Word: 4b
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...both the astronauts and the technicians on the ground. Barely three hours after the rain-delayed launch, the mission was in serious trouble. After cutting Kitty Hawk loose, turning it about in space, and trying to extract the lunar module Antares from the nose of the third-stage S-4B rocket, Command Ship Pilot Stu Roosa encountered a mysterious docking problem. Five times he edged his spacecraft toward the lunar module, but Kitty Hawk's docking probe stubbornly refused to catch inside the funnelshaped receptacle atop Antares. Inexplicably, the probe's three spring-loaded latches, which worked flawlessly...
Later Mitchell will deploy a more powerful explosive device: a mortar containing four rocket grenades that will be fired after Apollo 14 returns home. Together with the shock waves that will be generated in the moon when Antares' abandoned ascent stage and Apollo 14's discarded S-4B rocket hit the lunar surface, tremors from the explosives should give seismologists many more clues to the structure and composition of the moon...
...make the best of their dangerous predicament. While two slept fitfully in the unpowered and chilly command module, the third remained on watch "downstairs" in the lunar module. Ground controllers had at least one bit of cheering news. To the delight of scientists, the Saturn third-stage S-4B rocket (which itself had been aimed toward the moon after giving Apollo its final boost) had hit the lunar surface exactly as planned. Its impact created a reverberation that registered for four hours on the Apollo 12 Ocean of Storms seismometer. "Well, at least something worked on this flight," sighed Lovell...
Only one mechanical bug marred the launch: the inboard engine of the Saturn rocket's second stage shut down two minutes prematurely. But the remaining four engines of the stage automatically compensated by firing 33 seconds longer than programmed, and the third-stage S-4B rocket burned an extra ten seconds to boost the spacecraft unerringly into earth orbit. Then, after 1½ revolutions of the earth, a five-minute blast from the S-4B sent the fifth U.S. manned lunar mission on a long glide toward the moon...