Word: conrade
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Roaring upward into a dense cloud bank, Apollo 12 disappeared from view almost immediately, its trail outlined by twin lightning flashes. As President Nixon watched open-mouthed among the drenched and awe-struck spectators. Astronaut Charles ("Pete") Conrad radioed back reassuring words: "This baby is really going...
Seconds later everyone wondered where. "I don't know what happened here," Conrad said excitedly. "We had everything in the world drop out." Inside the spacecraft, as it passed through the dark clouds. Astronauts Conrad, Richard Gordon and Alan Bean had been bathed in a sudden, brilliant flash. Immediately, red and yellow warning lights began blinking on the command module's instrument panels. All three fuel cells had stopped working; alternating-current circuits were dead, and the electrically operated gyroscopic platform that allows the astronauts to measure their attitude and velocity was tumbling out of control. There...
...vital systems back to life. Meanwhile, the mighty Saturn rocket was blasting away unaffected, lifting the astronauts toward orbit. After quickly resetting circuit breakers that had been sprung by a mysterious surge of current, the astronauts managed to restore A.C. power. "We're weeding out our problems here," Conrad reported calmly. "I'm not sure we didn't get hit by lightning." Neither were NASA scientists. But later, they suggested instead that Apollo had created its own lightning; static electricity built up by its passage through the rain clouds had suddenly discharged, knocking out the spacecraft power...
...into a nearly perfect 118-mile-high earth orbit. By testing the spacecraft's navigational and guidance computers, the astronauts confirmed that the instruments had been left unscathed by the power surge. Halfway through the second revolution, after ground controllers were assured that Apollo was in perfect shape, Conrad fired the third stage S-4B rocket. The 51-minute burn increased the spacecraft's speed to 24,100 m.p.h., lifted it from orbit and sent it on its way to the moon. Said Conrad: "Everything is tickety...
...ship Yankee Clipper separated faultlessly from the S-4B, turned to dock with the lunar module Intrepid and extract it from the rocket's nose. Locked together, the two craft proceeded on a long coast to the moon. Before they bedded down for their first night in space, Conrad and Bean made an unscheduled inspection of Intrepid while Astronaut Gordon remained at the controls of the command module. To their relief, the LM's electronic gear had also withstood the sudden pulse of current. By now the astronauts were in such high spirits that they asked Mission Control...