Word: earthness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Lovell reported that the earth's waters were different shades of deep blue, the land areas different tones of brown, the clouds white, and the total reflection of light much greater than from the moon. "What I keep imagining is that I am some lonely traveler from an other planet. What would I think about the earth at this altitude? Whether I think it would be inhabited...
Accelerated by the earth's own gravity, the spacecraft hurtled at increasing speeds toward its last great challenge-re-entry of earth's atmosphere. Jettisoning the service module and its trusty SPS engine, the astronauts yawed their cone-shaped command module until its blunt end was forward and then plunged into the outer atmosphere at a speed of 24,629 m.p.h.-some 7,000 m.p.h. faster than re-entry speeds of orbital missions. Roaring down into the thickening atmosphere within a sliver of the planned angle of 6.43°, Apollo passed over Peking and Tokyo, the temperature...
...unblemished success and its safe return prompted Air Force Lieut. General Samuel Phillips, the Apollo program director, to announce that Apollo 9 had been scheduled for a Feb. 28 launch date. On that flight, a three-man team headed by Astronaut James Mc-Divitt will orbit the earth and practice rendezvous and docking with the problem-plagued Lunar Module (LM), which has not yet been tested in manned flight...
Once he was satisfied with the redesigned craft, Low moved fast. Last August, when it became apparent that the earth-orbiting December flight of Apollo 8 would be delayed by problems with the lunar module, he proposed a bold plan: an Apollo 8 moon orbital mission-without the LM. He was more than convincing, and that is why Apollo 8 got the go-ahead for its historic trip...
...engine failed to ignite, or burned too briefly during the attempt to place Apollo into lunar orbit, the spacecraft would have looped around the back of the moon and headed directly back toward earth. If the engine had cut off during one crucial 30-second interval of the scheduled burn, Apollo would have been left in an unstable orbit and crashed into the surface of the moon. And, if the astronauts had not succeeded in restarting the engine after orbiting the moon, they would have been left stranded in space without hope of rescue. This point was not lost...