Word: launching
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Space Walk. Shortly after the trouble was identified, Christopher C. Kraft Jr., the Johnson Space Center's director, put in a call to Cape Kennedy: How soon could a rescue vehicle be made ready for launch? He also checked with NASA headquarters in Washington about such a mission. By midmorning, after emergency meetings in Washington, Houston and the Cape, Kraft had his answers. A three-shift, 24-hour-a-day operation could get a rescue vehicle (actually the command ship originally designated to be used by the third Skylab team) ready for launch by September 10. NASA headquarters also...
...order went out to begin the preparations, the shape of the proposed rescue became clear. Cape Kennedy's Pad 39B would have to be hastily readied for another launch. The Apollo rescue ship would have to be stripped of other gear to accommodate five passengers instead of the usual three and ballasted with 1,000 lbs. of lead to compensate for the resulting shift in the center of gravity. Astronauts Vance Brand and Don Lind, back-up Skylab crewmen, would pilot the craft to a rendezvous with Skylab and probably dock in an emergency port at the side...
...final decision to launch the unprecedented rescue mission will not be made until early in September. At week's end, in fact, space-agency officials were still hoping that there would be no need for it at all. For one thing, chemical tests at the Cape on samples of the oxidizer used for the Skylab mission showed that it was not contaminated and probably not responsible for the leak. Commented Kraft: "You always end up preparing yourself for the worst and you usually end up in a better position." He also sent word to the Skylab crew that they...
...what we've been hoping you would say." In fact, the astronauts got ready to take their repeatedly postponed space walk early this week. That will enable them to erect a second sunshade over the area stripped bare when a micrometeorite shield ripped off during Skylab's launch in May. The astronauts will also take the opportunity to reload their solar-telescope array with fresh film. Underscoring the renewed optimism at Houston that Skylab would survive this latest crisis, Kraft made arrangements to bring Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin to Houston at week's end for a look...
NASA, which is strapped for funds, has decided not to take advantage of this year's launch window for Mars. But space-agency scientists are moving ahead with a variety of other explorations. Two Pioneer spacecraft are now speeding toward a rendezvous with Jupiter. Later this year NASA plans to launch a flyby of Venus and Mercury. In 1974 and 1976, with the help of European scientists, it will send Helios probes toward the sun. In 1977, as a substitute for its highly touted "grand tour" of the outer planets, it hopes to launch two flybys of Jupiter...