Word: missions
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Although it rose no higher than 266 miles above the earth during its eleven-day mission in space, Apollo 7 and its three-man crew last week lifted U.S. space officials to new heights of optimism. "Apollo 7 goes down in my book as the perfect mission," said Lieut...
Buoyant Bags. Successful though it was, the mission ended in tension. For several minutes after splashdown, there were fears that an accident at sea had nullified Apollo's triumph in space. After a last voice transmission by Command Pilot Schirra from only 200 feet above the surface, Apollo lapsed into unscheduled silence; recovery helicopters from the aircraft carrier Essex flapped blindly through rainsqualls and fog in a vain search for the spacecraft. Then, Ap suddenly, the helicopters reported that they had picked up Apollo's homing signals. The spacecraft was only a third of a mile from...
...Apollo 7 whirled through orbit after orbit around the earth last week, the growing monotony of the mission was a major measure of its success. Presented with little challenge from the well-functioning spacecraft, Astronauts Wally Schirra, Walter Cunningham and Donn Eisele fought off ennui as they plodded through the humdrum housekeeping and engineering duties necessary to prove their craft moonworthy. They fired and refired the ship's big rocket engine and practiced sighting stars through a sextant; they tested their computers and cooling system, and transmitted to a ground station the same sort of signals a lunar module...
...Houston. Said NASA's Christopher Kraft: "The performance of the vehicle to date has been very close to perfect." At week's end, officials were hinting that if Apollo 7 continued to perform faultlessly all the way through its splashdown this week, the planned lunar-orbital mission of Apollo 8 might well be advanced by two weeks...
...everyone who has worked with him is convinced that there are really two Wally Schirras. One will be best remembered for his high jinks in space. On his first mission, he smuggled an unauthorized steak sandwich aboard the spacecraft. In mid-December 1965, during the rendezvous of Gemini 6 and 7, Schirra pulled to within a foot of the other spacecraft and held up a sign for Gemini 7's command pilot, West Point Graduate Frank Borman. It read: "Beat Army." Later, on the same flight, he reported that he had sighted "an object" going into polar orbit. "Stand...