Word: gyros
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...free surface but jarred against thin ice and blacked out both his periscopes. A 15-hour repair feat, in a choppy sea and bone-numbing wind, restored No. 1 periscope to use. Constant fear: that the conditions at the top of the world, which confuse both magnetic and gyro compasses, would doom Nautilus to a game of "longitude roulette," in which the directionless ship might wander aimlessly around the Arctic Ocean without finding either of the two water exits-like a sort of latter-day Flying Dutchman. This fear was banished on the historic '58 voyage by the installation...
...script changes and shower presents, Greco purred by phone from her hotel room: "You can't come up. Wait there and I might come down." Then she went to bed, leaving Zanuck to shiver alone on the terrace in the autumn night. ¶ Sailors' eyes clicked like gyro-repeaters in a flank-speed turn as Cinemermaid Esther Williams, sheathed in tight red slacks and sweater, pranced aboard the Navy submarine U.S.S. Trout in New London, Conn. Purpose: to play hostess on NBC-TV's Omnibus documentary on submarine training. It was Producer Robert Saudek's idea...
Byproduct. This gives the system an important information byproduct in addition to distance traveled. As the cylinders move to keep alignment, the angles they form with their stable gyro platforms are computed to give the ship's location in degrees of latitude and longitude. With readings for distance traveled, plus latitude and longitude, the ship's position is clear at any moment...
Chief complication is keeping the gyro platform absolutely stable and unaffected by gravity; it tends to drift. Such forces as bearing friction and the rotation of the earth itself tend to tilt the platform out of line. On the Nautilus the system apparently worked without significant drift for the full 96 hours under the ice, and eventually the Navy hopes for accuracy up to 90 days at a time...
There were three critical solid-fuel rocketry breakthroughs: 1) development at Caltech and Aerojet-General Corp. of a new type of solid fuel that will last a year or more inside underground launching cylinders without cracking; 2) development at Massachusetts Institute of Technology of a new-type guidance gyro that can be kept running continuously inside the underground slots for as long as two to three years; 3) successful testing by Thiokol Chemical Corp. of the biggest solid-fuel rocket engine ever built, with more than enough thrust to meet ICBM requirements...