November 20, 2017

Often the most intriguing element of a hero’s story is his or her vulnerability. The ancient Greek hero Achilles had his heel, and the medieval German literary hero Siegfried had that little spot between the shoulder blades, you know, where scratching an itch can be difficult to reach. Both legendary warriors could have thwarted death had they not had an almost-avoided weak spot.

Sigurd the Dragon Slayer of Teutonic mythology was the model for Siegfried the medieval hero in German literature. Sigurd watches the bearded blacksmith Regin make a sword for him.
Credit: Detail of a wood panel (1100′s) from Setsdale Church, Oldsaksammlung, Oslo, Norway (photo © Dagli Orti, The Art Archive)

Achilles’s mother held the back of his foot as she dipped him in the River Styx of the underworld. The river’s water made those who bathed in it invulnerable. Achilles met his end when a poisoned arrow struck him in his, um, Achilles heel, the only spot that was not washed in the Styx.

Siegfried—hero of the Germanic epic poem the Nibelungenlied, written about A.D. 1200—also had a fatal flaw. The character of Siegfried was based on Sigurd the Volsung, a hero in the Icelandic Völsunga Saga, written around the same time. As the story goes, the young Siegfried obtained the massive treasure hoard of the Nibelungs. (Harry Potter readers might be interested that the treasure included an invisibility cloak.) Siegfried killed a dragon and bathed in its magical blood, making him invulnerable—except one specific spot. A leaf of a linden tree, it seems, had fallen on our hero’s back as he bathed, leaving a couple inches unprotected.

Siegfried would later help the Burgundian people—who lived along the Rhine River—defeat their enemies in battle. He wished to marry Kriemhild, a beautiful Burgundian princess. Siegfried agreed to help Kriemhild’s brother, King Gunther, woo the physically strong Valkyrie, Queen Brunhilde of Iceland. Gunther, aided by Siegfried’s trickery involving his magical cloak, succeeded, so the king and princess married their sweethearts in a double marriage ceremony. Brunhilde later found out about the trick and made Siegfried her enemy. Her ally, Hagen, discovered Siegfried’s leaf-shaped weakness and fatally speared him through the back. The story of the Nibelungenlied—a tale of bloodshed, revenge, treasure theft, and bathing advice—would go on, but sadly without its nearly unbreakable hero.

May 25, 2012

Dragon delivered the goods on Friday morning, becoming the first commercial spacecraft to dock at the International Space Station (ISS). Lofted into orbit on May 22 on a Falcon 9 rocket, the unpiloted space capsule was captured by ISS crew members using the station’s robot arm. “Looks like we got us a dragon by the tail,” reported astronaut Don Pettit after the successful maneuver. The Falcon, built by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of Hawthorne, California–also known as SpaceX–is the first American spacecraft to visit the ISS since NASA conducted its last shuttle flight in July 2011. NASA has been relying on cargo transports launched by Russia, Japan, and the European Union to ferry supplies to the space station.

Crew members planned to enter Dragon on Saturday morning and unload the 1,200 pounds (544 kilograms) of food, clothing, water, and other supplies inside. The space capsule also carried 15 science experiments designed by U.S. students, the third round of experiments launched into space under the Student Flight Experiments Program (SSEP). The experiments, known collectively as Aquarius, will assess the effects of microgravity on physical, chemical, and biological systems, according to NASA. The SSEP experiments carried by Dragon will be the first completed by ISS crew members. The previous two payloads of experiments were completed on shuttles in 2011.

The Falcon 9 and its Dragon space capsule, the first nongovernmental space vehicle launched to the International Space Station, lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on May 22, 2012. (NASA TV)

Dragon was scheduled to leave the ISS on May 31 and splash down in the Pacific Ocean. Unpiloted spacecraft have been carrying supplies to the ISS since 2000. However, Dragon is the only transport vehicle designed to carry cargo back to Earth. All the other resupply vehicles burn up in the atmosphere on their return. SpaceX has a $1.6-billion contract to fly at least 12 delivery missions to the ISS over the next few years.

Additional World Book articles:

• Musk, Elon
• Rocket
• Space exploration
• Thirty Years of Discovery (a Special Report)