobile radio station to listen for signals from the satellite. They waited about 90 minutes to ensure that the satellite had made one orbit and was transmitting before Korolev called Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev.


title: Sputnik 1

text: On the first orbit the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) transmitted: "As result of great, intense work of scientific institutes and design bureaus the first artificial Earth satellite has been built". The R-7 core stage, with a mass of 7.5 tonnes and a length of 26 metres, also reached Earth orbit. It was a first magnitude object following behind the satellite and visible at night. Deployable reflective panels were placed on the booster in order to increase its visibility for tracking. A small highly polished sphere, the satellite was barely visible at sixth magnitude, and thus harder to follow optically. The batteries ran out on 26 October 1957, after the satellite completed 326 orbits.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The core stage of the R-7 remained in orbit for two months until 2 December 1957, while Sputnik 1 orbited for three months, until 4 January 1958, having completed 1,440 orbits of the Earth.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The Soviets provided details of Sputnik 1 before the launch, but few outside the Soviet Union noticed. After reviewing information publicly available before the launch, the science writer Willy Ley wrote in 1958: Organized through the citizen science project Operation Moonwatch, teams of visual observers at 150 stations in the United States and other countries were alerted during the night to watch for the satellite at dawn and during the evening twilight as it passed overhead. The USSR requested amateur and professional radio operators to tape record the signal being transmitted from the satellite.


title: Sputnik 1

text: News reports at the time pointed out that "anyone possessing a short wave receiver can hear the new Russian earth satellite as it hurtles over this area of the globe." Directions, provided by the American Radio Relay League, were to "Tune in 20 megacycles sharply, by the time signals, given on that frequency. Then tune to slightly higher frequencies. The 'beep, beep' sound of the satellite can be heard each time it rounds the globe." The first recording of Sputnik 1's signal was made by RCA engineers near Riverhead, Long Island. They then drove the tape recording into Manhattan for broadcast to the public over NBC radio. However, as Sputnik rose higher over the East Coast, its signal was picked up by W2AEE, the ham radio station of Columbia University. Students working in the university's FM station, WKCR, made a tape of this, and were the first to rebroadcast the Sputnik signal to the American public (or whoever could receive the FM station).


title: Sputnik 1

text: The Soviet Union agreed to transmit on frequencies that worked with the United States' existing infrastructure, but later announced the lower frequencies. Asserting that the launch "did not come as a surprise", the White House refused to comment on any military aspects. On 5 October the Naval Research Laboratory captured recordings of Sputnik 1 during four crossings over the United States. The USAF Cambridge Research Center collaborated with Bendix-Friez, Westinghouse Broadcasting, and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory to obtain a video of Sputnik's rocket body crossing the pre-dawn sky of Baltimore, broadcast on 12 October by WBZ-TV in Boston.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The success of Sputnik 1 seemed to have changed minds around the world regarding a shift in power to the Soviets.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The USSR's launch of Sputnik 1 spurred the United States to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later DARPA) in February 1958 to regain a technological lead.


title: Sputnik 1

text: In Britain, the media and population initially reacted with a mixture of fear for the future, but also amazement about human progress. Many newspapers and magazines heralded the arrival of the Space Age. However, when the USSR launched Sputnik 2, containing the dog Laika, the media narrative returned to one of anti-Communism and many people sent protests to the Soviet embassy and the RSPCA.


title: Sputnik 1

text: Sputnik 1 was not immediately used for Soviet propaganda. The Soviets had kept quiet about their earlier accomplishments in rocketry, fearing that it would lead to secrets being revealed and failures being exploited by the West. When the Soviets began using Sputnik in their propaganda, they emphasized pride in the achievement of Soviet technology, arguing that it demonstrated the Soviets' superiority over the West. People were encouraged to listen to Sputnik's signals on the radio and to look out for Sputnik in the night sky. While Sputnik itself had been highly polished, its small size made it barely visible to the naked eye. What most watchers actually saw was the much more visible 26-metre core stage of the R-7. Shortly after the launch of PS-1, Khrushchev pressed Korolev to launch another satellite to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, on 7 November 1957.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The launch of Sputnik 1 surprised the American public, and shattered the perception created by American propaganda of the United States as the technological superpower, and the Soviet Union as a backward country. Privately, however, the CIA and President Eisenhower were aware of progress being made by the Soviets on Sputnik from secret spy plane imagery. Together with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Army Ballistic Missile Agency built Explorer 1, and launched it on 31 January 1958. Before work was completed, however, the Soviet Union launched a second satellite, Sputnik 2, on 3 November 1957. Meanwhile, the televised failure of "Vanguard TV-3" on 6 December 1957 deepened American dismay over the country's position in the Space Race. The Americans took a more aggressive stance in the emerging space race, resulting in an emphasis on science and technological research, and reforms in many areas from the military to education systems. The federal government began investing in science, engineering, and mathematics at all levels of education. An advanced research group was assembled for military purposes. These research groups developed weapons such as ICBMs and missile defense systems, as well as spy satellites for the U.S.


title: Sputnik 1

text: Initially, U.S. President Eisenhower was not surprised by Sputnik 1. He had been forewarned of the R-7's capabilities by information derived from U-2 spy plane overflight photos, as well as signals and telemetry intercepts. The Eisenhower administration's first response was low-key and almost dismissive. Eisenhower was even pleased that the USSR, not the U.S., would be the first to test the waters of the still-uncertain legal status of orbital satellite overflights. Eisenhower had suffered the Soviet protests and shoot-downs of Project Genetrix (Moby Dick) balloons and was concerned about the probability of a U-2 being shot down. To set a precedent for "freedom of space" before the launch of America's secret WS-117L spy satellites, the U.S. had launched Project Vanguard as its own "civilian" satellite entry for the International Geophysical Year. Eisenhower greatly underestimated the reaction of the American public, who were shocked by the launch of Sputnik and by the televised failure of the Vanguard Test Vehicle 3 launch attempt. The sense of anxiety was inflamed by Democratic politicians and professional cold warriors, who portrayed the United States as woefully behind. One of the many books that suddenly appeared for the lay-audience noted seven points of "impact" upon the nation: Western leadership, Western strategy and tactics, missile production, applied research, basic research, education, and democratic culture. As public and the government became interested in space and related science and technology, the phenomenon was sometimes dubbed the "Sputnik craze".


title: Sputnik 1

text: The U.S. soon had a number of successful satellites, including Explorer 1, Project SCORE, and Courier 1B. However, public reaction to the Sputnik crisis spurred America to action in the Space Race, leading to the creation of both the Advanced Research Projects Agency (renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, in 1972), and NASA (through the National Aeronautics and Space Act), as well as increased U.S. government spending on scientific research and education through the National Defense Education Act.


title: Sputnik 1

text: Sputnik also contributed directly to a new emphasis on science and technology in American schools. With a sense of urgency, Congress enacted the 1958 National Defense Education Act, which provided low-interest loans for college tuition to students majoring in mathematics and science. After the launch of Sputnik, a poll conducted and published by the University of Michigan showed that 26% of Americans surveyed thought that Russian sciences and engineering were superior to that of the United States. (A year later, however, that figure had dropped to 10% as the U.S. began launching its own satellites into space.)


title: Sputnik 1

text: One consequence of the Sputnik shock was the perception of a "missile gap". This became a dominant issue in the 1960 Presidential campaign.


title: Sputnik 1

text: One irony of the Sputnik event was the initially low-key response of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party newspaper "Pravda" only printed a few paragraphs about Sputnik 1 on 4 October.


title: Sputnik 1

text: Sputnik also inspired a generation of engineers and scientists. Harrison Storms, the North American designer who was responsible for the X-15 rocket plane, and went on to head the effort to design the Apollo command and service module and Saturn V launch vehicle's second stage, was moved by the launch of Sputnik to think of space as being the next step for America. Astronauts Alan Shepard (who was the first American in space) and Deke Slayton later wrote of how the sight of Sputnik 1 passing overhead inspired them to their new careers.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The launch of Sputnik 1 led to the resurgence of the suffix "-nik" in the English language. The American writer Herb Caen was inspired to coin the term "beatnik" in an article about the Beat Generation in the "San Francisco Chronicle" on 2 April 1958.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The flag of the Russian city of Kaluga, (which, due to it being Konstantin Tsiolkovsky's birthplace, is very dedicated to space and space travel) features a small Sputnik in the canton.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The launch of Sputnik also planted the seeds for the development of modern satellite navigation. Two American physicists, William Guier and George Weiffenbach, at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) decided to monitor Sputnik's radio transmissions and within hours realized that, because of the Doppler effect, they could pinpoint where the satellite was along its orbit. The Director of the APL gave them access to their UNIVAC computer to do the then heavy calculations required.


title: Sputnik 1

text: Early the next year, Frank McClure, the deputy director of the APL, asked Guier and Weiffenbach to investigate the inverse problem: pinpointing the user's location, given the satellite's. At the time, the Navy was developing the submarine-launched Polaris missile, which required them to know the submarine's location. This led them and APL to develop the TRANSIT system, a forerunner of modern Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites.


title: Sputnik 1

text: At least two vintage duplicates of Sputnik 1 exist, built apparently as backup units. One resides just outside Moscow in the corporate museum of Energia, the modern descendant of Korolev's design bureau, where it is on display by appointment only. Another is in the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington. Unlike Energia's unit, it has no internal components, but it does have casings and molded fittings inside (as well as evidence of battery wear), which suggests it was built as more than just a model. Authenticated by the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics in Moscow, the unit was auctioned in 2001 and purchased by an anonymous private buyer, who donated it to the museum. Two more Sputnik backups are said to be in the personal collections of American entrepreneurs Richard Garriott and Jay S. Walker.


title: Sputnik 1

text: In 1959, the Soviet Union donated a replica of Sputnik to the United Nations. There are other full-size Sputnik replicas (with varying degrees of accuracy) on display in locations around the world, including the National Air and Space Museum in the United States, the Science Museum in the United Kingdom, the Powerhouse Museum in Australia, and outside the Russian embassy in Spain.


title: Sputnik 1

text: Three one-third scale student-built replicas of Sputnik 1 were deployed from the Mir space station between 1997 and 1999. The first, named Sputnik 40 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, was deployed in November 1997. Sputnik 41 was launched a year later, and Sputnik 99 was deployed in February 1999. A fourth replica was launched, but never deployed, and was destroyed when Mir was deorbited.


title: Sputnik 1

text: The Sputnik 1 EMC/EMI is a class of full-scale laboratory models of the satellite. The models, manufactured by OKB-1 and NII-885 (headed by Mikhail Ryazansky), were introduced on February 15, 1957. They were made to test ground electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) and electromagnetic interference (EMI).


title: Apollo 1

text: Apollo 1, initially designated AS-204, was intended to be the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, the American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon. It was planned to launch on February 21, 1967, as the first low Earth orbital test of the Apollo command and service module. The mission never flew; a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal test at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34 on January 27 killed all three crew members—Command Pilot Gus Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee—and destroyed the command module (CM). The name Apollo 1, chosen by the crew, was made official by NASA in their honor after the fire.


title: Apollo 1

text: Immediately after the fire, NASA convened an Accident Review Board to determine the cause of the fire, and both chambers of the United States Congress conducted their own committee inquiries to oversee NASA's investigation. The ignition source of the fire was determined to be electrical, and the fire spread rapidly due to combustible nylon material and the high-pressure pure oxygen cabin atmosphere. Rescue was prevented by the plug door hatch, which could not be opened against the internal pressure of the cabin. Because the rocket was unfueled, the test had not been considered hazardous, and emergency preparedness for it was poor.


title: Apollo 1

text: During the Congressional investigation, Senator Walter Mondale publicly revealed a NASA internal document citing problems with prime Apollo contractor North American Aviation, which became known as the Phillips Report. This disclosure embarrassed NASA Administrator James E. Webb, who was unaware of the document's existence, and attracted controversy to the Apollo program. Despite congressional displeasure at NASA's lack of openness, both congressional committees ruled that the issues raised in the report had no bearing on the accident.


title: Apollo 1

text: Crewed Apollo flights were suspended for twenty months while the command module's hazards were addressed. However, the development and uncrewed testing of the lunar module (LM) and Saturn V rocket continued. The Saturn IB launch vehicle for Apollo1, SA-204, was used for the first LM test flight, Apollo 5. The first successful crewed Apollo mission was flown by Apollo1's backup crew on Apollo 7 in October 1968.


title: Apollo 1

text: AS-204 was to be the first crewed test flight of the Apollo command and service module (CSM) to Earth orbit, launched on a Saturn IB rocket. AS-204 was to test launch operations, ground tracking and control facilities and the performance of the Apollo-Saturn launch assembly and would have lasted up to two weeks, depending on how the spacecraft performed.


title: Apollo 1

text: The CSM for this flight, number 012 built by North American Aviation (NAA), was a Block I version designed before the lunar orbit rendezvous landing strategy was chosen; therefore it lacked capability of docking with the lunar module. This was incorporated into the Block II CSM design, along with lessons learned in Block I. Block II would be test-flown with the LM when the latter was ready.


title: Apollo 1

text: Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton selected the first Apollo crew in January 1966, with Grissom as Command Pilot, White as Senior Pilot, and rookie Donn F. Eisele as Pilot. But Eisele dislocated his shoulder twice aboard the KC135 weightlessness training aircraft, and had to undergo surgery on January 27. Slayton replaced him with Chaffee, and NASA announced the crew selection on March 21, 1966. James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart were named as the backup crew.


title: Apollo 1

text: On September 29, Walter Schirra, Eisele, and Walter Cunningham were named as the prime crew for a second Block I CSM flight, AS-205. NASA planned to follow this with an uncrewed test flight of the LM (AS-206), then the third crewed mission would be a dual flight designated AS-278 (or AS-207/208), in which AS-207 would launch the first crewed Block II CSM, which would then rendezvous and dock with the LM launched uncrewed on AS-208.


title: Apollo 1

text: In March, NASA was studying the possibility of flying the first Apollo mission as a joint space rendezvous with the final Project Gemini mission, Gemini 12 in November 1966. But by May, delays in making Apollo ready for flight just by itself, and the extra time needed to incorporate compatibility with the Gemini, made that impractical. This became moot when slippage in readiness of the AS-204 spacecraft caused the last-quarter 1966 target date to be missed, and the mission was rescheduled for February 21, 1967.


title: Apollo 1

text: In October 1966, NASA announced the flight would carry a small television camera to broadcast live from the command module. The camera would also be used to allow flight controllers to monitor the spacecraft's instrument panel in flight. Television cameras were carried aboard all crewed Apollo missions.


title: Apollo 1

text: Grissom's crew received approval in June 1966 to design a mission patch with the name "Apollo1" (though the approval was subsequently withdrawn pending a final decision on the mission designation, which was not resolved until after the fire). The design's center depicts a command and service module flying over the southeastern United States with Florida (the launch point) prominent. The Moon is seen in the distance, symbolic of the eventual program goal. A yellow border carries the mission and astronaut names with another border set with stars and stripes, trimmed in gold. The insignia was designed by the crew, with the artwork done by North American Aviation employee Allen Stevens.


title: Apollo 1

text: The Apollo command and service module was much bigger and far more complex than any previous manned spacecraft. In October 1963, Joseph F. Shea was named Apollo Spacecraft Program Office (ASPO) manager, responsible for managing the design and construction of both the CSM and the LM.


title: Apollo 1

text: In a spacecraft review meeting held with Shea on August 19, 1966 (a week before delivery), the crew expressed concern about the amount of flammable material (mainly nylon netting and Velcro) in the cabin, which both astronauts and technicians found convenient for holding tools and equipment in place. Although Shea gave the spacecraft a passing grade, after the meeting they gave him a crew portrait they had posed with heads bowed and hands clasped in prayer, with the inscription:


title: Apollo 1

text: Shea gave his staff orders to tell North American to remove the flammables from the cabin, but did not supervise the issue personally.


title: Apollo 1

text: North American shipped spacecraft CM-012 to Kennedy Space Center on August 26, 1966, under a conditional Certificate of Flight Worthiness: 113 significant incomplete planned engineering changes had to be completed at KSC. But that was not all; an additional 623 engineering change orders were made and completed after delivery. Grissom became so frustrated with the inability of the training simulator engineers to keep up with the spacecraft changes, that he took a lemon from a tree by his house and hung it on the simulator.


title: Apollo 1

text: The command and service modules were mated in the KSC altitude chamber in September, and combined system testing was performed. Altitude testing was performed first uncrewed, then with both the prime and backup crews, from October 10 through December 30. During this testing, the environmental control unit in the command module was found to have a design flaw, and was sent back to the manufacturer for design changes and rework. The returned ECU then leaked water/glycol coolant, and had to be returned a second time. Also during this time, a propellant tank in another service module had ruptured during testing at NAA, prompting the removal from the KSC test chamber of the service module so it could be tested for signs of the tank problem. These tests were negative.


title: Apollo 1

text: In December the second Block I flight AS-205 was canceled as unnecessary; Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham were reassigned as the backup crew for Apollo1. McDivitt's crew was now promoted to prime crew of the Block II/LM mission, re-designated AS-258 because the AS-205 launch vehicle would be used in place of AS-207. A third crewed mission was planned to launch the CSM and LM together on a SaturnV (AS-503) to an elliptical medium Earth orbit (MEO), to be crewed by Frank Borman, Michael Collins and William Anders. McDivitt, Scott and Schweickart had started their training for AS-258 in CM-101 at the NAA plant in Downey, California, when the Apollo1 accident occurred.


title: Apollo 1

text: Once all outstanding CSM-012 hardware problems had been fixed, the reassembled spacecraft completed a successful altitude chamber test with Schirra's backup crew on December 30. According to the final report of the accident investigation board, "At the post-test debriefing the backup flight crew expressed their satisfaction with the condition and performance of the spacecraft." This would appear to contradict the account given in the 1994 book "Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo13" by Jeffrey Kluger and astronaut James Lovell, that "When the trio climbed out of the ship... Schirra made it clear that he was not pleased with what he had seen," and that he later warned Grissom and Shea that "there's nothing wrong with this ship that I can point to, but it just makes me uncomfortable. Something about it just doesn't ring right," and that Grissom should get out at the first sign of trouble.


title: Apollo 1

text: After the successful altitude tests, the spacecraft was removed from the altitude chamber on January 3, 1967, and mated to its Saturn IB launch vehicle on pad 34 on January 6.


title: Apollo 1

text: "I suppose that someday we are going to have a failure. In every other business there are failures, and they are bound to happen sooner or later", he added. Grissom was asked about the fear of potential catastrophe in a December 1966 interview:


title: Apollo 1

text: The launch simulation on January 27, 1967, on pad 34, was a "plugs-out" test to determine whether the spacecraft would operate nominally on (simulated) internal power while detached from all cables and umbilicals. Passing this test was essential to making the February 21 launch date. The test was considered non-hazardous because neither the launch vehicle nor the spacecraft was loaded with fuel or cryogenics and all pyrotechnic systems (explosive bolts) were disabled.


title: Apollo 1

text: At 1:00 pm EST (1800 GMT) on January 27, first Grissom, then Chaffee, and White entered the command module fully pressure-suited, and were strapped into their seats and hooked up to the spacecraft's oxygen and communication systems. Grissom immediately noticed a strange odor in the air circulating through his suit which he compared to "sour buttermilk", and the simulated countdown was put on hold at 1:20 pm, while air samples were taken. No cause of the odor could be found, and the countdown was resumed at 2:42 pm. The accident investigation found this odor not to be related to the fire.


title: Apollo 1

text: Three minutes after the count was resumed the hatch installation was started. The hatch consisted of three parts: a removable inner hatch which stayed inside the cabin; a hinged outer hatch which was part of the spacecraft's heat shield; and an outer hatch cover which was part of the boost protective cover enveloping the entire command module to protect it from aerodynamic heating during launch and from launch escape rocket exhaust in the event of a launch abort. The boost hatch cover was partially, but not fully, latched in place because the flexible boost protective cover was slightly distorted by some cabling run under it to provide the simulated internal power (the spacecraft's fuel cell reactants were not loaded for this test). After the hatches were sealed, the air in the cabin was replaced with pure oxygen at , higher than atmospheric pressure.


title: Apollo 1

text: Movement by the astronauts was detected by the spacecraft's inertial measurement unit and the astronauts' biomedical sensors, and also indicated by increases in oxygen spacesuit flow, and sounds from Grissom's stuck-open microphone. The stuck microphone was part of a problem with the communications loop connecting the crew, the Operations and Checkout Building, and the Complex 34 blockhouse control room. The poor communications led Grissom to remark: "How are we going to get to the Moon if we can't talk between two or three buildings?"


title: Apollo 1

text: The simulated countdown was put on hold again at 5:40 pm while attempts were made to troubleshoot the communications problem. All countdown functions up to the simulated internal power transfer had been successfully completed by 6:20 pm, and at 6:30 the count remained on hold at T minus 10 minutes.


title: Apollo 1

text: The crew members were using the time to run through their checklist again, when a momentary increase in AC Bus2 voltage occurred. Nine seconds later (at 6:31:04.7), one of the astronauts (some listeners and laboratory analysis indicate Grissom) exclaimed "Hey!", "Fire!", or "Flame!"; this was followed by two seconds of scuffling sounds through Grissom's open microphone. This was immediately followed at 6:31:06.2 (23:31:06.2 GMT) by someone (believed by most listeners, and supported by laboratory analysis, to be Chaffee) saying, "[I've, or We've] got a fire in the cockpit." After 6.8 seconds of silence, a second, badly garbled transmission was heard by various listeners as:


title: Apollo 1

text: Some blockhouse witnesses said that they saw White on the television monitors, reaching for the inner hatch release handle as flames in the cabin spread from left to right.


title: Apollo 1

text: The heat of the fire fed by pure oxygen caused the pressure to rise to , which ruptured the command module's inner wall at 6:31:19 (23:31:19 GMT, initial phase of the fire). Flames and gases then rushed outside the command module through open access panels to two levels of the pad service structure. The intense heat, dense smoke, and ineffective gas masks designed for toxic fumes rather than smoke, hampered the ground crew's attempts to rescue the men. There were fears the command module had exploded, or soon would, and that the fire might ignite the solid fuel rocket in the launch escape tower above the command module, which would have likely killed nearby ground personnel, and possibly have destroyed the pad.


title: Apollo 1

text: As the pressure was released by the cabin rupture, the rush of gases within the module caused flames to spread across the cabin, beginning the second phase. The third phase began when most of the oxygen was consumed and was replaced with atmospheric air, essentially quenching the fire, but causing high concentrations of carbon monoxide and heavy smoke to fill the cabin, and large amounts of soot to be deposited on surfaces as they cooled.


title: Apollo 1

text: It took five minutes for the pad workers to open all three hatch layers, and they could not drop the inner hatch to the cabin floor as intended, so they pushed it out of the way to one side. Although the cabin lights remained on, they were unable to see the astronauts through the dense smoke. As the smoke cleared they found the bodies, but were not able to remove them. The fire had partly melted Grissom's and White's nylon space suits and the hoses connecting them to the life support system. Grissom had removed his restraints and was lying on the floor of the spacecraft. White's restraints were burned through, and he was found lying sideways just below the hatch. It was determined that he had tried to open the hatch per the emergency procedure, but was not able to do so against the internal pressure. Chaffee was found strapped into his right-hand seat, as procedure called for him to maintain communication until White opened the hatch. Because of the large strands of melted nylon fusing the astronauts to the cabin interior, removing the bodies took nearly 90 minutes.


title: Apollo 1

text: Deke Slayton was possibly the first NASA official to examine the spacecraft interior. His testimony contradicted the official report concerning the position of Grissom's body. Slayton said of Grissom and White's bodies, "it is very difficult for me to determine the exact relationships of these two bodies. They were sort of jumbled together, and I couldn't really tell which head even belonged to which body at that point. I guess the only thing that was real obvious is that both bodies were at the lower edge of the hatch. They were not in the seats. They were almost completely clear of the seat areas."


title: Apollo 1

text: As a result of the in-flight failure of the Gemini 8 mission on March 17, 1966, NASA Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans wrote and implemented "Management Instruction 8621.1" on April 14, 1966, defining "Mission Failure Investigation Policy And Procedures". This modified NASA's existing accident procedures, based on military aircraft accident investigation, by giving the Deputy Administrator the option of performing independent investigations of major failures, beyond those for which the various Program Office officials were normally responsible. It declared, "It is NASA policy to investigate and document the causes of all major mission failures which occur in the conduct of its space and aeronautical activities and to take appropriate corrective actions as a result of the findings and recommendations."


title: Apollo 1

text: Immediately after thefire NASA Administrator James E. Webb asked President Lyndon B. Johnson to allow NASA to handle the investigation according to its established procedure, promising to be truthful in assessing blame, and to keep the appropriate leaders of Congress informed. Seamans then directed establishment of the "Apollo 204 Review Board" chaired by Langley Research Center director Floyd L. Thompson, which included astronaut Frank Borman, spacecraft designer Maxime Faget, and six others. On February 1, Cornell University professor Frank A. Long left the board, and was replaced by Robert W. Van Dolah of the U.S. Bureau of Mines. The next day North American's chief engineer for Apollo, George Jeffs, also left.


title: Apollo 1

text: Seamans ordered all Apollo1 hardware and software impounded, to be released only under control of the board. After thorough stereo photographic documentation of the CM-012 interior, the board ordered its disassembly using procedures tested by disassembling the identical CM-014 and conducted a thorough investigation of every part. The board also reviewed the astronauts' autopsy results and interviewed witnesses. Seamans sent Webb weekly status reports of the investigation's progress, and the board issued its final report on April 5, 1967.


title: Apollo 1

text: According to the Board, Grissom suffered severe third-degree burns on over one-third of his body and his spacesuit was mostly destroyed. White suffered third-degree burns on almost half of his body and a quarter of his spacesuit had melted away. Chaffee suffered third-degree burns over almost a quarter of his body and a small portion of his spacesuit was damaged. The autopsy report determined that the primary cause of death for all three astronauts was cardiac arrest caused by high concentrations of carbon monoxide. Burns suffered by the crew were not believed to be major factors, and it was concluded that most of them had occurred postmortem. Asphyxiation occurred after the fire melted the astronauts' suits and oxygen tubes, exposing them to the lethal atmosphere of the cabin.


title: Apollo 1

text: The review board identified several major factors which combined to cause the fire and the astronauts' deaths:


title: Apollo 1

text: The review board determined that the electrical power momentarily failed at 23:30:55 GMT, and found evidence of several electric arcs in the interior equipment. They were unable to conclusively identify a single ignition source. They determined that the fire most likely started near the floor in the lower left section of the cabin, close to the Environmental Control Unit. It spread from the left wall of the cabin to the right, with the floor being affected only briefly.


title: Apollo 1

text: The board noted that a silver-plated copper wire, running through an environmental control unit near the center couch, had become stripped of its Teflon insulation and abraded by repeated opening and closing of a small access door.


title: Apollo 1

text: This weak point in the wiring also ran near a junction in an ethylene glycol/water cooling line that had been prone to leaks. Electrolysis of ethylene glycol solution with the silver anode of the wire was discovered at the Manned Spacecraft Center on May 29, 1967 to be a hazard capable of causing a violent exothermic reaction, igniting the ethylene glycol mixture in the Command Module's pure oxygen atmosphere. Experiments at the Illinois Institute of Technology confirmed the hazard existed for silver-plated wires, but not for copper-only or nickel-plated copper. In July, ASPO directed both North American and Grumman to ensure no silver or silver-coated electrical contacts existed in the vicinity of possible glycol spills in the Apollo spacecraft.


title: Apollo 1

text: The plugs-out test had been run to simulate the launch procedure, with the cabin pressurized with pure oxygen at the nominal launch level of , above standard sea level atmospheric pressure. This is more than five times the partial pressure of oxygen in the atmosphere, and provides an environment in which materials not normally considered flammable will be highly flammable and burst into flame.


title: Apollo 1

text: The high-pressure oxygen atmosphere was similar to that which had been used successfully in the Mercury and Gemini programs. The pressure before launch was deliberately greater than ambient in order to drive out the nitrogen-containing air and replace it with pure oxygen, and also to seal the plug door hatch cover. During the launch, the pressure would have been gradually reduced to the in-flight level of , providing sufficient oxygen for the astronauts to breathe while reducing the fire risk. The Apollo1 crew had successfully tested this procedure with their spacecraft in the Operations and Checkout Building altitude (vacuum) chamber on October 18 and 19, 1966, and the backup crew of Schirra, Eisele and Cunningham had repeated it on December 30. The investigation board noted that, during these tests, the command module had been fully pressurized with pure oxygen four times, for a total of six hours and fifteen minutes, two and a half hours longer than it had been during the plugs-out test.