Word: mooned
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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NASA last week narrowed to five the number of lunar landing sites being considered for Apollo astronauts. Two of the three-mile by five-mile elliptical landing zones are in the Ocean of Storms on the west side of the visible face of the moon, one in the appropriately named Central Bay and two in the easterly Sea of Tranquillity. All are relatively smooth and unobstructed, giving the astronauts a good chance of selecting a spot that is free of boulders, ridges or rifts that could endanger the landing of the lunar module...
...sites have more in common: all lie close to the lunar equator-and for good reason. Plans for the lunar mission call for the Apollo command ship to circle the moon in an 80-mile-high equatorial orbit while the LM descends to the surface below. Setting down the LM anywhere but near the equator would require change-of-plane maneuvers-both for landing and returning-that would consume large additional amounts of the craft's precious fuel. Once a launch time has been set, scientists will pick a site where the sun will be at least...
...supplying funds "too low to maintain progress and momentum." All the same, noted Dr. William H. Pickering, 57, head of Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it has been a zingy decade-notably in the space race with Russia. Pickering's box score: 500 satellites, 13 successful moon missions, 2,000 hours of manned flight and twelve hours of human excursion outside a spacecraft for the U.S., v. 250 satellites, eight moon shots, 530 hours of manned flight and 20 minutes outside a spacecraft for the Soviets...
...abroad, he is still doing quite well for an old guy. In a two-out-of-three-cheers mood, Heren defends the basics of U.S. foreign policy by pointing out that "great powers have always accepted the necessity to intervene." While reminding Americans that their concern reaches from "the moon and stars down to the gutters of the slums," he adds that of no nation has it been possible to ask so much...
When Apollo astronauts finally set down on the moon, one of their tasks will be to set up an array of reflectors. Scientists will bounce more powerful ruby laser pulses off the reflectors and will measure the time it takes for the pulses to return to earth. This data will enable them to determine the distance from earth to a fixed point on the moon with an accuracy of 6 in., measurements that should enable scientists to learn the precise size of the moon, to analyze its motions, to confirm continental drift on the earth, and perhaps even to learn...