Word: liftoff
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...last week the Sigma Chis were right back at it, under the watchful eye of Senior Richard Delanoy, who has devised a safety measure for the sport. Four Sigma Chis line up downwind, like baseball outfielders; whenever Gus blows too strong and the rider seems on the verge of liftoff, the outfielders rush the chute and plunge headlong into it, thereby safely collapsing the nylon canopy. "It's exciting when you see that chute billow out and you begin to move," said A. G. Phillips at the end of his parachute ride. "You feel that...
Caught in a jet-set liftoff, skirts have been rising from a ladylike "just shadows the knee" to the mid-thigh of the London mini. Followers of the high-rise trend have found themselves caught in a profusion of embarrassment just in the simple act of sitting down. "Thighs?" sighed one London designer. "Every girl I know is dieting to get into short skirts." Where was the frantic escalation to be stopped? As the grands couturiers last week paraded next fall's fashion, they provided the answer: in Paris...
Twice the launch had been scrubbed, once on May 17 when the Agena target failed to orbit, and again earlier in the week when Gemini 9's on-board computer rejected vital data three minutes before liftoff. Now, for the third time, Astronauts Tom Stafford and Eugene Cernan wearily returned to the pad at Cape Kennedy for a mission that had the earmarks of a rueful joke...
...Kennedy launch pad. They were all dressed up with no place to go. Last week their first attempt to launch was frustrated when a monitoring-cable plug was accidentally jarred loose from the Titan II's tail, causing an automatic shutdown of its engines only two seconds before liftoff. Later investigation disclosed that the engines would have shut down anyway-on either of the first two launching attempts. Workmen had forgotten to remove a thimble-sized plastic dust cap used during the shipment of an engine part. That cap would have prevented lift-off by blocking the rapid buildup...
...complex countdown proceeded without a hitch. Precisely on schedule, the reliable Atlas booster roared up from Cape Kennedy and out over the Atlantic carrying an unmanned Agena rocket as its payload. Astronauts Walter Schirra and Tom Stafford watched the action on TV as they waited for their own scheduled liftoff, 1 hr. 41 min. later, in Gemini 6, the capsule in which they would make the first attempt at rendezvous and linkup in space. Then, six minutes later, the Agena target vehicle mysteriously disintegrated. The whole mission was scrubbed, and from Houston to the Cape, U.S. spacemen began to search...