Word: liftoff
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Brief Concern. Two hours after their liftoff, Scott and Irwin were reunited with their hardworking buddy. After passing the precious cargo of moon rocks into Endeavour and closing the hatch, Scott said wistfully: "The Falcon is back on its roost and going to sleep." In fact, it came to a thunderous end. After a brief flurry of concern because of a possible hatch leak, the astronauts cut loose the lunar module's ascent stage and sent it crashing back to the moon's surface 59 miles west of Hadley Base. Its impact jiggled all three of the nuclear...
...camera upward. Thus, by the time his command reached the moon, the camera would-he hoped-follow Falcon's ascent stage until it drifted off the tube. Then, in order to bring it back into sight, Fendell would have to press an-other button precisely two seconds after liftoff, ordering the camera to pull back to a wide-angle view. Noting NASA's -and the public's-keen interest in watching the lunar liftoff, Fendell conceded that "if we don't see it, I'd better get out of town...
...tightening up is also affecting the lives of the astronauts on earth. Ever since T-minus-21, or three weeks before liftoff, Shepard and his two crewmates have been kept in relative isolation at Cape Kennedy. Only people absolutely essential to their mission have been allowed to come in contact with them (only exception: their wives). Others, such as NASA scientists, must brief them from behind glass partitions in their sealed-off crew quarters. With the quarantine, NASA hopes to avert another Apollo 13-type measles crisis, which nearly caused a last-minute cancellation of the mission after...
Apollo 14 is scheduled to splash down in the Pacific south of American Samoa nine days after its liftoff. If its mission is successful, NASA hopes it will rekindle dwindling interest in manned lunar exploration. Space officials feel that if it is a failure, it may well be the last such moon mission of the decade...
...civilian biplane, looking like a goldfish among sharks. It is the film's last laugh. Trapped in that jug-necked harbor, the men of the Arizona, the regulars on easy duty in Schofield Barracks, are pathetically vulnerable targets. An airplane desperately taxis down its runway, straining for liftoff. A bomb scores a direct hit. The pilot becomes a gout of smoke, the propeller detaches crazily, scudding across the earth. Men are flooded in holds, set afire, strafed as they run along unprotected fields. American bombers and P-40s are bunched together, ideal targets for bombardiers. And back in Washington...