Word: apollos
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...Helsinki meeting was bound to provoke skepticism, coming as it does less than a week after the end of the Apollo-Soyuz flight, another extravaganza that seemed more important for political show business than for substance. Unlike the Congress of Vienna (see box page 18), the Helsinki congress -the final phase of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE)-will probably not be remembered by history as much of a landmark. Its main official business will be the signing of a 100-page, 30,000-word joint declaration that is known so far as simply the "Final...
Drifting lazily to earth under its canopy of three red and white parachutes, the Apollo spacecraft hit the gentle Pacific swells northwest of Hawaii just 4½ miles off the bow of the recovery carrier New Orleans. The only visible problem aboard the craft as it returned from its historic space rendezvous with a Soviet Soyuz was minor. Some of the parachute shrouds caught on the Apollo's nose and capsized it; that left Astronauts Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand and Donald ("Deke") Slayton hanging face down from the straps holding them in their contour-fitted couches for several minutes...
Cancelled Dinner. That, however, was the end of the post-landing celebrations. All further activities were cancelled, including a steak and lobster dinner, and NASA doctors began treating the three men for a potentially serious lung problem. Unknown to the watching world, the glowing hot Apollo had begun filling with what the astronauts described as a "brownish-yellow gas" as it plunged through the 24,000-ft. level. Scarcely able to breathe, the spacemen choked through the harrowing four-minute descent. After the splashdown, they struggled for another five minutes, while suspended upside down in the capsized craft...
...apparently was highly corrosive nitrogen tetraoxide (N 2 O 4 ), used as an oxidizer (or combustion agent) in Apollo's small attitude-control thrusters. If it is inhaled, the gas may cause only slight pain and coughing at first; but later, as it works its way into the lung tissue, it can lead to burnlike damage called pulmonary edema, filling the lungs with fluid. During their night aboard the carrier, the astronauts experienced considerable discomfort from coughing and were given cortisone in order to reduce lung inflammation. Next day when the carrier docked at Pearl Harbor, the three were...
...problem was the only real mishap in a nearly perfect double exercise. Leaving behind the orbiting Apollo after their 44-hour handclasp in the sky, Soyuz earlier in the week came to a near bull's-eye touchdown on a dusty Kazakhstan plain, ending what Soyuz Commander Aleksei Leonov in his colloquial English said was a flight that seemed to go "as smooth as a peeled egg." The Kremlin promptly hailed the joint mission with yet another barrage of pronouncements. Exulted Izvestia: SUCCESS IN OUTER SPACE FOR PEACE. The Russians had more reason to crow. At week...