Word: orbiteer
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...Sweet Words." To watching Americans, the flight began uneventfully. Sitting in the control center at Cape Canaveral, Gus Grissom, handling the ground-to-space communication, told Carpenter that Aurora 7 was in a near-perfect orbit. "Sweet words," replied Carpenter. "I have the moon in the center of the window, and the booster is off to the right slightly." During his flight, Carpenter was supposed to complete several experiments that Glenn had been unable to carry out because of attitude-control system problems. He was scheduled to photograph cloud formations, test for the polarization of sunlight, look for comets close...
...washer appeared from nowhere and floated weightless around the cabin: Carpenter picked it out of midair. Approaching Guaymas, Mexico, on his first orbit, Carpenter tried one of the major experiments of his flight: he deployed a 30-in. balloon from his capsule on a nylon line to see what kind of drag it would have in the near vacuum of space. But the experiment was ruined when the multi-colored balloon inflated only partially...
Artificial Planet. Trouble is, that the astronomical unit is known with even greater inaccuracy than the speed of light. As Mars curves around its orbit, its measured distance from the earth may be as much as 2,000 miles in error. Dr. Lowther hopes to clear up this unhappy situation by lofting a small satellite into an orbit around the sun. Lowther's satellite would carry extremely sensitive radio equipment to amplify signals from earth and send them back again on a slightly different wave length. This sophisticated radar system would make no use of the speed of light...
After Dr. Lowther's noisy little artificial planet has been tracked through several trips around the sun, its orbit will be known with much greater accuracy than that of any natural planet. And from its carefully plotted position astronomers will be able to measure correctly the earth's distance from the sun. Then it will also be possible to plot accurate orbits for all the other planets...
Changed Concept? Besides drawing a precision map of the solar system, Dr. Lowther's artificial planet may get a crack at even more interesting jobs. Since its orbit will be slightly but measurably disturbed by the gravitational attraction of all the other passing planets, its waverings can be used to check the mass of individual planets. It may also detect large meteors that chance to streak close by. It may point to far-out, undiscovered planets, or even to dark, invisible stars. Its most radical use, Dr. Lowther figures, will be to check the inverse-square law, which says...