Word: birde
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...again to 22 seconds-even to a hairbreadth 14 seconds. Each time the launching was scrubbed. And at length, the red-eyed, nerve-racked Navymen found a small propellant leak in the rocket's second stage. It was during the Vanguard trials that the Army moved its shrouded bird from a hangar to its launching pad and began to groom it for flight...
...telecommunications room, seated themselves at a table before two huge screens, one enlarging teletype messages from the Cape, the other carrying Pentagon messages back to the site. Elaborately, Von Braun lectured the attending brass on the rocket, described the painstaking timing and complex processes that must bring the big bird to life for its skyward trip. Then everybody settled down to wait. In his cottage at Augusta, Ga., President Eisenhower stayed near his telephone...
Spinning Bucket. The Pentagon teletype clacked: WHEN THE COUNTDOWN REACHES ZERO, THE BIRD WILL NOT BEGIN TO RISE IMMEDIATELY SO DON'T BE WORRIED IF WE DON'T TELL YOU IT'S ON THE WAY . . . THE SEARCHLIGHTS ARE GOING ON AND LIGHTING UP THE VEHICLE. IT IS A BEAUTIFUL SIGHT. Meanwhile at the White House, Presidential Aide Andy Goodpaster relayed the countdown, received over a Pentagon line, to Press Secretary James Hagerty in Augusta. From Central Control at 10:33 the calm voice on the mike droned on: "T minus 15 and still counting...
...West Indies heard it soar triumphantly overhead. Fifteen minutes later it was radio-tracked over Ghana on the west coast of Africa. Around the earth it swept, but not until it passed homebound over California-nearly two hours after it left the ground-were the scientists sure that their bird was in a stable orbit...
...Bird at Peak. When ready for firing, the whole assembly weighed 65,000 lbs., so the 83,000-lb. thrust of the first-stage rocket motor lifted it off the ground at a fairly fast clip. The first stage burned for 150 seconds. When its fuel was gone, about 60 miles above the earth, most of the Redstone dropped away, leaving only a short section of the nose attached to the spinning bucket. As it zoomed upward at several thousand miles per hour, a gyroscopically controlled device turned the missile's attitude toward the horizontal by blowing jets...