Word: astronaut
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...space program will always suffer outside distractions from a Congress and public aroused by the Apollo tragedy and concerned about the huge costs of achieving man's age-old dream of conquering space. But now all the investigations have been made, the reports presented, hearings concluded. As Astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. said earlier this month at a celebration of the sixth anniversary of his Mercury flight: "The time for recrimination is over. Let's get on with...
...blind spot. Said President J. Leland Atwood: "The pad testing seemed to be almost mundane and routine. If I thought of the pad testing, without any fuel aboard and without preparing to launch, as anything potentially dangerous, it would have been a little bit beyond my comprehension." Said Astronaut Frank Borman, a member of the review board who might fly an Apollo himself some day: "We overlooked the possibility of a spacecraft fire...
...owed to his solid friendships with Lyndon Johnson and Oklahoma's late Senator Robert Kerr- Webb declared: "If any man in this room asks for whom the Apollo bell tolls, it tolls for him and me, as well as for Grissom, White and Chaffee. It tolls for every astronaut test pilot who will lose his life in the space-simulated vacuum of a test chamber or the real vacuum of space...
...tether is completely flexible, bending at each ball joint. But when tightened by a winch or a similar device, the cable pulls all parts together and in effect freezes the line in whatever position it is in. It then becomes the functional equivalent of a stick. If the astronaut's power pack has malfunctioned but he is otherwise alright, he can pull himself in, hand over hand, on the rigid tether. If he is unconscious, the loose tether can be gently reeled in, then made rigid to stop him in relation to the spacecraft, then reeled again...
...This finding alone was enough to interest the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. But ever since making the first one, Dr. Marton has been thinking of more applications for his discovery. Two of the flexi-firm tethers, attached to either side of an astronaut's belt, could be clamped anywhere on the spacecraft, effectively fixing him in position and thereby giving him work stability and leverage. Thicker, stronger versions could be used as construction parts in space and on the moon. Shipped aloft coiled, they could then be set permanently in any needed position by turning a cable-tightening...