Word: meteoric
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...nose of the rocket used to launch Sputnik I should come down to earth some time this weekend, possibly blazing like a meteor, Fred L. Whipple, Director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, announced last night...
...Army's basic problem in designing the celebrated Jupiter-C missile nose cone was to make it tough enough so that it would not burn up like a meteor when it re-entered the atmosphere from more than 400 miles up. But a secondary problem, in the day of interservice rivalry, was to bring it back alive to prove that the Army had overcome a good portion, at least, of the re-entry problems.* To solve the homecoming problem, the Army disclosed last week, the nose cone displayed practically every type of electronic legerdemain except playing The Star-Spangled...
...desk as he spoke. It was the 4-ft. nose cone to an Army Jupiter missile. Said the President: "One difficult obstacle on the way to producing a useful long-range weapon is that of bringing a missile back from outer space without its burning up like a meteor . . . This object here in my office is the nose cone of an experimental missile. It has been hundreds of miles into outer space and back. Here it is, completely intact...
...yesterday that the rocket of Sputnik I would fall around December 11. Whipple gave Sputnik II a comparable life-span, saying that it would last "more than two weeks and less than several months." Sputnik I, when it falls will not be particularly spectacular and will resemble a "good meteor," he said...
...shoot a modest rocket into its orbit, but moving in the opposite direction. The warhead would burst and fill the orbit with millions of small particles. Any one of these, hitting the satellite with twice its orbital speed (36,000 m.p.h.) would have the effect of a meteor, punching a hole and sending a blast of flame and shock into its interior...