The Globus INK: a mechanical navigation computer for Soviet spaceflight (2023) | Hacker News Reader

The Globus INK: a mechanical navigation computer for Soviet spaceflight (2023)

righto.com

193 pointsdangle125 comments

Author here for your mechanical computer questions...

P.S. there are two more parts to the series, going into more details on the Globus, explaining the circuitry and the "algorithms": https://www.righto.com/2023/03/reverse-engineering-electroni... https://www.righto.com/2023/03/reverse-engineering-globus-in...

CuriousMarc has a 3 part video about restoring one, worth a watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmHaCQ8Ul6E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP5dfjxdkQ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG29HrU6Slw

It's actually the same one I think !

   > Fortunately, CuriousMarc was able to get the globe back into position while ensuring that the gears had the right timing. (Putting the globe back arbitrarily would mess up the latitude and longitude.)

Read a very interesting book on the space race from the soviet side. One of the things that stood out was the lack of solid state transistor technology meant that they were using tube transistors in their space craft. This was one of the reasons they had problems doing spacewalks. They couldn't expose the interior of their capsules to space or the electronics would go pop. The Wrong Stuff How the Soviet Space Program Crashed and Burned by John strausbaugh https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/john-strausbaugh/th...

The title itself should tell you that the book is there to sensationalize and grind an axe, not to actually provide any historical accuracy.

And yep, the author didn't even bother to use primary sources: https://www.thespacereview.com/article/4851/1

It's like recommending a book about Apollo program written by Russians without reading any US documentation.

If there has to be a western author, James Harford's Korolev biography is a better put together look into Soviet space program and actually has some proper academic reviews.

I read "Beyond: The Astonishing Story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space" and found it very interesting. It is a detailed history of the early Soviet space program and Yuri Gagarin's flight.

Why would a vacuum tube „pop“ when exposed to vacuum?

probably because the vacuum of space is way more extreme than inside the tube which would cause pressure on the seals

Vacuum tubes typically have an internal pressure of less than 0.001 atm, sometimes much less.

Any seal that can withstand a pressure difference of 0.001 atm to 1 atm from the outside can almost certainly withstand a difference of 0.001 atm to 0 atm from the inside.

Possibly nowhere for the heat to go. Some tubes need a certain amount of ventilation depending on the application. It wouldn't pop, but might fail.

Some of Soviet spacecrafts were known to have been built around ~1atm pressure vessels as a brute force means to reduce unknown unknowns. I suspect it could be reverse reasoning from there.

that's bullshit. vacuum tubes are used in spacecraft by NASA too. it's likely they are still used. they don't pop in vacuum. plus they're more radiation resistant thwn transistors.

I always found mechanical calculators fascinating, here’s an article with a video explanation about the MK1 navy fire control computer. https://hackaday.com/2014/10/28/retrotechtacular-fire-contro...

One was sold last year for the bargain price of 40 thousand euros !

https://meshok.net/en/item/275902733_%D0%93%D0%9B%D0%9E%D0%9...

Whether or not its technically inferior to American space technology at the time, you have to admire the ingenuity.

They are used in different flight regimes, so not really comparable, but nonetheless, I found it interesting to compare it to the US version of the strange ball navigation thing.

https://www.righto.com/2024/09/f4-attitude-indicator.html

Mechanical computers are still used onboard Russian warships. These are meant to function under EMP attacks.

Interesting, I never thought of that.

Dumb question: How do you jam a device like this? Is it even possible? Example: you want them to land at an incorrect location or doing more orbits than planned

You don't. This is basically a clock display with extra knobs and dials. It doesn't have any sensors or inputs except 1sec pulse.

Imagine going to space using gears moving a pin on a globe.

Imagine going to space by lighting up rocket engines with giant matches:

Now we need one on the Apollo 8 ball.

As soon as someone loans us an FDAI...

Ha, the similar technology that Eridians used to launch Rocky's blip-A.

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