Word: orbit
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...present the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is planning to reach the moon by earth orbital rendezvous (EOR)-an effort that will require two advanced Saturn boosters, each with 6,600,000 Ibs. of thrust. One rocket will carry the crew and its Apollo capsule and place it in an orbit around the earth. The second will bring up the fuel, rocket engines and other gear needed for the remainder of the earth-moon trip. The two payloads will rendezvous on orbit and prepare for departure for the moon. If preliminary tests make this system look too difficult. Webb proposes...
Branch Line. The LOR system will use different tactics. When the spaceship approaches the moon, it will burn a small amount of fuel in its retrorockets and nudge itself into an orbit about 100 miles above the lunar surface. Then, instead of descending, it will detach a small "bug" containing two of its three-man crew. The bug will have rocket engines, a communication system and a modest supply of fuel as well as "biological support" to keep the crew alive. After it separates from the orbiting spaceship, a brief burst from its engines will put it into an elliptical...
After exploring the nearby parts of the moon as thoroughly as their oxygen, supplies and equipment permit, the crew of the bug will blast off and rendezvous with the spaceship orbiting above them. After joining the two spacecraft and making everything shipshape, the reunited crew will boost themselves out of orbit and take off for the earth. The bug may be taken back to earth or abandoned on the lunar orbit...
...enthusiasts estimate that a single advanced Saturn booster will be powerful enough to make the voyage direct, skipping the costly and difficult rendezvous in earth orbit...
...plans to land on the moon are necessarily uncertain. No manned satellite has yet approached another orbiting object, or even attempted to. The formidable problems of bringing two manned satellites together and making them join without damage are still far from solution, and new, unimagined difficulties are sure to arise before a dependable technique has been developed and tested. Plenty of space experts fear that many years will pass before the first successful rendezvous on earth orbit has been accomplished...