Word: missions
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...matter how carefully it is planned and executed, however, the December flight of Apollo 8 will involve some chilling perils. Besides anticipating the kinds of problems that could occur in a simple near-earth orbital flight, lunar-mission planners must plan realistically for troubles that would be magnified by sheer distance from earth. Should life-support or power systems begin to fail on earth-orbital flights, astronauts are usually within half an hour to three hours of recovery on land or water; a relatively small thrust from a retrorocket can lower their orbit into the atmosphere, where friction provides...
Another tragedy that could occur during Apollo 8 Flight Director Clifford Charlesworth calls the mission's "longest hour." If, after completion of Apollo's tenth lunar revolution, the SPS engine fails to ignite or burns for too short a time, the astronauts would be stranded in orbit without any chance of rescue; they could live only until their oxygen supply was gone. To minimize the possibility of SPS failure, NASA has made nearly all of the engine's components redundant. If one part were to fail, a duplicate would be on hand to take over...
There is one final, crucial phase or Apollo 8's mission: reentry. As it plunges back to earth, traveling some 7,000 m.p.h. faster than a returning earth-orbit mission, Apollo will have to re-enter the atmosphere at an angle no greater than 7.4° nor less than 5.4°. Reentry at too steep an angle would cause too sudden a deceleration. The force on Apollo and its occupants could then exceed 20 g's, and friction with the atmosphere would heat the spacecraft far above its design limits. Says Lieut. General Samuel Phillips, Apollo program director...
Although they freely acknowledge the numerous possibilities of failure, NASA officials nonetheless exude confidence in Apollo 8 and its crew. They expect the mission to go all the way. In the thorough investigation that preceded the decision to send the spacecraft into lunar orbit, says Manned Space Flight ""Director George Mueller, "we found no incipient problems. The odds for complete success of Apollo 8 are as good as they were for Apollo...
...their most inspired moments, visionary authors of the past never imagined a mission so complex. Still, they dreamed endlessly of Apollo-like moon flights. Then, as now, some men yearned for a military base from which terrible new weapons could dominate earth. Some speculated on vast new reserves of mineral wealth. Others yearned for, no more than the challenge of the trip. For whatever reason, the moon, as it still does, beckoned to all. Its lure seems irresistible...