Word: blastoff
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Ominous Shortage. Using the knowledge of orbital mechanics that had been refined during earlier Gemini missions, Young and Collins gradually maneuvered toward a rendezvous with the Agena 10 target vehicle that had been placed in orbit with a precise launch just 100 minutes before their own blastoff. They established radar contact with the Agena 10 during their second revolution, finally sighted the target some 50 miles ahead and 17 miles above. After rising to meet the Agena and nudging Gemini's nose into the Agena's receiving collar, Young coupled the two ships...
...question remained: would the theory prove practical in space? To find out, NASA engineers installed television cameras inside the SIV B's hydrogen fuel tank. All through the acceleration of blastoff, and while the Saturn I first stage was pushing the SIV B aloft, the TV screens at the Houston control center showed the liquid hydrogen settled and calm on the bottom of the tank, its surface barely rippling. After the first stage had dropped away and the SIV B's engine was fired to insert it into orbit, the level of the liquid hydrogen could be seen...
...hour later. Marilyn Lovell, expecting her fourth child soon, was also in high spirits. "I'm just stopping by on my way to the hospital," she joked. Jo Schirra tried to take the excitement in stride, sent her two children to school after Gemini 6's blastoff. But the following morning, when Schirra stepped aboard the Wasp, Jo Schirra admitted that she had found "every bit" of the mission exciting. The flawless recovery, she said, was "even more than I expected...
...least-watched lift-off yet. Millions of Americans were outdoors on a bright Saturday afternoon, driving in the country or Christmas shopping. Millions who stayed in were glued to football games on TV. They missed a fascinating launch. Rain threatened to scrub the mission until 31 hours before blastoff. A minor pressure loss in a fuel cell soon after the capsule achieved orbit was quickly remedied by switching pressure from the breathing oxygen tank to the fuel-cell oxygen tank. And in the first minutes of Gemini 7's flight, Borman and Lovell, both 37 and both making their...
Again the trains will pick up the rocket, this time to carry it to one of two widely separated launch pads for blastoff. Thus, on a two-pad complex, the Air Force will be capable of readying eight rockets at once. The first specific objective of such increased speed and efficiency is to put a three-man space laboratory into orbit around the earth...