Word: atlases
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...alone, flat on his back on a form-fit couch inside the instrument-packed capsule named Friendship 7. In an incredibly matter-of-fact voice, John Glenn began to count: "Ten, nine, eight, seven, six . . ." A great yellow-white gush of flame spewed out from the Atlas-D missile. For nearly four seconds, it seemed rooted to its pad in the space-age wasteland of Cape Canaveral, a flat, sandy scrubland dotted by palmetto trees and looming, ungainly missile gantries. Then the rocket took off, heading into the brilliant blue sky. "Lift-off," said Glenn. "The clock is operating...
...tedious preparations of the capsule and the Atlas booster inevitably were timeconsuming. The ten postponements of Glenn's flight added to the frustration, made Project Mercury appear to be earthbound. "We could have put a man up a year ago," explains Operations Director Williams, "but it would have been a maximum-risk situation. It would have been a fifty-fifty chance." When Glenn lifted off last week, he, his capsule and his Atlas-D were as ready as they would ever be for a minimum risk try at attaining an orbit. And John Glenn, tempered by his years of preparation...
...when he moved into special quarters in Cape Canaveral's Hangar "S" to make final preparations for a flight then scheduled for Dec. 20. That shot was postponed until Jan. 16 because Project Mercury officials figured that mounting public pressures were hampering technicians in readying Glenn's Atlas-D booster and space capsule for safe flight. After that, in nerve-racking order, came delays caused by a faulty fuel valve in the booster, a malfunction in the cooling system of Glenn's spacesuit, a breakdown in the capsule's oxygen supply unit...
Scrub After Scrub. On Jan. 27 Glenn very nearly made it. At 5:12 a.m., dressed in his silver spacesuit (it takes him an hour just to wriggle into the contraption), Glenn squeezed into the capsule - and lay flat on his back atop the Atlas-D while waiting for clouds to break so that the flight could go. The clouds refused to part. After 5 hours and 13 minutes, Glenn wearily hauled himself out of the capsule. Less than a week later, a fuel tank developed a defect which caused still another postponement...
This is not to say that the works had no appeal. In the Atlas contact microphones mounted on each instrument added an ominous depth to the sound: melody leaped tantalizingly among sharp, bare rad, violin, generated an awesome tension when notes and percussive punctuation until engulfed by electronic bellowings. A fine performance of the Duo by Wolff at the piano and Anthony Condelicate stabs of sound and momentary eruptions broke the frequent stretches of silence. The style grasped my attention because its bareness provoked a wary expectancy of what would be thrust out next...