Word: orbiteer
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Another space mystery seemed close to solution last week. After painstaking analysis of hundreds of data-packed yards of magnetic tape, Air Force and NASA investigators offered a tentative explanation for the failure of an Agena rocket to soar into orbit as a target for the spacecraft Gemini 6. Looming unexpectedly out of the complex vocabulary of modern missilery, the Agena's trouble sounded as old-fashioned as a Model-T. The Agena's engine, said the scientific detectives, had backfired...
...Agena and Atlas had separated on schedule, and a secondary engine had fired to stabilize the Agena and ensure that the fuel was positioned correctly in the tanks. Then the primary engine, capable of 16,000 lbs. of thrust, was supposed to kick Agena into a 185-mile-high orbit around the earth. But already ground control was receiving the first ominous signals. In the tank that stored the rocket's oxidizer, pressure was racing up above the red danger line...
Then, 143 miles high and 541.9 miles downrange over the Atlantic, the Agena suddenly went silent. At the Houston control center, flight directors hunted desperately for their missing spacecraft, still hoping that there might be something in orbit for a Gemini rendezvous. But after a futile radar hunt, a technician at the Carnavon tracking station in Australia announced the end by moaning...
...next space mission, possibly in early December. Astronauts Frank Borman and James Lovell will blast off in Gemini 7 for their planned 14-day endurance flight; eight to ten days later, Schirra and Stafford will go up in Gemini 6, rendezvous with Gemini 7 (but not dock), and then orbit the earth in formation. For all the difficulties involved in the mission, the major problems will be on the ground. NASA will have to work round the clock to prepare the Cape Kennedy launch pad for a second shot in such a short time, and the Navy must stand ready...
...White House Arts Adviser August Heckscher. "The most beautiful theater," exclaimed Hollywood Producer Otto Preminger. "Marvelous and effective," said Playwright Alan Jay Lerner. So, last week, with a popping of flashbulbs and champagne corks, the Vivian Beaumont Theater, latest unit to join Manhattan's Lincoln Center, swung into orbit with its opening production, Georg Buechner's 130-year-old Danton's Death...