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Old 02-October-2009, 07:59 PM
aastrotech aastrotech is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tucson_Tim View Post
But weren't the Mercury capsules black? If so, did they have cooling problems?
John Glenn did. IIRC It cycled up and down from 90 to 109 degrees. Its cycle matched the duration of his orbit so it was probably due to solar heating albeit offset in time from its cycle of exposure as the heating took time to soak in to reach the thermometer in question. Additionaly one of the Apollo's lunar ascent modules had its cooling system turned off, after it was cast off subsequent to the mission, to see how long its electronics would survive. It overheated fairly quickly and shut down.
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