Word: mooned
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Only a few weeks before the shot, the editors told their readers of the promises and perils of the impending moon flight in a SCIENCE cover story written by Associate Editor Leon Jaroff (TIME, Dec. 6), who also wrote this week's story of the astronauts' flight. To cover the shot, Houston Bureau Chief Don Neff, Washington Correspondent David Lee and Houston Stringer Jim Schefter, all veterans of earlier and less ambitious shots, filed from location. Lee and Schefter stayed at Cane Kennedy until the successful liftoff; then Schefter piloted them by private plane to Houston...
...HALF-HOUR after thrusting out from earth orbit toward the moon, the astronauts faced a test that was crucial to the first actual lunar landings. They successfully separated their spacecraft from the third-stage S-4B rocket, moved 50 feet ahead of it, then turned to inspect it. After sending the S-4B off into orbit around the sun, Apollo was to continue coasting toward the moon, firing its engine briefly only if a mid-course correction was needed to put the craft precisely on its path...
...navigation tests, spacecraft attitude changes and a second live telecast were to occupy the astronauts' time. Late in the evening, the pull of earth's gravity would have slowed Apollo to its minimum translunar speed of 2,170 m.p.h. At that point, 30,000 miles from the moon, lunar gravity takes over. Apollo would thus begin accelerating again as it sped closer to the moon...
TUESDAY: Early in the morning, Apollo was due to curve around the western edge of the moon at a speed of 5,720 m.p.h. Around 5 a.m., behind the moon and cut off from radio contact with earth, the astronauts were to fire Apollo's rocket to cut their speed and drop into orbit around the moon. Some 20 minutes later, they would emerge from behind the eastern edge of the moon and resume radio contact. At 7:30 a.m. and again at 9:31 p.m., they were scheduled to transmit live TV pictures of the lunar surface...
WEDNESDAY: Shortly after midnight on Christmas Day, the astronauts planned to burn Apollo's engine again, in order to boost their speed to 6,060 m.p.h., and head back toward earth. This maneuver would also occur behind the moon, so that long minutes would pass before earth stations knew whether it had been successful. The Apollo crew's itinerary called for spending the remainder of the day and all day Thursday in housekeeping chores and navigation tests while coasting back toward earth. There were also to be two more live telecasts to earth from the spacecraft...