Word: apollos
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Plastic tunnels. To guard against moon viruses and bacteria, NASA will not allow the astronauts to open the Apollo hatch until a plastic tunnel has been extended to the spacecraft from a 35-ft., hermetically sealed van placed near by on the carrier deck. Carrying 50 Ibs. of lunar rock and soil samples in steel vacuum cases, they will walk through the tunnel into the van. There, in the company of a doctor and an engineer, they will be completely isolated from the outside world. When the carrier reaches a U.S. port, the van will be flown intact...
Loosened Purse Strings. From Surveyor's success has come man's first detailed knowledge of the consistency and chemical makeup of lunar soil, data and pictures that will influence the choice of the first astronaut landing site, and confirmation that the soft-landing system of the Apollo lunar module-similar to Surveyor's-is well conceived and workable...
...soft lander, NASA, Hughes Aircraft (which designed and built Surveyor) and Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (which directed the project, provided technical advice, and eventually controlled the flights) moved to rescue the floundering program. Increasingly certain that Surveyor's findings were a necessary preliminary to an Apollo lunar landing, NASA loosened the purse strings, enabling JPL to increase its Surveyor personnel from fewer than 100 to 500, Hughes from...
Interception Path. During its third orbit, the S-IVB refired its engine, increasing its speed to nearly 23,400 m.p.h. and thrusting farther away from the earth. After the S-IVB was separated and the Apollo service-module engine fired briefly, placing Apollo into an orbit with an apogee of 11,200 miles and a perigee of negative 50 miles-meaning that the craft's path would intercept the earth...
...Apollo began to plunge back toward the earth from its peak altitude, its engine again fired, increasing its speed and ensuring that the craft would plunge into the earth's atmosphere at the 25,000-m.p.h. velocity that will be reached by a returning lunar mission. The maneuver was designed to test Apollo's heat shield against temperatures much higher than those encountered by Gemini and Mercury spacecraft, which re-entered the atmosphere from their orbital missions at about 17,000 m.p.h...