Babakin craters

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Georgy Nikolaevich Babakin, Hero of Socialist Labor, Lenin Prize Laureate, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, General Designer of the Design Bureau, under whose leadership were created automatic stations that explored the Moon, Venus and Mars, including the famous lunar rovers.

With the help of Babakin's devices, a person entered a new phase of knowledge of the Universe, came close to solving many of its secrets. Thanks to these devices, we know about the world around the Earth much more than yesterday.

Babakin was very passionate about his work. Each noteworthy issue was considered in his office. Of course, in some places the lack of special education of Georgy Nikolaevich still manifested itself at that time, but he, and this was the peculiarity of his giftedness, could imagine the most complex physical phenomena practically, simply. He had a natural feeling …

Ideas and options poured from Georgy Nikolaevich in large numbers. Not all of them, I will not hide, were successful, but a healthy grain was present in each …

It would be nice to illustrate what has been said with examples, here is just one example.

The radio operators of the KB, following the instructions of Georgy Nikolayevich, “were looking for” a lighting bulb, which, at high brightness, would have low energy consumption, high reliability and small dimensions. He wanted to put such a light bulb on the Luna-16 station so that he could use it for illumination when landing on the moon, “at night”. The illumination should be quite sufficient for the transmission of a television picture to the Earth, according to which it would be possible to determine, more precisely, to choose the place of taking the lunar soil by a special device.

In addition to the listed requirements, the light bulb had to have one more important property. When overloaded, it should not have broken, simply put.

And now I remember how one day the radio operator Mikhail Sinitsa reported in the Chief's office.

- Georgy Nikolaevich, we managed to get these four lamps, - expecting a certain effect, Tit began solemnly.

As soon as he said this, the lamps immediately found themselves in Babakin's thin fingers. Apparently, they completely captured his attention - the speaker had to be silent for a while.

- Yes … - thinking about something of his own, said Babakin.

One lamp of a spherical shape, gleaming from the inside with a silvery coating, especially interested him.

“Yes…” he repeated in a non-binding manner.

Tit has listed all the technical characteristics of the lamps.

- That's just, - he said in conclusion, - according to technical conditions, none of them will withstand the overloads that were given by the sturgeons, in my opinion, as always with a guaranteed margin.

Babakin looked at the sample he liked, squeezed it, conveying to him, as it were, the warmth of his hand, put it on the table and asked indifferently:

- And what exactly will not withstand?

- Fastening, as they say, of a cylinder with a plinth.

- So what? It shouldn't be scary. Lamps work on the Moon, and there, as you know, there is an absolute vacuum. Even if the balloon not only breaks, but also evaporates, the lamp on the moon should work. If, of course, it will only be a matter of attaching a cylinder with a plinth.

From the book by M. Borisov "Babakin Craters"

Moon-16