Word: liftoff
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...this week's story of the astronauts' flight. To cover the shot, Houston Bureau Chief Don Neff, Washington Correspondent David Lee and Houston Stringer Jim Schefter, all veterans of earlier and less ambitious shots, filed from location. Lee and Schefter stayed at Cane Kennedy until the successful liftoff; then Schefter piloted them by private plane to Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center, thus escaping the massive migration of newsmen that jams transportation to Houston after a launch. In Houston, they joined Neff, who had managed to relocate the entire bureau, including Teletype machines, to a hotel suite across...
Shortly after liftoff, Apollc 8 will go into a "parking" orbit 115 miles above the earth. If mission controllers are satisfied that all the ship's systems are working properly, the final stage of the Saturn booster will be reignited during the second or third orbit. The resulting thrust will increase Apollo's speed to 24,000 m.p.h.-enough to free it from the earth's environment and send it on a curving trajectory toward the moon...
Such problems seemed minor indeed, and they did not materially change the sentiment voiced several hours after liftoff by the chief of the Apollo lunar-landing program, Lieut. General Samuel Phillips: "It is a pleasure to announce that Apollo 7 has, up to this moment, conducted a perfect mission-absolutely perfect. Bigger events are coming soon...
...before 1970. Generating 7,500,000 Ibs. of thrust and one of the loudest sounds ever produced by man,* the first-stage engines lifted the 3,000-ton, 363-foot-high vehicle to an altitude of 38 miles and a speed of 6,100 m.p.h. only 21 minutes after liftoff. During this stage of the flight, the rocket, taller than the Statue of Liberty, could be seen as far away as Jacksonville, 150 miles distant...
...effect, the modifications have made Apollo a brand new spacecraft that will have to be tested for structural integrity, vibration characteristics during liftoff, and behavior in a vacuum before it can be requalified for flight. Such testing has pushed the initial launch date for the Apollo series to early summer of next year. But this winter the spacecraft will face its baptism by fire in Houston, when NASA engineers try to set a full-scale Apollo ablaze under varied atmospheric conditions...