Word: mooned
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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There were skeptics who questioned whether Lunik got to the moon at all. Since the only tangible evidence of a hit was the sudden stopping of its radio signals, the Russians might have set the signals to turn off automatically at a predetermined time while Lunik II soared on past the moon (as Lunik...
...Crater. The Russians themselves do not claim to know precisely where the Lunik landed. Astronomers from the Ukraine's Kharkov Observatory, who watched and photographed the moon at the moment of impact from a high-flying airplane, think they saw 'a light effect" at the right instant. U.S. astronomers doubt it. Moon Expert Gerard Kuiper of the University of Chicago thinks that no flash of impact would have been visible against the moon's sunlit surface. He questions a Hungarian report of seeing a long-lasting dust cloud on the moon. Since the moon has virtually...
British radio astronomers do not think this deception was possible. With the giant Jodrell Bank radio telescope, they measured Lunik II's slowly decreasing speed as it climbed through the earth's gravitational field. Then they watched it speed up about 50% as the moon's modest gravity took control. Mathematical analysis showed that Lunik II followed the proper curve to crash near the center of the lunar disk...
...wake of the Russian moon triumph, U.S. spacemen had two failures and one success last week. A Jupiter rocket blew up, and a Thor Able navigation satellite failed to orbit. The bright spot was the last of the much-criticized Vanguards, which put a 50-lb. payload in a high orbit expected to last 30 years or more...
Middle-sized U.S. birds, still not so big as the Russians' biggest, will use the reasonably reliable Atlas as their first stage. Highest U.S. hopes are pinned at present on an Atlas-boosted job intended to whip around the moon and transmit a picture of its mysterious backside-a feat considerably more difficult than simply hitting it. Its timing may not be so good as that of Lunik II, which hit the moon just before Khrushchev's arrival in the U.S. (just a lucky break, said Khrushchev). But the U.S. moon shot's target date is early...