Word: atlases
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...rival moon shot is off for another month at least. The Atlas ICBM that was especially rigged to boost a 375-Ib. payload around the moon in early October blew up last week at Cape Canaveral during a static test of its engines. It not only destroyed itself but also the second-stage rocket perched on its nose, and wrecked the launching...
...other materials at temperatures simulating space's icy cold. Long-range planners devise methods to map the far side of the moon. Biggest single project is Vega, the U.S.'s most advanced space vehicle. Expected to fly in about 18 months, the first Vega will use an Atlas D as its first stage. The second stage, powered by a General Electric X405 rocket engine, is intended to place a 2½-ton satellite in a 300-mile orbit. Later Vegas will have third stages fueled with a J.P.L.-developed mixture, hydrazine and nitrogen textroxide, and should be capable...
Middle-sized U.S. birds, still not so big as the Russians' biggest, will use the reasonably reliable Atlas as their first stage. Highest U.S. hopes are pinned at present on an Atlas-boosted job intended to whip around the moon and transmit a picture of its mysterious backside-a feat considerably more difficult than simply hitting it. Its timing may not be so good as that of Lunik II, which hit the moon just before Khrushchev's arrival in the U.S. (just a lucky break, said Khrushchev). But the U.S. moon shot's target date is early...
Chief testing point for Big Joe was its ability to keep a passenger alive. From the moment that it was hurled from its Cape Canaveral pad by an Atlas-D, the capsule's recording system went to work. Ten microphones registered the take-off noise-120-130 decibels (plenty loud, but not unmanageable for well-protected ears). Temperature readings recorded interior and exterior heat from more than 100 different points. Though Big Joe climbed 100 miles above the earth, malfunctioning booster engines in the Atlas kept the bird from reaching out to its planned distance; after thundering about...
Within months, Vandenberg will add new sets of pads to handle the increasing supply of production-line missiles. Vandenberg-trained SACmen will eventually form nine SAC Atlas squadrons, stationed at seven ICBM bases now under construction in Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska and Washington. Meanwhile, the men in helmets-green for safety, white for command, orange for fuel and brown for the contractors' personnel-are ready to fire their first Atlases from the pads of Complex...