Word: orbital
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...possibility of advanced intelligence on Mars are dying slowly. Only a decade ago, a Soviet astronomer suggested quite seriously that Mars' two tiny moons, Phobos and Deimos (Fear and Terror, named after the two attendants of the ancient god of war), might be artificial satellites sent into orbit by Martians. But they would have to be unlike any terrestrial creatures. More than ever, Mars seems hostile to most earthly forms of life. Its surface appears exceptionally dry; its atmosphere seems to be composed largely of carbon dioxide with only a trace of water vapor...
...long after Eagle's successful touchdown, the Soviet space vehicle Luna 15 met with a less fortunate fate. The unmanned ship dropped from her lunar orbit and headed for the moon's surface. Telemetered data picked up by Western observatories indicated that Luna had hit too hard to survive. To most space experts, the failure was one more proof that the Russians are months if not years behind the U.S. in space technology...
...ascent engine had been test-fired more than 3,000 times, but this was no test. Houston radioed: "You're cleared for takeoff." Replied Aldrin: "Roger, understand. We're No. 1 on the runway." Seconds later, tension dissolved; Eagle was airborne, headed into a lunar orbit. Within four hours, the module had rendezvoused and docked with Columbia on the far side of the moon. Then Armstrong and Aldrin left the LM so quickly that ground controllers, caught by surprise, sounded a bit put out. "You beat us to the punch," groused Mission Control...
...were picked up by Mike Collins in the command ship, some 70 miles above their source on the lunar surface. The reason for the round trip of nearly half a million miles: Collins was in direct radio line with the LM for only 15 minutes during each two-hour orbit of the moon...
...that, space technology is only beginning to show its terrestrial worth. Lofted into orbit high above the earth, satellites even now are relaying radio and TV signals across thousands of miles of ocean and gathering a wealth of weather information. In years ahead, they may be used to monitor crops and survey mineral resources. In metallurgy, extremely strong and anticorrosive titanium alloys have moved from the launch pad to the machinery of chemical and power plants. Several utilities are already testing chemical fuel cells of the kind that Apollo carried to the moon to determine whether they might offer...