Word: flopnik
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...friend Billy Hembree, 17, were sent to a hospital last week with minor injuries after trying to fly their do-it-yourself rocket, a 2-ft. copper tube filled with a mixture of zinc dust and sulphur. They lit it and ran. "It was just like the Flopnik [Vanguard]," said Billy, "going great at first. Then it just folded." When they returned to investigate, the rocket exploded. Johnny and Billy were lucky; a few weeks earlier, Science Teacher Garland Foster of the Floydada, Texas high school was killed while demonstrating a somewhat smaller rocket...
...WHAT A FLOPNIK...
WHILE last week's Vanguard explosion was blamed officially on "loss of thrust," there was no lack of thrusts at the U.S. Newspapers from Mexico City to Moscow, and at home as well, dubbed the dud a stallnik, latenik, flopnik, pfftnik, goofnik. For other press comment, ranging from derision to bitter disappointment, see JUDGMENTS & PROPHECIES...
...Worst Since Custer." News of the failure of TV3 was flashed out around the nation and the world. Impact: shock, scorn, derision. Almost instantly the U.S.'s tiny, grounded satellite got rechristened stallnik, flopnik, dudnik, puffnik, phutnik, oopsnik, goofnik, kaputnik and-closer to the Soviet original-sputternik. At the U.N., Soviet diplomats laughingly suggested that the U.S. ought to try for Soviet technical assistance to backward nations. An office worker in Washington burst into tears; a calypso singer on the BBC in London strummed a ditty about Oh, from America comes the significant thought/Their own little Sputnik...
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