Word: mooned
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...that all you have to do with a missile site is plug in for water and electricity as you do at a trailer park," said one officer. The fact is, said another, that "the ABM requires a more complicated system than that needed to land a man on the moon...
Back came new moon-surface pictures. In came data that would reveal the composition of the lunar soil. Ad mirable scientific achievements but, for scientific drama, the most exciting accomplishment of Surveyor 5 last week was making it to the moon...
...spacecraft's 65-hour trip began well. Blasting off from Cape Kennedy, Surveyor was aimed so precisely that without correction it could have hit the moon within 26 miles of its intended landing site-one of the most accurate launches achieved by the U.S. space program. But controllers at Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, aiming for perfection, ordered a delicate midcourse maneuver to place Surveyor directly on target. It was then that the entire mission came close to disaster...
...helium gas, used to pressurize both the vernier fuel and oxidizer, had begun leaking through a valve that had remained partially open. At the rate that helium was being lost, controllers feared there would not be enough pressure left to operate the engines during the final descent to the moon. The result would be a fatal crash landing...
...Dejectedly, some JPL scientists suggested that it would be best to fire Surveyor's retrorocket immediately, placing the craft in high earth orbit. It would be preferable to have a live spacecraft in orbit, they argued, than a dead one on the surface of the moon...