At first I read the title as "The Third World Country To Build an Orbital Rocket" and then you said it was France and I thought "Damn, son. I know he's british but I did not expect him to insult them like that"
Typically French. the Russians use a dog because it’s a stray and can be trained. The Americans use a monkey because it can be trained and is a close analogue to humans. The French use an animal legendary for freaking out and jumping 20 feet into the air if it sees a curtain blowing in the breeze
благо в космосе нет занавесок, да и кошка была заточена в тесный коконообразный скафандр с трубками,так что могла только гадить под себя, орать и царапать свои путы,очень научно я считаю. Если бы меня также запустили помимо моей воли не думаю что вёл бы себя иначе.🤤
Cats have strong physiology, resist high gs, don't get sick when head orientation is odd ... Reproduce easily, and much smaller than dogs / apes. They are scientifically practical.
@@Benoit-Pierre I wonder how successful were their flights. Korolev's dogs had mixed fates, while many American-launched monkeys died in early flights.
To answer your question on V* names for engines: they are all designed, developped, built and tested in Vernon, the historical french center for heavy liquid rocket engine. (Germany took the assembly of Vinci engine, but had its general development and key component design, as well as 2 initial prototypes were done in Vernon as well).
Vernon is about 80km to the north west of Paris, on the bank of the Seine, towards Normandy. That’s where rocket science was developed after WWII with the help of some former Germans from the V2 program. The Veronique rocket was 100% designed and, I believe, built there. Vernon still is today the French center for liquid propellant rocket motors design, production and static testing.
French here: Asterix character is indeed a reference to the astérisque (*) but as you can see it's not written the same, so the name of the satellite is a direct reference to the comics.
Exactly, and the first satellite launched by Ariane was called Obélix, which is Astérix's partner in the comics. Thanks Scott for reminding us all of the French space history!
Idéfix will be launch in 2026 by JAXA. It's a small rover made by the CNES that will target Mars moon Phobos... In 2002, Ariane 4 launched also an experimental satellite built by AMSAT-FRANCE with that name too.
@@MichaelWinter-ss6lx Idefix is a failed satelite that remained attached to its Ariane upper stage it is tumbling uncontrolled in an eccentric orbit and can be seen flaring from the northen emisphere quite often.
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE I think it's deliberate. They want you to stay on the platform, but the algo sometimes chokes when one's interests are too niche, so they recommend random stuff or old vids you watched.
@@negirno Perhaps, but it has no effect since I KNOW I've watched it, even though it might've been 2 years ago, even though they've removed the red progress bar from the video. 😅 I'm sure it probably works on many others, though.
What I hate is when even though I'm sub'd, U2b sends me things 2 or even over 5 days late. I looked this morning and there's only 2 and 3 days old random stuff, besides already watched clips. Now in the evening I get what I wanted, but almost all 12h, 18h and 22h old.
It's not like you can't make turpentine from sap and rosin, but it'll cost like gold. From way back when europeans started making ships a cheaper way of producing not only turpentine but also tar and charcoal is known: chop cut pinetree into small sticks and lay them in a very large pot with lid that you close airtight so that you get yourself a distilling apparatus. Condensed fumes are turpentine part, tar is drained from a bottom exit and what's left in the pot is charcoal.
@thekinginyellow1744 i figured it would be pyrolized and the flue gases used to keep the thermal side going. Like the way biochar production is autothermic. Turpentine is an interesting choice as a rocket fuel regardless.
@@jamesgibson3582 Could be, but not really a pyrolysis stove: you are after condenseable part of the gas which is the desired turpentine and not full pyrolysis, not even overheating the pot so that desired tar, which wasn't the gummy plastic of today you have to heat again to use or spend precious turpentine desolving it for that matter - tar was "ready to use" product condensed in the pot and charcoal was only a byproduct in this scheme, because it's even cheaper to make it in pits. When europeans settled in north America they already knew how to build giant retorts - predecessors of rectifying columns, so turpentine was one of the main colonies export back to Europe. Untill that knowledge was generated apparatus was simpler and required skill making and operating it to obtain desired products. Today we have entirely different technological abilities and I have no clue how french made it - it could really be from sap in tropical forests.
Asterix is definitively the little Gaul from the comics book. The ending in -ix comes from the Gaul's language (like the Gaul leader Vercingetorix who was defeated by Cesar). The little star in Greek is Asterisque in French. Uderzo, the author of the comics book invented the names of his characters by adding a -ix at the end of French words : Abraracourcix comes from "à bras raccourcis" (with shorten arms) a french expression meaning to beat someone with all you strength. Assurancetourix comes from assurance tous-riques (Full coverage insurance). Panoramix comes from Panoramique (Panorama). And Astronomix comes from Astronomique (Astronomical).
thanks for that, since: French comics : Me :: Beethoven's 9th : A clockwork orange mainly Little Prince, but also the * stuff. Bookwise, Tom Wolfe did a number on turp'n'tine in a novel that was not the right stuff.
@HALLish-jl5mo Sometimes, there were different versions of the names even in the same language. depending on where they were published. I remember reading English translations in book form that still used the French Idéfix, and the same stories serialised in a magazine that used Dogmatix. Confused me as a kid. There were other differing names in the two translations but I'm a dog person and can be relied on to remember the dog and forget the masters name without fail.
Véronique stand for « VERnon électrONIQUE » Vernon is the town in which it was developped, its also a common grandma name All the V engine name come from the town of Vernon
Funny thing, the French Algeria test center was just fine for this era of precious stones incremental technology development, which was totally dual purpose for space and missile applications. After that era, when France had to stop using this facility due to Algeria becoming independent, they had to take separate routes. While Kourou was ideal for space launches (close to the equator and facing the ocean to the east and north), it was considered too far and less secure for the full development of the strategic deterrent ballistic missiles, which would ultimately need building experimental silos and be reasonably close to French Brittany for submarine launched flight tests. So the choice went for a missile test center on the Atlantic coast of the gulf of Gascogne, in the sand dunes and pine forest of the Landes near Biscarrosse (Bordeaux region). All the flight tests of all French strategic missiles have been undertaken by this test center ever since. Most submarine launched flights are actually fired from just off the the southern tip of Brittany, towards … French Guiana, actually !! which happens to be over 6000km away.
this is the first time I have heard of a paint thinner being used for a rocket fuel. But it is highly flammable and being eager to burn is an important stat for the fuel in a rocket.
@@davidioanhedges The oxidizer side of things wasn't that much safer, either. From memory, ozone (O3) tended to make rocket engines explode minutes *after* they were shut down. Ah, the good old days when evaluating your lab equipment for the type and size of shrapnel produced was a weekly occurence...
turpentine trees are really flammable, in that the green leaves will burn very easily. We used to use turpentine tree branches and green leaves as firelighters, taking the thin fresh growth green branches and leaves, and using a layer of them, along with old newspaper, to light the charcoal of the fire.
Rats and mouses : Hector and Félicette are crying that you remember Fun fact : as soon as the CNES was created in 1961, the government tasked it, in addition to developing rockets, to organise model rocketry for students in France (enginneers really wanted to because of Kennedy 's bet). This was due to people salvaging shells to make rockets at the time. Cnes created the now called Planète Sciences association that monitor model rockets club even today About A1 Astérix, yes it was about the comic book 100% . Did iylt fail ? Yes one of the 4 antenas got torn of when the nose cone halves separated. It's the americans that confirmed us the successful orbit insertion. Other engine names ? Nah the viking works well on Ariane, let's keep things simple and add side boosters instead. The most powerful Ariane 4 used 4 viking engines on the first stage, and four liquid fueled boosters with ... a viking each. And funily enough (quote from Ariane Group CEO Advisor during a conference) Ariane Group only found a market to launch satellites because the US put all the chips on the space shuttle that was to expensive for a major for the small satellites sector
NASA thought that the Shuttle would become cheap because the orbiter was reusable… I think they envisioned up to one launch a week with lots of commercial activities. The Challenger accident was the wake up call that made most people realize how dangerous this thing really was, and give up any idea of commercial use for basic satellite launches. With the fall of USSR a few years later, the dark side (military space plane, dreams of militarily space station…) was gone as well. Then came up the idea of making the ISS, which conveniently also gave a job to the many now unemployed Russian ballistic/space engineers and factories.
Typically French. They have to do it their own weird way. And sometimes the results are amazing, sometimes they are just bad, but mostly they are just different. And different doesn't necessarily mean bad, it just means different.
As a kid, I cut a hole in a square can still containing some tar, put some turpentine in, and lit a match, producing a very satisfying roar and tongue of flame. I was so pleased that I took it to school to impress the other kids... you can imagine how the teachers reacted! But then, in those pre-Sputnik days, I would wander outside after sunset and look up in the sky to see if Vanguard was already in orbit... after listening on the radio to an episode of "The Adventures of Rocky Starr", a space sci-fi contemporary of Biggles (also a radio serial for kids). There also was a radio serial about a first voyage to Mars. I guess that in New Zealand and the UK, the media excitement generated by Werner von Braun in the US in the mid-1950's found an echo.
Yes, good stuff. Like most early rocket and missiles, the French ones were small, and Scott might even call them "wee" rockets, but the French would likely call them "oui" rockets, right? LOL ;D
Thanks for confirming this octogenarian's somewhat sketchy memory of those early days in the "space race". I was going with France, but was a bit hazy about when.
You can acquire turpentine from chopped up whole pine trees and pine tree roots also - in fact old preserved pine roots are a major source of turpentine from pine trees especially for the chemical and gunpowder industry in the southeastern US - scoring live trees for sap is an antiquated method indeed!
French rocket engine names start with "V" because the agency developing them "Laboratoire de Recherches Balistiques et Aéro-dynamiques" (LRBA) was in Vernon. Even in France the history of LRBA was for a long time not talked much about, because of the involvement of German engineers from the V-2 program. They were initially hired to develop a Super-V2, but in reality there were never sufficient resources to produce anything on such scale. So they started with reworking the engine from the german experimental anti-aircraft missile Wasserfall for use in the sounding rocket Veronique. They could never make it work reliably. So, a completely new engine of quite unique design was adopted, developed by a different department, also by a German engineer, Wolfgang Pilz, for a French anti-aircraft missile PARCA (Projectile Autopropulsé Radioguidé Contre Avions). That became Veronique-AGI, and afterwards this engine was very gradually, step by step, scaled up, up to the turbo-pumped Viking for the Ariane-1,2,3,4. All versions retained the very unusual doughnut-shaped injector and a non-regenerative chamber cooling system, unlike anything else in the world. Even though USA, USSR and France all had access to the materials and workers from the German missile program, the history of the French V-engines is a very good example which shows how after-war development took completely different paths in each country. It was never limited to a simple "copying" of V-2, but constituted genuine innovation on the basis of indigenous capabilities.
LRBA was also the nest for early development of strategic inertial navigation and guidance systems for both nuclear submarines and ballistic missiles, the French equivalent of the Draper Lab.
@@joso5554 I am not super familiar with this part. If you know the details, I would be interested to hear about it. But as far as I know, early on, the main organisation for the development of the inertial guidance systems in France was "la société d’applications générales d’électricité et de mécanique" (SAGEM). They were the ones who provided the inertial guidance system for the Diamant. LRBA certainly conducted work in many fields beyond liquid fuel rocket engines. They had a large aerodynamics group, with a good wind tunnel. They had the already mentioned project in air defense missiles, and were developing guidance electronics for these missiles. But with the advent of the international cooperation on Ariane, there was a major reorganization of LRBA, and all the work on civilian rocket engines was put under "Société Européenne de Propulsion" (SEP). What remained under the LRBA, was still a sizable laboratory back then, and they certainly worked on inertial guidance after that. There are definitely documentaries from 1990s showing their facilities with laser gyroscopes on the benches, test stands for the gyroscopes, that kind of stuff. But they all closed in 2008. There is certainly more to the story, but administrative changes in French aerospace establishment can be hard to keep track of.
Turpentine was used with nitric acid because it was hypergolic, allowing a storable "wooden round" vehicle with simple, reliable ignition. At XCOR Aerospace back in 2000, Jeff Greason did some drop tests with WFNA and turpentine to get some practical experience with handling requirements and ignition delays. Fully garbed out in PPE including an acid-rated respirator, apron, gloves, goggles, and face shield, and working by the open rollup door of the building, he got some impressive pops and flashes. Without gear, I stood about 30 feet upwind to observe. Unfortunately, I had just returned from lunch at a Mexican restaurant and belched when he had just made a red cloud. This led to a few moments of running away and hyperventilating in fresher air before I realized the real source of my burning sensation...
Turpentine might be some performance improvement, but I guess the the motivation behind using it instead of kerosene is that it is hypergolic with nitric acid.
V2 used alkohol. Thats why they did not take the order to build 3× as much rockets. They were already taking the maximum amount potatoe's they'd get per year, for making propellant. 🚀🏴☠️🎸
In the background was the very forgotten ESRO and ELDO organizations - which were the structure on which ESA was built. European Space Research Organization and European Launcher Development Organization. They normally used Woomera, as at that point Australia was a member. Mr Whitlam (Oz PM from 1972-75) thought it was anti-China, anti-soviet and a military venture and cut Australia out and didnt wish to be part of either the new ESA or the Space Shuttle (hence there is a Canada arm but no Australia items in Shuttle)- sending all launching to French Guiana. Australia did get a satellite up (1967)but with a highly modified Redstone base, so not a pure Oz accomplishment.
Hi, we got an Astris 3rd stage for the Europa II rocket on display at the Institute of Aircraft Design in Stuttgart- The first piece of Rocket i could actually get pretty close to for once. Quite a shame the whole Europa program didn't quite take off in the end (pun not intended) and pretty impressive especially with the Blue Streak the Brits contributed :D
This is actually a common misconception. The USSR and US were the second and third countries to orbit. The first was actually Belgium with a nuclear rocket that was far ahead of its time. They later also landed on the moon with a crew of 7 humans and a wire fox terrier.
Rocket wasn't that great, but the bathrooms at the launch facilities were spotless! ^-^ Wonder how hard it would be to convert, say, a chainsaw or portable generator to run on turpentine. Would be something you could off grid with, provided you could distill turpentine.
Félicette reportedly did quite well on her flight. They put her and the other cats through training to familiarize them with g-forces, rocket sounds, and the restraints. You can find footage of Félicette in her flight rig, and she seems pretty chill.
I'm surprised that Scott didn't mention that the first stage of the Europa rocket system was the British bit, based upon the Blue Streak missile designed and built in Stevenage in Hertfordshire. I'm quite proud of that as my dad worked on it there, but more importantly, because it worked every time! It was always let down by first the French bits and then once they were working, the German bits, and when they finally worked the bloody Italian satellite was a dud. It was a tragicomedy of errors.
But that's testing, it takes a while to get everything working. The tragedy is the UK government pulled out because they saw no future in launching satellites. So incredibly short sighted as usual for UK governments.
Fun fact - the French had a Europa rocket in storage until the early 2000s because someone at ESA starting making plans to pull it out, clean it up and use it to maybe send supplies to _Columbia_ after they were told about the shuttle's issues
hey this doesnt check out dude, doesn't make any sense at all, and even if such a daring improbable thing was the needed, i'm pretty sure the US still had quite a few expandable rocket available Also In 2003 we had an operational Ariane 5, and a very proven Ariane 4 and its multitude of variants, so the idea of dusting off an old Europa is extremely far fetched
The UK didn’t care much about sovereignty after the Suez Canal humiliation and the Nassau Polaris deal, I guess. Funny enough, the UK seems to have a hard time finding a reasonable middle ground between totally giving up sovereignty (to the US) and being extreme and paranoid about sovereignty (see Brexit)… Some wisdom and realism could help!!
Reminds somehow of India in current time. If there is something to learn from the story, then it is to hope that India continues doing its own program. Partners may make costs rise faster than the rocket. 🚀🏴☠️🎸
Cooperative investment does at times have an upside, in this case the eu having solid space program where each member independently may have less progress. Coordination can be useful in some cases
0:20 So many people now deciding to start increasing their Patreon output as UA-cam ad revenue crashes out. The phenomenon of people disappearing from UA-cam into their Patreon ecosystem is just going to get worse.
"Diamonds In the Sky" was the name of a 1979 series about the history of the airline industry. 1979 was a time of revolution in the industry due to deregulation which led to the tourism industry taking off worldwide due to cheap flights.
I only knew this because it was the answer to a quiz question a few weeks back! Perhaps even less well known us the fourth nation to earn its place on this list...
I believe the Minuteman and Polaris, both solid fueled, had thrust vectoring, on multiple stages. Not sure if they were the first, but they were designed and deployed before the French...
I'm surprised you didn't mention that the nitric acid/terebenthine (turpentine) combination is hypergolic, one of the earliest uses of hypergols. According to John D. Clark's "Ignition!", American experimenters found that turpentine had to be mixed with furfuryl alcohol to make the ignition properties acceptable. I'm not sure if the French did that, because they apparently used red fuming nitric acid, while I believe the U.S. was using white fuming nitric acid at the time.
Really? I've barely seen anything on show to the public that was interesting? Walked through Harvard's grounds and there's no cool exhibits on display, just plaques telling me some rich person donated the building.
Under De Gaulle, the french nuclear program was a top priority (topper than modernizing the phone network)… During at time, a friend of mine was working at the Saclay nuclear research facility. One day, he was stuck in a traffic jam in his old beaten-up (cheap) Renault 4. He spots a gendarme on his motorcycle: - What the bleep is going on? The gendarme was very offended by his tone, and angrily - YOUR PAPERS! So he hands him is Saclay ID card, which read "professeur XYZ"… The gendarme stepped back, saluted him, apologized and said "follow me" and escorted him on the shoulder with his siren, going around the accident… My friend was a professor at Saclay, yes, but a professor of… english…
nothing wrong with using ballistic missile technology for space launches. quite the opposite, it's how pretty much everyone who's gotten into space did so.
@@joso5554 South Africa had nuclear weapons, Brazil kept the door open during a long time, Japan wants to keep a credible nuclear latency and Italy… well they make missiles too
9:55 - "Asterisk" = "little star" (Late Latin _asteriscus_, from Ancient Greek ἀστερίσκος, as per Wikipedia); "Astérix" is a mustachioed fearless Gaul, by Goscinny & Uderzo. Note that the final two letters are swapped.
Shirt: "Check Yo Stagin!" Is that aimed at concertgoers at Melbourne, Australia? "Coldplay Frontman Chris Martin Falls Through Open Trap Door During Melbourne Concert" (4th November) "Olivia Rodrigo confirms she's okay after falling through hole in stage at Melbourne concert" (13th October)
@@ronschlorff7089 But only because of that pesky Earth atmosphere! Watch liftoff film from a lunar module ascent, and you'll notice that after only a few seconds it pitches over and starts acquiring orbital speed.
I would say mainly… upwards. Most of the early ones were launched pretty much vertically. Later reentry studies flights were not, obviously. They were flown towards the south eastern limit of Algeria, deep into the desert. More than 1000km.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
At first I read the title as "The Third World Country To Build an Orbital Rocket" and then you said it was France and I thought "Damn, son. I know he's british but I did not expect him to insult them like that"
I'm Scottish, I hold France in higher regard than England.
@@scottmanley I am french and I assure you the feeling is mutual.
@@scottmanleythe auld ally
The enemy of my enemy is my friend :)
@@scottmanley Im English, and at this point in time so do I..
Typically French. the Russians use a dog because it’s a stray and can be trained. The Americans use a monkey because it can be trained and is a close analogue to humans. The French use an animal legendary for freaking out and jumping 20 feet into the air if it sees a curtain blowing in the breeze
благо в космосе нет занавесок, да и кошка была заточена в тесный коконообразный скафандр с трубками,так что могла только гадить под себя, орать и царапать свои путы,очень научно я считаю. Если бы меня также запустили помимо моей воли не думаю что вёл бы себя иначе.🤤
Typically anglo-saxon. Reducing 2000 years of history to their last 8 decades.
I would say the cat for its independence.
Cats have strong physiology, resist high gs, don't get sick when head orientation is odd ... Reproduce easily, and much smaller than dogs / apes. They are scientifically practical.
@@Benoit-Pierre excellent points. The small size was likely the most important element, though 😅
@@Benoit-Pierre I wonder how successful were their flights. Korolev's dogs had mixed fates, while many American-launched monkeys died in early flights.
Funny thing on Diamant BP4, the fairing was a leftover from UK’s own Black Arrow rocket, that was cancelled a little earlier.
To answer your question on V* names for engines: they are all designed, developped, built and tested in Vernon, the historical french center for heavy liquid rocket engine. (Germany took the assembly of Vinci engine, but had its general development and key component design, as well as 2 initial prototypes were done in Vernon as well).
Exactly, and even the Vikas engine developed by India but based on the Viking continues this tradition
Vernon is about 80km to the north west of Paris, on the bank of the Seine, towards Normandy. That’s where rocket science was developed after WWII with the help of some former Germans from the V2 program. The Veronique rocket was 100% designed and, I believe, built there.
Vernon still is today the French center for liquid propellant rocket motors design, production and static testing.
14:28 house spider photobomb
A lens louse for shure.
I'm Spider-Manley, climb sefe
I thought it was a fly [safe]
Good spot!!
@@maciej6807 Take my upvote, damn you
French here: Asterix character is indeed a reference to the astérisque (*) but as you can see it's not written the same, so the name of the satellite is a direct reference to the comics.
Exactly, and the first satellite launched by Ariane was called Obélix, which is Astérix's partner in the comics. Thanks Scott for reminding us all of the French space history!
And where is Idefix?! He'd never let Obelix go out alone!
🚀🏴☠️🎸
Ils sont fous, ces…
Idéfix will be launch in 2026 by JAXA. It's a small rover made by the CNES that will target Mars moon Phobos...
In 2002, Ariane 4 launched also an experimental satellite built by AMSAT-FRANCE with that name too.
@@MichaelWinter-ss6lx Idefix is a failed satelite that remained attached to its Ariane upper stage it is tumbling uncontrolled in an eccentric orbit and can be seen flaring from the northen emisphere quite often.
Haven't heard that outro in an very long time
Yeah, I thought I've clicked on an old video of his, UA-cam does this nowadays, mixing some old videos from users I've watched.
@@negirno What I hate is YT _FORGETTING_ I've watched videos, and then re-recommending them to me... 😮💨
@@DUKE_of_RAMBLE I think it's deliberate. They want you to stay on the platform, but the algo sometimes chokes when one's interests are too niche, so they recommend random stuff or old vids you watched.
@@negirno Perhaps, but it has no effect since I KNOW I've watched it, even though it might've been 2 years ago, even though they've removed the red progress bar from the video. 😅
I'm sure it probably works on many others, though.
What I hate is when even though I'm sub'd, U2b sends me things 2 or even over 5 days late.
I looked this morning and there's only 2 and 3 days old random stuff, besides already watched clips. Now in the evening I get what I wanted, but almost all 12h, 18h and 22h old.
It's not like you can't make turpentine from sap and rosin, but it'll cost like gold. From way back when europeans started making ships a cheaper way of producing not only turpentine but also tar and charcoal is known: chop cut pinetree into small sticks and lay them in a very large pot with lid that you close airtight so that you get yourself a distilling apparatus. Condensed fumes are turpentine part, tar is drained from a bottom exit and what's left in the pot is charcoal.
Its an environmentally carbon neutral fuel. I wonder how big a plantatiin would have to be to fuel a rocket.
@@jamesgibson3582 Not even close to carbon neutral. Takes a lot of heat for a long time to run the distillation process.
@thekinginyellow1744 i figured it would be pyrolized and the flue gases used to keep the thermal side going. Like the way biochar production is autothermic. Turpentine is an interesting choice as a rocket fuel regardless.
@@jamesgibson3582 Could be, but not really a pyrolysis stove: you are after condenseable part of the gas which is the desired turpentine and not full pyrolysis, not even overheating the pot so that desired tar, which wasn't the gummy plastic of today you have to heat again to use or spend precious turpentine desolving it for that matter - tar was "ready to use" product condensed in the pot and charcoal was only a byproduct in this scheme, because it's even cheaper to make it in pits. When europeans settled in north America they already knew how to build giant retorts - predecessors of rectifying columns, so turpentine was one of the main colonies export back to Europe. Untill that knowledge was generated apparatus was simpler and required skill making and operating it to obtain desired products. Today we have entirely different technological abilities and I have no clue how french made it - it could really be from sap in tropical forests.
@@deepblueskyshine Thanks for the info!
Asterix is definitively the little Gaul from the comics book. The ending in -ix comes from the Gaul's language (like the Gaul leader Vercingetorix who was defeated by Cesar). The little star in Greek is Asterisque in French. Uderzo, the author of the comics book invented the names of his characters by adding a -ix at the end of French words : Abraracourcix comes from "à bras raccourcis" (with shorten arms) a french expression meaning to beat someone with all you strength. Assurancetourix comes from assurance tous-riques (Full coverage insurance). Panoramix comes from Panoramique (Panorama). And Astronomix comes from Astronomique (Astronomical).
I'm forever impressed with the translators for those books, who had to add completely different jokes for every language
Uderzo was the cartoonist but the scriptwriter, the one who invented the jokes, was Goscinny.
thanks for that, since:
French comics : Me :: Beethoven's 9th : A clockwork orange
mainly Little Prince, but also the * stuff.
Bookwise, Tom Wolfe did a number on turp'n'tine in a novel that was not the right stuff.
@HALLish-jl5mo Sometimes, there were different versions of the names even in the same language. depending on where they were published. I remember reading English translations in book form that still used the French Idéfix, and the same stories serialised in a magazine that used Dogmatix. Confused me as a kid. There were other differing names in the two translations but I'm a dog person and can be relied on to remember the dog and forget the masters name without fail.
@@masteronone2079 Obelix
I missed that outro music so much, glad it's back
Véronique stand for « VERnon électrONIQUE » Vernon is the town in which it was developped, its also a common grandma name
All the V engine name come from the town of Vernon
Véronique is a French first name, not only for grandmas !
La blonde c'est Veronika, et la brune c'est Marie
3:27 when a turpentine rocked explodes, the paint in a 100km radius comes off the walls.
Everyone gets a tie-dyed T-shirt and blond streaks in their hair, so it's not all bad
@@JamesCairney One explosion caused the first wave of hippies in France.
Funny thing, the French Algeria test center was just fine for this era of precious stones incremental technology development, which was totally dual purpose for space and missile applications.
After that era, when France had to stop using this facility due to Algeria becoming independent, they had to take separate routes. While Kourou was ideal for space launches (close to the equator and facing the ocean to the east and north), it was considered too far and less secure for the full development of the strategic deterrent ballistic missiles, which would ultimately need building experimental silos and be reasonably close to French Brittany for submarine launched flight tests.
So the choice went for a missile test center on the Atlantic coast of the gulf of Gascogne, in the sand dunes and pine forest of the Landes near Biscarrosse (Bordeaux region). All the flight tests of all French strategic missiles have been undertaken by this test center ever since. Most submarine launched flights are actually fired from just off the the southern tip of Brittany, towards … French Guiana, actually !! which happens to be over 6000km away.
Love the Scott Manley AirBnB ASMR, feels like we're hiding
Fascinating! Thanks, Scott! 😊
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Turpentine is what the forest Elf tribe would use to launch their rockets in a fantasy world.
this is the first time I have heard of a paint thinner being used for a rocket fuel. But it is highly flammable and being eager to burn is an important stat for the fuel in a rocket.
On the utterly insane list of things they tried as rocket fuel turpentine is mild
@@davidioanhedges The oxidizer side of things wasn't that much safer, either. From memory, ozone (O3) tended to make rocket engines explode minutes *after* they were shut down. Ah, the good old days when evaluating your lab equipment for the type and size of shrapnel produced was a weekly occurence...
I missed the old music at the end!
turpentine trees are really flammable, in that the green leaves will burn very easily. We used to use turpentine tree branches and green leaves as firelighters, taking the thin fresh growth green branches and leaves, and using a layer of them, along with old newspaper, to light the charcoal of the fire.
yup, they make nice Christmas trees though, but mind the candles!! LOL
Rats and mouses : Hector and Félicette are crying that you remember
Fun fact : as soon as the CNES was created in 1961, the government tasked it, in addition to developing rockets, to organise model rocketry for students in France (enginneers really wanted to because of Kennedy 's bet). This was due to people salvaging shells to make rockets at the time.
Cnes created the now called Planète Sciences association that monitor model rockets club even today
About A1 Astérix, yes it was about the comic book 100% .
Did iylt fail ? Yes one of the 4 antenas got torn of when the nose cone halves separated. It's the americans that confirmed us the successful orbit insertion.
Other engine names ? Nah the viking works well on Ariane, let's keep things simple and add side boosters instead. The most powerful Ariane 4 used 4 viking engines on the first stage, and four liquid fueled boosters with ... a viking each.
And funily enough (quote from Ariane Group CEO Advisor during a conference) Ariane Group only found a market to launch satellites because the US put all the chips on the space shuttle that was to expensive for a major for the small satellites sector
NASA thought that the Shuttle would become cheap because the orbiter was reusable… I think they envisioned up to one launch a week with lots of commercial activities. The Challenger accident was the wake up call that made most people realize how dangerous this thing really was, and give up any idea of commercial use for basic satellite launches. With the fall of USSR a few years later, the dark side (military space plane, dreams of militarily space station…) was gone as well. Then came up the idea of making the ISS, which conveniently also gave a job to the many now unemployed Russian ballistic/space engineers and factories.
Typically French. They have to do it their own weird way. And sometimes the results are amazing, sometimes they are just bad, but mostly they are just different. And different doesn't necessarily mean bad, it just means different.
The French love being different that’s for sure 😂
"The French don't copy anyone, but no one ever copy the French"...
That's why Forgotten Weapons loves French rifles
@GigAnonymous everyone is copying the Cesar self propelled gun ;)
Space Cats ....
🚀🏴☠️🎸
As a kid, I cut a hole in a square can still containing some tar, put some turpentine in, and lit a match, producing a very satisfying roar and tongue of flame. I was so pleased that I took it to school to impress the other kids... you can imagine how the teachers reacted! But then, in those pre-Sputnik days, I would wander outside after sunset and look up in the sky to see if Vanguard was already in orbit... after listening on the radio to an episode of "The Adventures of Rocky Starr", a space sci-fi contemporary of Biggles (also a radio serial for kids). There also was a radio serial about a first voyage to Mars. I guess that in New Zealand and the UK, the media excitement generated by Werner von Braun in the US in the mid-1950's found an echo.
Great video as usual.
I learned a lot about my country rocket history! thanks!
Greetings from France !!
Just search keywords « Pierres précieuses », Hammaguir, CIEES, SEREB.
Yes, good stuff. Like most early rocket and missiles, the French ones were small, and Scott might even call them "wee" rockets, but the French would likely call them "oui" rockets, right? LOL ;D
Thanks for confirming this octogenarian's somewhat sketchy memory of those early days in the "space race". I was going with France, but was a bit hazy about when.
The French, they are a funny race.
They used turpentine
To send a cat into space.
A bit less romantic, but France have the Landes Forest, with huge areas covered in pine trees and an history of turpentine extraction.
@@alexandredevert4935 ...and some guys also used it to daub some nice artwork in the past, legend has it!! LOL ;D
You can acquire turpentine from chopped up whole pine trees and pine tree roots also - in fact old preserved pine roots are a major source of turpentine from pine trees especially for the chemical and gunpowder industry in the southeastern US - scoring live trees for sap is an antiquated method indeed!
French rocket engine names start with "V" because the agency developing them "Laboratoire de Recherches Balistiques et Aéro-dynamiques" (LRBA) was in Vernon. Even in France the history of LRBA was for a long time not talked much about, because of the involvement of German engineers from the V-2 program.
They were initially hired to develop a Super-V2, but in reality there were never sufficient resources to produce anything on such scale. So they started with reworking the engine from the german experimental anti-aircraft missile Wasserfall for use in the sounding rocket Veronique. They could never make it work reliably. So, a completely new engine of quite unique design was adopted, developed by a different department, also by a German engineer, Wolfgang Pilz, for a French anti-aircraft missile PARCA (Projectile Autopropulsé Radioguidé Contre Avions).
That became Veronique-AGI, and afterwards this engine was very gradually, step by step, scaled up, up to the turbo-pumped Viking for the Ariane-1,2,3,4. All versions retained the very unusual doughnut-shaped injector and a non-regenerative chamber cooling system, unlike anything else in the world.
Even though USA, USSR and France all had access to the materials and workers from the German missile program, the history of the French V-engines is a very good example which shows how after-war development took completely different paths in each country. It was never limited to a simple "copying" of V-2, but constituted genuine innovation on the basis of indigenous capabilities.
LRBA was also the nest for early development of strategic inertial navigation and guidance systems for both nuclear submarines and ballistic missiles, the French equivalent of the Draper Lab.
@@joso5554 I am not super familiar with this part. If you know the details, I would be interested to hear about it.
But as far as I know, early on, the main organisation for the development of the inertial guidance systems in France was "la société d’applications générales d’électricité et de mécanique" (SAGEM). They were the ones who provided the inertial guidance system for the Diamant.
LRBA certainly conducted work in many fields beyond liquid fuel rocket engines. They had a large aerodynamics group, with a good wind tunnel. They had the already mentioned project in air defense missiles, and were developing guidance electronics for these missiles. But with the advent of the international cooperation on Ariane, there was a major reorganization of LRBA, and all the work on civilian rocket engines was put under "Société Européenne de Propulsion" (SEP). What remained under the LRBA, was still a sizable laboratory back then, and they certainly worked on inertial guidance after that. There are definitely documentaries from 1990s showing their facilities with laser gyroscopes on the benches, test stands for the gyroscopes, that kind of stuff. But they all closed in 2008. There is certainly more to the story, but administrative changes in French aerospace establishment can be hard to keep track of.
Airbnb spider alert at 14:28 !
Turpentine was used with nitric acid because it was hypergolic, allowing a storable "wooden round" vehicle with simple, reliable ignition.
At XCOR Aerospace back in 2000, Jeff Greason did some drop tests with WFNA and turpentine to get some practical experience with handling requirements and ignition delays. Fully garbed out in PPE including an acid-rated respirator, apron, gloves, goggles, and face shield, and working by the open rollup door of the building, he got some impressive pops and flashes.
Without gear, I stood about 30 feet upwind to observe. Unfortunately, I had just returned from lunch at a Mexican restaurant and belched when he had just made a red cloud. This led to a few moments of running away and hyperventilating in fresher air before I realized the real source of my burning sensation...
Turpentine might be some performance improvement, but I guess the the motivation behind using it instead of kerosene is that it is hypergolic with nitric acid.
Thanks. Wondered why they used turpentine.
sounds yummy
V2 used alkohol. Thats why they did not take the order to build 3× as much rockets. They were already taking the maximum amount potatoe's they'd get per year, for making propellant.
🚀🏴☠️🎸
Asterix is hypergothic.
@@MichaelWinter-ss6lxI haven’t seen a comment by you in a while. Good to see you’re still signing them.
In the background was the very forgotten ESRO and ELDO organizations - which were the structure on which ESA was built. European Space Research Organization and European Launcher Development Organization. They normally used Woomera, as at that point Australia was a member. Mr Whitlam (Oz PM from 1972-75) thought it was anti-China, anti-soviet and a military venture and cut Australia out and didnt wish to be part of either the new ESA or the Space Shuttle (hence there is a Canada arm but no Australia items in Shuttle)- sending all launching to French Guiana. Australia did get a satellite up (1967)but with a highly modified Redstone base, so not a pure Oz accomplishment.
Bonjour from France Scott !
Cool. France used KSP Restock Lab-module as bottom of their launch tower! :) (~9 min 50 s)
Hi, we got an Astris 3rd stage for the Europa II rocket on display at the Institute of Aircraft Design in Stuttgart- The first piece of Rocket i could actually get pretty close to for once.
Quite a shame the whole Europa program didn't quite take off in the end (pun not intended) and pretty impressive especially with the Blue Streak the Brits contributed :D
3:59 Space cat is so cute
I know TinTin was from a Belgian cartoonist, but you brought back fond memories of me reading "Ils ont maché sur la lune" as a kid.
Astérix didn’t get that far high though, even after drinking his whole flask of magical potion 😂
@@joso5554 He was afraid of the sky falling on his head.
Thanks for this bit of history that just few folks remembered (until now).
This is actually a common misconception. The USSR and US were the second and third countries to orbit. The first was actually Belgium with a nuclear rocket that was far ahead of its time. They later also landed on the moon with a crew of 7 humans and a wire fox terrier.
Hahaha good one! Tin Tin reference.
14:40 Ouch, straight where it hurts right there Scott...
manley is still waiting for a scottish rocket
😂 😂 😂
They can launch from “Arthur’s Seat” in Edinburgh.
the scottish rocket sounds like the nickname for a guy from glasgow who got bronze in some obscure olympic event in the 70's or something
A rawkitt!
Mix cheap whisky with Buckfast tonic. Ye're head's in orbit for sure, and ye'll know what hypergolic means.
14:28 Cute little spooder walking on wall ❤
right, it was "itsy bitsy"! LOL
I wounder if the launch area smelled like Pine-Sol after a Diamant Launch? 🌲
Rocket wasn't that great, but the bathrooms at the launch facilities were spotless! ^-^
Wonder how hard it would be to convert, say, a chainsaw or portable generator to run on turpentine. Would be something you could off grid with, provided you could distill turpentine.
😂 😂 😂
I have lived with several cats over the years. Given how mine reacted when I picked them up I cannot imagine how they reacted launch.
Félicette reportedly did quite well on her flight. They put her and the other cats through training to familiarize them with g-forces, rocket sounds, and the restraints. You can find footage of Félicette in her flight rig, and she seems pretty chill.
I've been missing this outro music!
That's why the intro audio was weird ... Happy Thanksgiving dude!!! We all had issues this holiday and we feel you
Great Scott! A space cat. That's new to me. I doubt if a cat flew willingly.
Only mankind is crazy enough to fly atop tens of tons of dynamite willingly.
Merci monsieur Manley
I'm surprised that Scott didn't mention that the first stage of the Europa rocket system was the British bit, based upon the Blue Streak missile designed and built in Stevenage in Hertfordshire. I'm quite proud of that as my dad worked on it there, but more importantly, because it worked every time! It was always let down by first the French bits and then once they were working, the German bits, and when they finally worked the bloody Italian satellite was a dud. It was a tragicomedy of errors.
my dad worked on it also. similar area. He went to F.Guyana when we were kids. came back disappointed :)
But that's testing, it takes a while to get everything working. The tragedy is the UK government pulled out because they saw no future in launching satellites. So incredibly short sighted as usual for UK governments.
I've been watching you so long I got nostalgia from the ending music.
Welcome to Boston! Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving.
right, it should be "just rocking" there this year!!! LOL, at least it's close to Plymouth rock!! LOL ;D
Bean Town. Greetings from Oak Square, Brighton Center, and the old Diocese compound by BC. Go Eagles!
@@gus473 Baldwin! 👍
4:50 ,,I heard Sapphire ,and Steel have been assigned "
Nice photobomb little spider in the last seconds 😊
Fun fact - the French had a Europa rocket in storage until the early 2000s because someone at ESA starting making plans to pull it out, clean it up and use it to maybe send supplies to _Columbia_ after they were told about the shuttle's issues
Awe that was nice
hey this doesnt check out dude, doesn't make any sense at all, and even if such a daring improbable thing was the needed, i'm pretty sure the US still had quite a few expandable rocket available
Also In 2003 we had an operational Ariane 5, and a very proven Ariane 4 and its multitude of variants, so the idea of dusting off an old Europa is extremely far fetched
I would be interested to know if it smelled like a fresh pine forest when it was flying into the atmosphere
Poor kitty! Cats don't generally like car rides, I can't imagine what a cat would think of a rocket ride.
Topaz was tended by a giant beaver? 5:42
I once had a girlfriend with one of those, ..the topaz I mean, ..on a ring, ..yeah that was it! LOL ;D
I cheered as I guessed correctly! Viva la France!!
moi aussi. LOL
Viva would be Italian, though 😅
The French version is Vive la France.
@@joso5554 also, just add "Las Vegas" to it and you have a great Elvis song!! LOL
@@joso5554 Vive la Itale
Lol, I thought it was the UK. Thanks for your videos I find them very relaxing.
The UK didn’t care much about sovereignty after the Suez Canal humiliation and the Nassau Polaris deal, I guess.
Funny enough, the UK seems to have a hard time finding a reasonable middle ground between totally giving up sovereignty (to the US) and being extreme and paranoid about sovereignty (see Brexit)… Some wisdom and realism could help!!
Reminds somehow of India in current time. If there is something to learn from the story, then it is to hope that India continues doing its own program. Partners may make costs rise faster than the rocket.
🚀🏴☠️🎸
The third country that came up with an orbital rocket was the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. They were also the first country to land a man on the Moon.
Spider bro just chilling on your wall for the last few seconds because he like space science too.
Turpentine means it was the first biofuel Rocket?
No, because the V-2 used alcohol distilled from potato starch
@@scottmanley You mean schnaps?
@@scottmanley so, then the "V" stands for Vodka?
Hi Scott!
Fly safe!
right, and stay out of the freaking clouds forcrissakes! ;D
🕷️ Spider on the wall 😳
Cooperative investment does at times have an upside, in this case the eu having solid space program where each member independently may have less progress. Coordination can be useful in some cases
Are you forgetting about Australia which used abandoned Redstone rockets plus a second stage?
right, and that old Aussie rocket was always guaranteed to come right back to the launch pad, eat your heart out Elon!! LOL ;D
Nice pet spider @ 14:28!
0:20 So many people now deciding to start increasing their Patreon output as UA-cam ad revenue crashes out. The phenomenon of people disappearing from UA-cam into their Patreon ecosystem is just going to get worse.
It's also calendar related; more eyeballs watching youtube across the entire platform in the summer than during late fall or winter
Leave it to the French to power a rocket with paint thinner..
right, interesting propellant; so is Sulphur, potassium nitrate, and powdered charcoal, aka black powder! Used in model rocket engines. ;D
Can you make a what I eat in a day video please?
"Diamonds In the Sky" was the name of a 1979 series about the history of the airline industry. 1979 was a time of revolution in the industry due to deregulation which led to the tourism industry taking off worldwide due to cheap flights.
And look at what we have now.... 🫤
I only knew this because it was the answer to a quiz question a few weeks back! Perhaps even less well known us the fourth nation to earn its place on this list...
You are correct. It is less well known.
I believe the Minuteman and Polaris, both solid fueled, had thrust vectoring, on multiple stages. Not sure if they were the first, but they were designed and deployed before the French...
Yes, I’d have to add a qualifier of ‘first on an orbital launch vehicle’.
First biofuel rocket to reach orbit too? Amazing
Good reason to use turpentine: it's hypergolic with fuming nitric acid. Not something to try at home...
Turpentine is commonly used as a paint solvent or a wood surface treatment among others.
Fuming nitric acid is definitely not for home use !!!
@joso5554 Nyeh, depends on the household. Maybe I'm an edge case :)
I'm surprised you didn't mention that the nitric acid/terebenthine (turpentine) combination is hypergolic, one of the earliest uses of hypergols. According to John D. Clark's "Ignition!", American experimenters found that turpentine had to be mixed with furfuryl alcohol to make the ignition properties acceptable. I'm not sure if the French did that, because they apparently used red fuming nitric acid, while I believe the U.S. was using white fuming nitric acid at the time.
Who was first, what was second, I don't know was third. - I learned that from a couple of comedians.
Good ones!! Back when comedians did comedy, and not politics,... that utterly fails!
Nice, I got it right before watching! Cool.
Old outro is a throwback! 😄
Scott, wicked smaht coming to Boston. The home of all things space❤️
Really? I've barely seen anything on show to the public that was interesting? Walked through Harvard's grounds and there's no cool exhibits on display, just plaques telling me some rich person donated the building.
@@scottmanley Shocking!! LOL
Is a flying baguette joke appropriate?
There is a French company working on a rocket called Baguette
As an French rocket fan, I allow it 😂😂😂 (Trust me)
Hate speech!
You that sensitive?
I mean, it's fairly appropriate given the definition of baguette 😂
About one minute in: "the third country to get a rocket into orbit with their own satellite" lol. No offense intended, I love your channel!
USSR 1st 1957 USA 1958 2nd France 3rd 1965 Japan 4th 1970 China 5th 1970 and UK 6th 1971
nice chrono. SpaceX, 2025?
Thanks for posting
Under De Gaulle, the french nuclear program was a top priority (topper than modernizing the phone network)…
During at time, a friend of mine was working at the Saclay nuclear research facility.
One day, he was stuck in a traffic jam in his old beaten-up (cheap) Renault 4. He spots a gendarme on his motorcycle:
- What the bleep is going on? The gendarme was very offended by his tone, and angrily
- YOUR PAPERS! So he hands him is Saclay ID card, which read "professeur XYZ"…
The gendarme stepped back, saluted him, apologized and said "follow me" and escorted him on the shoulder with his siren, going around the accident…
My friend was a professor at Saclay, yes, but a professor of… english…
You was in Boston? Wow, that's my home.
Hot water and carbon dioxide are the propellant, ethyl alcohol on liquid oxygen or the heat source.
1:00 the title spoiled the question : the diamant is french !!!
nothing wrong with using ballistic missile technology for space launches. quite the opposite, it's how pretty much everyone who's gotten into space did so.
Including several countries that supposedly never ambitioned to build nuclear weapons, interestingly… Japan, Italy, Brazil, South Africa…
@joso5554 you *did* notice I said "pretty much everyone", didn't you?
@@joso5554 I thought SA did achieve at least one warhead?
@@joso5554 South Africa had nuclear weapons, Brazil kept the door open during a long time, Japan wants to keep a credible nuclear latency and Italy… well they make missiles too
9:55 - "Asterisk" = "little star" (Late Latin _asteriscus_, from Ancient Greek ἀστερίσκος, as per Wikipedia); "Astérix" is a mustachioed fearless Gaul, by Goscinny & Uderzo. Note that the final two letters are swapped.
Felicette was a very calm and kind female cat. I think the connector installed on her head was horrific, because not reversible.
Welcome back to New England!
(Massachusetts ex-pat [Foxborough] living in Maine)
Cocorico
Should be one of those in top 10 comment.
vi vil ha scott manley! vi vil ha scott manley! vi vil ha scott manley! hilsen danmark
During WW2, people in Portland, Oregon made their own auto fuel with moth balls dissolved in turpentine.
Shirt: "Check Yo Stagin!" Is that aimed at concertgoers at Melbourne, Australia?
"Coldplay Frontman Chris Martin Falls Through Open Trap Door During Melbourne Concert" (4th November)
"Olivia Rodrigo confirms she's okay after falling through hole in stage at Melbourne concert" (13th October)
Interesting history. I hear Scott is using a different quieter voice when at his in-laws house than he uses when recording in his home office.
Were the panels falling off at launch part of a disposable insulation system?
oh, the old outro. nice :D
What direction would they launch them in?
Towards the east, more or less. Same as for anyone who wants to take advantage of the Earth's rotation.
Up
@@ronschlorff7089 But only because of that pesky Earth atmosphere! Watch liftoff film from a lunar module ascent, and you'll notice that after only a few seconds it pitches over and starts acquiring orbital speed.
I would say mainly… upwards. Most of the early ones were launched pretty much vertically. Later reentry studies flights were not, obviously. They were flown towards the south eastern limit of Algeria, deep into the desert. More than 1000km.
@@joso5554 Algeria, White Sands, seems to be a pattern there! ;D LOL
The government is always the biggest obstacle for innovation