Word: lunar
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Charles Duke's jubilant Southern drawl crackled across 240,000 miles of space last week, all the world breathed a sigh of relief. After a nerve-racking delay of nearly six hours, during which NASA officials came close to calling off Apollo 16's lunar landing, Astronauts Duke and John Young had brought the landing craft Orion to a nearly perfect touchdown only 200 yards off target in the moon's mountain-ringed Descartes region. It was man's fifth successful landing on the lunar surface, and the first in the highlands, the moon...
...while, it had seemed that Christmas would never come. For Apollo 16 had suffered more than its share of worrisome glitches on its way to the moon. First, there were minor troubles -the mysterious flickering of a computer warning light, the mid-flight peeling of protective paint off the lunar module and the recalcitrant zipper on Young's space suit. Then, after the Apollo had gone into orbit around the moon and Orion, with Duke and Young aboard, had separated from Casper, came real cause for alarm...
...spacecraft emerged from behind the moon at the beginning of their 13th lunar revolution, Mattingly reported some chilling news: the backup circuit on a steering motor controlling Casper's bell-shaped engine nozzle during firings was swiveling the nozzle erratically back and forth-and Mattingly could do nothing about it. The astronauts were in no immediate danger, but under mission rules the command module's primary and secondary guidance systems must both be operational before a lunar landing can be attempted. The reason: if the command ship's engine cannot be controlled, the rocket power...
Spiked Juice. Back in the lunar module for another rest period, the astronauts exchanged notes, unaware that their voices were being picked up by a live mike. "I got the farts again, Charlie," Young was heard to say. "I think it's acid in the stomach." He blamed it on the large doses of potassium-spiked orange juice prescribed by doctors to counteract the effects of weightlessness (see MEDICINE). The strange potion did not seem to bother him on the second moon walk, when the astronauts took more core samples, picked up rocks, and pushed over a large boulder...
Although NASA officials had earlier talked of scrubbing the scheduled third EVA (extravehicular activity) because of the extra oxygen and fuel consumed in the delayed landing, they decided that another excursion was possible, and the astronauts prepared to take a final spin on the lunar surface. It would take them north toward Smoky Mountain. Then, after stowing their rocks, film and other paraphernalia in the lunar module and positioning the rover's camera to televise the liftoff, Duke and Young were to fire Orion's upper stage engine and head for a reunion with Mattingly, orbiting overhead...