Word: astronaut
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Richard Nixon shared the week's mood. While the astronauts were still in danger, he immersed himself in their plight, received frequent briefings, and visited the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland to get fresh information firsthand. The President discussed with Michael Collins, the former astronaut who is now Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, the inherent risks of challenging frontiers. Said Collins later: "He talked about the covered wagons going across to California. Those were brave people then and there were a lot of graves along the way. But they went ahead...
Painful Choice. Another bug-this one viral-made the hours before liftoff almost as tense as the launch itself. The countdown for the mission was about to begin when Astronaut Charles Duke, of the Apollo 13 back-up crew, complained of chills, fever and a rash. Doctors diagnosed his illness as rubella, or German measles. Duke had apparently caught the disease from the children of friends. Dismayed NASA officials immediately ordered blood tests of Apollo 13's first-line crew members, who had come in contact with Duke during several preflight conferences. Both Astronauts Jim Lovell and Fred Haise...
...possibility of replacing Mattingly with his back-up crewman, John Swigert, who was found to have immunity against rubella. But Swigert had trained only with the back-up crew and there was doubt that he could properly coordinate with Lovell and Haise on such short notice. Said Astronaut Chief "Deke" Slayton: "It was sort of like trying to put Glenn Miller into Tommy Dorsey's band. Both are great musicians, but each has a different style...
...second new experiment, using a battery-powered drill, Astronaut Haise will plant a pair of thermal probes into the lunar soil. These detectors will test the thermal conductivity of the rock and determine the rate at which heat flows from the moon's interior-perhaps helping to settle the old hot-v.-cold moon arguments...
...Friday morning, the moon walkers will rejoin their fellow astronaut Mattingly, still orbiting in Odyssey, send Aquarius crashing into the moon about 42 miles from its original landing site, and head for home. Ten days after the launch from Cape Kennedy, the astronauts are scheduled to splash down in the Pacific about 200 miles south of Christmas Island, bringing back samples that should add immeasurably to man's knowledge of his nearest celestial neighbor...