Word: controls
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...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...
...back row sit Mission Control's brass, overseeing the entire mission. Alongside Kraft sits NASA's Mission Director George Hage, who has direct lines from his console to the White House, the State Department and NASA's Washington headquarters, but who rarely plays a direct role during a mission. Near by is a Department of Defense representative, whose console has direct lines to all military forces supporting the mission, including recovery teams; for Apollo 11, Air Force Major General Vincent Huston was the Pentagon's man. During most missions, George M. Low, Apollo program manager...
There is far more to Mission Control, however, than the control room. For each console there is a staff support room down the hall manned by a dozen or more experts. Complete telemetry from the spacecraft is received by staff-room consoles, which funnel the most important bits to the control room and store the rest. The space program's major contractors-North American Rockwell for the command and service modules, Grumman for the lunar module-also keep staff members in nearby offices. In case of trouble with spacecraft equipment, the contractors can call major subcontractors on their...
...major problem with space law is who will be its judge. Some space lawyers believe that eventual disputes over the moon will most likely be resolved through direct negotiations between the states concerned. This will almost certainly be the case for such vital questions as lunar communications and traffic control of spacecraft. Other matters like civil claims and emigration could be turned over to a special court created for the purpose, or to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Contesting parties must agree to accept such a court's jurisdiction, however, and that has proved difficult...
Wrecking Process. The latest round began near the southern entrance to the Suez Canal at a fortified Egyptian rock named Green Island. Within the fort's 25-ft.-high stone walls were radar-controlled antiaircraft batteries, mortars and machine guns manned by 70-odd Egyptian troops; at its tip was a radar tower. It had long been a thorn to the Israelis, and late one night 40 or more Israeli naval commandos set off on the two-mile trip to the island. Silently, they scaled the walls, killed the sentries and then, after a brief but vicious firefight that...