Word: boosterism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Catching up with the Soviets in booster rockets was the first problem. There has been heartening progress. Besides the none-too-reliable military Atlases that put the first Mercury astronauts in their orbits, the U.S. now has the Air Force Titan II, which is just starting its tests but is already considered a very reliable bird. Its structure is stiffer than the thin-skinned Atlas, and its two stages have thrust enough (430,000 Ibs. and 100,000 Ibs.) to make the next big advance in space, orbiting the two-man Gemini capsule around the earth...
...even bigger booster, the Saturn C1, is not a military weapon at all but an integral part of the Apollo man-on-the-moon project. Developed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center at Huntsville, Ala., its first stage is largely the creation of famed Wernher von Braun, who designed V-2 rockets for the Nazis in World War II. With eight H-1 (Atlas) engines bound together to produce 1,500,000 Ibs. of thrust, the Saturn C-1 has been test-flown twice from Cape Canaveral, and it worked perfectly each time. The future star...
...last week for postponing the scheduled launching of an Atlas-Agena B rocket on the start of a 4½-month, 224 million-mile journey to Venus, the earth's sister planet. Mariner I was all set for the shot when an unindentified radio signal detected in the booster rocket made technicians at Cape Canaveral fear a malfunction. Later, they rescheduled the flight, which is aimed at discovering the first accurate data about Venus and its mysterious atmosphere...
...test was the most publicized, most debated and most postponed of the U.S. current test series. It had been called off seven times because of weather. Twice the booster rocket had roared off its pad with a great bomb in its nose, only to be destroyed deliberately because of malfunction. But now the countdown had begun again, and Hawaiian radio stations cut regular programs off the air to broadcast its final minutes. Residents hurried to the beaches, and on Diamond Head cars picked out vantage observation posts. Officials even opened the gates at Punchbowl Cemetery to allow crowds to view...
...enthusiasts estimate that a single advanced Saturn booster will be powerful enough to make the voyage direct, skipping the costly and difficult rendezvous in earth orbit...