Word: liftoff
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Soviet TV devoted five hours of air time to the mission on the day of the launch, carrying the Soviet space story from the late cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin to live coverage of the Soyuz liftoff. Day after day, large headlines splashed across newspapers, pushing the official line that the joint flight was, as one edition of Izvestia trumpeted, an ORBIT OF COOPERATION. In Moscow, sidewalk traffic tapered off noticeably before the Soyuz launch, the first Soviet launch its citizens have ever been shown live, as shoppers gathered before TV sets or display in stores and shopwindows all over the city...
...orbit the earth. A ruggedly handsome World War II bomber pilot, Wisconsin-born Slayton studied aeronautical engineering at the University of Minnesota; he and ins wife Marjory have an 18-year-old son. Slayton was one of the seven original Mercury astronauts. Only two months before ins scheduled liftoff, however, doctors grounded inm because of an occasional irregularity in ins heartbeat. Bitterly disappointed ("I got zapped by a three-man board of civilian doctors who didn't examine me except for about two minutes with a stethoscope"), he continued to fight for a flight even after he quit...
...technical difficulties. The astronauts also discovered some basic differences between the U.S. and Soviet launch techniques. Unlike U.S. rockets, which are restrained on the ground until close to maximum thrust is developed, Russian launch vehicles leave the pad as soon as they have achieved the minimum thrust needed for liftoff. Also Soviet rockets are aimed to go into orbit from a launch pad that can be revolved into the proper position, while U.S. rockets are electronically guided into orbit after they are airborne...
...Russian officials tour the Apollo manufacturing facilities, but no American has been permitted to make a comparable inspection of the Soviet spacecraft during production. In fact, the U.S. astronauts will not see the Soviet ship they will visit in orbit until next May, barely two months before the actual liftoff...
...them marshmallows and jelly doughnuts. On Pad 19, from which Gemini astronauts rose on ten missions to perfect the techniques of rendezvous and docking, the bright orange tower lies useless, flat on its back. The once-gleaming white room where Gemini spacemen had their last look at earth before liftoff now houses wild rabbits...