Last night I ended up reading about the Vostok spacecraft and kept wondering about a couple things regarding the atmospheric reentry of the capsules.
The capsules were perfectly spherical (how to you spell KISS in cyrilic?) and therefore were completely covered in a heat shield to protect it from every angle. However the capsules had two windows and I didn’t see any covers for them so I was wondering how were those protected since the heatshield was meant to withstand temperatures from 2500 to 3000 degrees centigrades and I don’t think glass can take that.
The other thing I was wondering is what kind of material the heatshield was made of, an ablative of some kind, but no idea whatsoever what that would be.
Incidentally, a rather funny anecdote about Vostok 4, I think, were the cosmonaut watching the Earth bellow remarked “I see lightning”, which he apparently forgot was the codeword for “I’m sick as a dog, get me out of here!” and was promptly de-orbited by ground control.
Here’s the Encyclopedia Astronomica entry on the Vostok. Near as I can tell the spherical reentry vehicle was weighted internally so that one end was heavier than the other. This insured that it would always orient itself the same way upon reentry.
The article says that it doesn’t qualify as a flight unless the pilot lands in the spacecraft. The capsules don’t fly to a landing, they come down like a brick on a parachute. I don’t see that which parachute you ride down as much to do with it.
