Word: boosterism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Moments before Apollo 11 's booster lifted off from Cape Kennedy last July, Spiro Agnew declared that the nation's next major space goal should be a manned landing on Mars by the end of the century. Critics immediately retorted that the Vice President's extraterrestrial ambitions were outrunning the nation's means. Last week the President's task group on post-Apollo space objectives -which Agnew happens to head-made its chairman sound uncharacteristically cautious. It said that the U.S. could send men to Mars in the mid-1980s for not much more than...
...good life are turning away to seek a calmer mooring. Right now they have fastened upon Richard Nixon, who goes to ball games, supports the lean hot dog and follows space flights with the enthusiasm of a small boy. He is the president of the Jaycees, the Kiwanis booster, the cheerleader flying around the world glorying in what middle America has wrought. The Apollo success makes it a good day for people who have taken a lot of scorn for a long time...
...first row of consoles in Mission Control is known as "the trench," because it serves as the front line for the whole operation. Its four blinking consoles are managed by specialists in space dynamics; they report on booster systems, retrofire, flight dynamics and guidance-respectively known in the control room's jargon as "Booster," "Retro," "Fido" and "Guide." Working in concert, they are responsible for propellant tanks, for calculating the exact moment of retrorocket firings, computing maneuver times and keeping track of spacecraft computers and guidance systems...
...course that they won't stop pumping money into it, while the more earthbound among us continue to complain that the money should be spent elsewhere. (They forget the quite fundamental point that, like smalltown high schools that spend all the money they pick up during booster drives on athletic facilities instead of curriculum reform, America will always turn to diversionary money drains rather than concentrate on essential problems...
...teamwork and a sense of shared responsibility were crucial factors in the U.S. effort to land men on the moon, so were the contributions made by a number of individuals. By providing the answers to such questions as how to build a big enough booster, what flight plan to follow, and how to guide the spacecraft, these men eliminated obstacles that might have delayed the program indefinitely. Among...