Word: orbit
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...ready to challenge both prosperity and progress with an economic issue of their own-that the balanced budget is no substitute for forced-draft national growth (see Democrats). The U.S.'s lag in the space race had brought such extraterrestrial matters as satellites and lunar probes into the orbit of political oratory. And the solid issue of peace had suddenly been turned into the hottest political question of the early campaign: Is the Administration, in its concern with sound money and balanced budgets, letting the U.S. become second best in military strength...
...satellites so far have gone into elliptical orbits, rising considerably higher above the earth on one side than on the other. Some of the lopsided orbits have been intentional, to give information about thick layers of space. Others, although unwanted, were unavoidable. Once the original rockets had burned out, there was no power available to correct the orbit. Last week Lockheed Aircraft Corp. announced development of a rocket engine that can fire a second time, enabling ground controllers or an automatic mechanism to kick a straying satellite into a circular orbit by picking the moment to set off the second...
...make the Agena ignite a second time called for tricky engineering. A second charge of solid propellant to restart the turbopump was comparatively simple. But since the rocket would be fired while in orbit, when everything on a satellite is weightless, the fuel might be anywhere in the partly empty tanks-perhaps gathered in a ball in the center. To coax it into a position where the pumps could get hold of it, two small, solid-fuel rockets are fired, giving the main rocket a slight forward push. The fuel responds momentarily as if to gravitation, settles to the rear...
...second stage of a satellite launcher, it will use most of its fuel to make the satellite climb toward a high apogee on the far side of the earth. Left to itself, the satellite would descend again to the low point (perigee) where it first went into orbit. But at apogee the Agena will fire a second time, giving enough additional push to put the satellite on a high, near-circular orbit, and keep it there...
Present plans call for the United States to boost its first Mercury astronaut into orbit in 1961 and to land instruments on the moon...