Word: orbiteer
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Huge Cylinders. This summer two dozen specialists, including O'Neill, will convene for ten weeks at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., to study the practical problems of getting the enormous project into orbit. Meanwhile, O'Neill, 48, is energetically continuing to press the idea in sci entific articles, television and radio talks, and in campus lectures at the rate of at least two a week. Says he: "The whole thing is exploding so fast that I am beginning to worry about how to make time for my work in physics...
...June 3), O'Neill's scheme called for assembling in space large aluminum cylinders that would house self-contained communities. The cylinders would be built at the constantly moving "libration points," where the gravity of the earth and of the moon cancel each other out. Permanently in orbit at those positions, each pair of huge cylinders (1,100 yds. long and 220 yds. in diameter) would support 10,000 people; they would contain an atmosphere like earth's, water, farm land and a variety of flora and fauna. The cylinders would rotate slowly, thus simulating gravity...
...Princeton gathering, O'Neill and others discussed the establishment of the first colony at a libration point called L5, which lies in the moon's orbit at a spot equidistant from earth and moon. Simultaneously, the space colonizers would set up a small mining base on the moon. Its purpose: to provide most of the building blocks for the colonies. Rich in aluminum, titanium, iron and other essential materials-including oxygen-lunar rocks could be fired off by a continuously catapulting device. Slowing as they climb out of the moon's gravity, these building blocks would eventually...
...between the U.S. and Soviet launch techniques. Unlike U.S. rockets, which are restrained on the ground until close to maximum thrust is developed, Russian launch vehicles leave the pad as soon as they have achieved the minimum thrust needed for liftoff. Also Soviet rockets are aimed to go into orbit from a launch pad that can be revolved into the proper position, while U.S. rockets are electronically guided into orbit after they are airborne...
...conducted such a test on purpose. But the flight did help confirm the Soyuz spaceship's full potentialities-in particular, the ability to save crewmen's lives in an extraordinary situation." That may indeed be true. But if for any reason Soyuz does not make it into orbit, NASA will not be entirely unprepared. The space agency has quietly planned an alternative flight in which the U.S. team would try to rendezvous and dock with the abandoned Skylab space station, which is still circling the earth...