Word: capes
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Moment of Truth. The intricate Nike Zeus base on Kwajalein is now close to completion. Its effectiveness against long-range missiles will soon be tested with electronic tapes-flight recordings of rockets fired from Cape Canaveral down the South Atlantic range. Played over and over again, the tapes will provide plenty of practice in "intercepting" intercontinental missiles. Then there will be tests against comparatively small rockets lobbed toward Kwajalein from Roi-Namur island about 50 miles away...
...tall, slim rocket hung motionless -incredibly balanced above its incandescent tail. Slowly it climbed the sky, outracing the racket of its engine as it screamed toward space. In the returning silence, the amplified thump of an electronic timer beat like a pulse across the sands of Florida's Cape Canaveral. The pulse of the nation beat with it. For this was no routine rocket shoot. Riding that long, white missile as it soared aloft last week was Navy Commander Alan B. Shepard Jr., first U.S. astronaut ever fired into space. And riding with him was his country...
...were coming in from the length of the Southeastern seaboard, and the possibility of cloud cover had to be calculated over and over. Minor mechanical troubles had to be repaired. As the countdown was held and resumed, doctors talked to Shepard and pronounced him the calmest man on the Cape. At T minus 2 minutes (2 minutes before launch), as the sun climbed the eastern sky, the "cherry picker" (a jointed crane capable of plucking the astronaut out of his capsule in case of a prelaunch disaster) backed away. At T minus 30 seconds the "umbilical cord" of tubing...
...picker had been close to the pad, prepared to snatch Shepard from Freedom 7 in case of a disaster on the ground. Besides the cherry picker, a fire-proofed Army personnel carrier stood by with a fire-suited crew. Some four miles from Pad 5, the headquarters of the Cape's Abort Rescue Team was a humming hive of activity. Six helicopters were tuning up, ready to carry skilled technicians, doctors and frogmen to rescue the astronaut if the capsule splashed near by. If the Freedom 7 should start to sink, frogmen would be ready to slip beneath...
...north of Grand Bahama Island, was an even weightier deployment. Circling near the calculated impact area of the Mercury capsule, Lake Champlain bristled with helicopters, and a flotilla of six destroyers strung out along the range. Watching the range with sharp electronic eyes were the swarming radars of Cape Canaveral, and high overhead soared monstrous aircraft burdened with more radars. Neither money, men nor equipment had been spared to protect the life of U.S. Astronaut...