Word: moons
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...their boasts about the U.S.'s more "sophisticated" space hardware, Washington officials sometimes sound as if they think that U.S. and Soviet rockets are engaged in a beauty contest instead of a race for national prestige, power, and perhaps survival. The plain fact demonstrated by the latest Soviet moon shot, and the shot that hit the moon on the eve of Nikita Khrushchev's visit, is that Soviet rockets are still outperforming the U.S.'s best...
...space jargon would probably substitute "moon probe" for "interplanetary station" (if U.S. space jargon had any right to set the terms) and "trajectory" for "orbit," but the Russians left no doubt this time about what they hoped their bird would do. "The orbit," they said, "will ensure the passage of the station near the moon and its flight around the moon. The station will pass at 10,000 kilometers (6,200-odd miles) from the moon, and after flying around it, will continue its movement to the vicinity of the earth...
Whipping around the moon and returning to the earth is considerably harder than hitting the moon, as Lunik II did. A little too much speed could toss the probe beyond the moon and into an orbit around the sun. Slightly bad aim or timing could make the probe crash into the moon. Even harder is putting an object into a permanent orbit around the moon, but the Russians apparently did not hope to do that-not this time...
...Soviet announcement, the rocket was detached from the station-most likely to keep it from interfering with the "station's" radio transmission-but it followed along on a very similar course. Unless the station has guiding apparatus of its own, the rocket will presumably follow it around the moon and back toward the earth...
What would happen to the station if and when it rounded the moon and headed back to the earth was anybody's guess. It might burn up in the earth's atmosphere or miss it widely, shooting far beyond and returning again. It might make many different swings, perturbed by the influence of the moon. One thing was certain: it would not go into a permanent orbit around both earth and moon. The moon is relatively fast on its own orbit around the earth; by the time Lunik III swung back, the moon would have moved...