Word: buckets
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...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...
...push into space, was the familiar, well-tested Redstone, fitted for the occasion with slightly longer fuel tanks, and burning a hydrazine-based, exotic fuel called Hydyne, which gave more thrust than its motor's usual diet of alcohol. Stuck on its nose was an awkward-looking, cylindrical "bucket" mounted on a bearing so that it could be spun, and containing a cluster of 14 small, solid-fuel rockets, 40 in. long and 6 in. in diameter. Atop the bucket was a single, 80-in., solid-fuel rocket with the satellite proper forming its forward part...
...firing time approached, the bucket, driven by a small electric motor, began to rotate. This motion had the same purpose as the spin of a rifle bullet: to "spin-stabilize" the upper stages of the rocket. It would also check any tendency to veer off course if any of the small rockets in the bucket should ignite later than the others, or burn erratically...
...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 of compressed air through nozzles. This process took about 240 seconds. By that time the bird was at the peak of its first-stage...
Obeying his electronic command, eleven of the small rockets in the bucket fired, blasting away the nose of the Redstone. They burned for six seconds. Two seconds after that, three more rockets fired, pushing free the empty shells of the first eleven. The central rocket carrying the satellite fired last. It spurted ahead and alone, and reached orbital velocity of more than 18,000 m.p.h...