Interesting posting "The Lost cosmonauts"
John locker (satcom@cybase.co.uk)
Mon, 16 Aug 1999 20:33:10 +0100
The following was recently posted on the Skywatch group......I would be
interested to hear any comments from SeeSat list members... it presents
fascinating reading!
Regards,
John.
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John locker
G7MIZ
Satellite and Communications Consultant
Freelance Journalist and contributor What Satellite TV:
Tele-Satellite International : Shortwave magazine : Beyond Magazine.
Presenter of SpaceNews from Liverpool ( DrDish@TV )
Home-page http://www.cybase.co.uk/satcom/
From: Stig Agermose <stig.agermose@get2net.dk>
Source:
http://www.areacom.it/html/arte_cultura/lostcosmo/indextlc.htm
Go to the page for more links.
Stig
***
THE LOST COSMONAUTS
Created by Giovanni Abrate (USA) and Mario Abrate (Italy)
*
Few people realize in these days when satellite dishes are found on every
other rooftop that, back in the early sixties somewhere in the hilltops
near the northern italian city of Turin, two young italian brothers were
prying into the most guarded secrets of the mighty Soviet Union. The space
race was in full swing, providing the battleground for a vital propaganda
confrontation between East and West, in the midst of the cold war.
The Judica-Cordiglia brothers, sons of one of Europe's foremost
pathologists, set up a listening post which probed the cosmos and
successfully tracked all the early american and soviet unmanned satellites.
The geographical location of their station proved particularly suitable for
the reception of soviet space vehicles, which regularly overflew Northern
Italy during their approach to the soviet tracking centers in the Caucasus.
Using an array of advanced equipment, the two young italians soon learned
which radio frequencies to monitor and how to predict the overfly times of
the various space probes.
One day in early 1961, weeks before Yuri Gagarin's epic space flight,
instead of the usual beeping tones which they had become accustomed to
hear, they were startled by a sound which signaled a new chapter in the
history of mankind: there, in the listening center of "Torre Bert", these
two young students heard, clearly and unequivocally, the beat of a failing
heart and the last gasping breaths of a dying cosmonaut.
The incredible, disturbing real-life events which are presented on this
site are being uncovered for the first time outside the restricted
community of 'insiders' who have, for reasons unknown, decided to protect
the secrecy of the Soviet Establishment.
Read on, everything you will find is true.
*Torre Bert as featured in the April 1965 issue of
*Radio Moscow communiqué about the Judica Cordiglia brothers.
*Golem in RealAudio! A RAI RADIOUNO Radio Broadcast directed by Gianluca
Nicoletti April 6, 1999
*An interview with Gian Battista Judica Cordiglia
1999 - All rights reserved
*********
Source:
http://www.areacom.it/html/arte_cultura/lostcosmo/readers.htm
***
The following article was originally published in the April 1965 issue of
Reader's Digest
ITALY'S AMAZING AMATEUR SPACE WATCHERS
By J. D. Ratcliff
With homemade electronic equipment, two young Italians are keeping tabs on
Russian satellites and making some startling discoveries
*
There is an eerie possibility that a long-dead Russian astronaut is today
hurtling silently through space at thousands of miles an hour - the victim
of a Soviet space shot that went wrong. His body perfectly preserved by
intense cold, he may be a lonely wanderer in space for centuries to come.
Evidence that such a macabre voyager may exist comes from an exciting new
band of hobbyists: amateur space watchers. Like the early ham-radio
operators, these talented enthusiasts build their own equipment, often
creating for a few hundred dollars - out of such cast - off junk as chicken
wire, used pipe, second hand radios - instruments that would cost a
government hundreds of thousands. Their eavesdropping on astronauts and
their satellite - tracking achievements are impressive even to
professionals.
Of the many amateur tracking stations now scattered over the earth, one of
the most striking and complete is located in the peaceful little village of
San Maurizio Canavese, 12 miles outside Turin, Italy. Although much of the
equipment is either homemade or dates back to World War II, it looks
thoroughly efficient. Inexpensive kitchen clocks on the wall give Greenwich
Mean Time, local time in Moscow, Cape Kennedy and Turin. Operators wear
white lab coats. The tracking console faithfully copies the one at Cape
Kennedy - ingeniously modeled after photographs and scaled down to one
fifth size.
The builders of this remarkable station are two brothers, Achille and Gian
Battista Judica - Cordiglia. They got interested in radio as a hobby in
1949 while living at Erba, near Lake Como. Achille was 16, Gian only 10.
When they tried to wheedle funds from their physician father to build a
shortwave station, he reacted as most fathers would - "Don't waste time
when you should be studying." They had better luck with their mother. The
U. S. military was then selling off surplus radio equipment at the
knockdown price of five cents a pound. The boys bought 300 pounds. After
rebuilding it to their own needs, they were soon conversing in code with
newfound friends the world over.
In 1959 the family moved to Turin. Satellite launchings had begun, and the
boys were fascinated. "There was a new world out there," says Gian, "and we
wanted to be a part of it." They decided to concentrate on Soviet rather
than U. S. space efforts, because Russia was closer, and because the
Russians were secretive, never publicizing shots in full technical detail
as the United States does. They installed crude listening equipment in an
old World War II German bunker, and shivered through the winter of 1960-61
while they perfected their apparatus. Achille spared all the time he could
from medical school; Gian signed up for a correspondence course in
engineering, so he could study at the station with his headphones on.
Better quarters came the next year when their father took over a
convalescent home in a rambling 16th - century villa at San Maurizio
Canavese. Now the boys christened their station Torre Bert (Torre for
tower, Bert for Villa Bertalazona, the original name of the convalescent
home). They already had a number of striking achievements to their credit.
They could listen to conversations between astronauts and ground stations
for a few fleeting seconds as the space vehicles passed over Turin. But
they wanted to listen longer and to be able to track satellites. This meant
they must have a "movable dish" antenna, which could follow objects across
the sky and scoop up even the faintest electronic signals from space.
Governments spend millions for such things installed in elaborate layouts -
Britain spent $4,500,000 at Jodrell Bank, the U. S. Air Force 15 million at
Tyngsboro, Mass. A Turin contractor offered to build a dish antenna for
$3200. The boys checked their Torre Bert bank balance - $30. The only
solution, of course, was one they had become accustomed to: build their
own.
steering wheel that could be used to turn it, and truck bearings to carry
the ton - and - a - half contrivance. With extraordinary ingenuity they
built other equipment: a 4 - by - 12 foot screen that would light up to
show the position of a satellite at any given moment; a second screen to
follow moon shots; a listening console with three secondhand recorders to
tape messages from satellites. In sum, it was a remarkably faithful model
of the tracking control room at Cape Kennedy, the far off wonderland of
their dreams.
Lacking a library or funds to buy technical journals, the young space
watchers had to invent much equipment already in existence, but about which
they knew nothing. One example was a filtering device to screen out
unwanted noises coming in from space. They also developed methods of
determining whether a signal came from the ground or from a moving vehicle.
But one of their biggest achievements, which required superb detective
work, was determining the frequencies of Russian tracking stations. At
present they know the frequencies of six of them and can tune in at will.
As their station grew in complexity, it became clear to Gian and Achille
that help would be needed for its operation. Fifteen space enthusiasts,
mostly in their early 20's, were recruited. The boys' sister, Maria
Theresa, a pert and pretty teen - ager, got one of the most difficult
assignments. She was to learn Russian so she could translate messages from
manned Soviet flights. She is now fluent in the language.
Next, the boys wanted to organize electronic coverage of the entire earth.
Gian's fiancée, Laura Furbatto, was given the job of enlisting other
amateur space watchers scattered around the world - from Tahiti in the
Pacific, to Angola in Africa, to Argentina in South America. Thus the 17 -
station Zeus amateur network was born, hooked together by shortwave radio.
Now, when the operators of the little Italian station discover that the
Russians are going through a pre - launch rehearsal, they alert the other
Zeus stations so that they can be ready to start tracking when the time
comes.
Normally on a 12-hour schedule, Torre Bert goes on 24 - hour alert when
Soviet ground stations become active. Every team member has his assigned
post: two men monitor voices and signals and make tape recordings; two work
the dish antenna; and one of the most talented members of the team, a math
wizard, operates a hand - cranked calculating machine to figure speed and
orbital path. (Professionals use electronic computers.) The team's accuracy
is such that they were able to predict, 12 hours in advance, that Russia's
Lunik IV would miss the moon by 5000 miles. The actual miss: 5281 miles.
Most man -carrying satellites circle the earth in 90 to 120 minutes. By the
time the second orbit begins, the busy little station has already
calculated its basic tracking information, and the screen on the wall
lights up, showing minute to minute location.
In its short span of life, Torre Bert has plucked some remarkable messages
from space. On November 28, 1960, for example, there was the cryptic
message: "SOS to the entire world." It came from a moving space vehicle and
was repeated three times. Amateurs in Texas and Germany picked up the same
message. Three days later Russia admitted a launch which had ended in
failure - but did not mention a man aboard.
On May 17, 1961, the voices of two men and a woman were heard in desperate
conversation - "Conditions growing worse why don't you answer? ... we are
going slower... the world will never know about us . . ." Then silence. The
same words were picked up in Alaska and Sweden. Their meaning? No one will
know until the Russians choose to talk.
Perhaps the most moving message of all was a wordless one made early in
February 1961. Tapes, which I myself heard at Torre Bert, recorded the
racing beat of an over - exerted heart (the hearts of all astronauts are
monitored automatically) and sounds of labored breathing. The Judica -
Cordiglia brothers took the tapes to famed heart surgeon Dr. A. M.
Dogliotti. His verdict: "This is the heart of a dying man." The brothers
are firmly convinced that the Russians have spent freely of human life to
achieve their space successes. Accumulated evidence indicates that there
may have been at least ten deaths.
The young men of Turin spent a long time admiring the U.S. space program
from a distance before they finally got an opportunity to see it last year.
Italian TV put on a space-quiz program with a $3000 prize. The Judica -
Cordiglia brothers won in a walk and promptly bought plane tickets for
America. Visiting space centers in Alabama, Florida, Maryland and Texas,
they deeply impressed American space scientists. "They have done a
remarkable job," says Harry J. Goett, director of the Goddard Space Flight
Center. At Cape Kennedy the brothers played tapes they had made of John
Glenn's conversations with the ground. Professional spacemen were
mystified. The United States never announces radio frequencies until after
a flight for fear of causing traffic congestion on the particular
wavelength. How had the boys determined this one? Easy, the Judica -
Cordiglias said; they had seen a pre - flight picture of the Glenn capsule
and had figured the frequency from the size of the capsule's antenna!
The future? The busy little tracking station will be only a hobby for
Achille, who now has his medical degree and hopes to specialize in space
medicine. But for Gian, a hobby has become a career. "The further you go
with this, the stronger is the urge to continue," he says. He hopes for a
job offer from the United States. Meanwhile, he and his fellow space
watchers around the globe are keeping their eyes on the sky and providing
the scientific world with its most striking example of amateur ingenuity.
(snipped)
Copyright (c) and Trademark (tm) -- The Lost Cosmonauts. All rights
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