Word: orbiteer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Worrisome as it was, the problem with the attitude control system was nothing as compared with another threat. Just as Glenn was beginning his second orbit, an instrument panel in the Project Mercury Control Center at Canaveral picked up a warning that the Fiberglas heat shield on Friendship 7 had come ajar. If the shield were to separate before or during the capsule's re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, John Glenn would perish in a flash of flame...
...Distinguished Flying Crosses and an Air Medal with 18 clusters), Glenn had lived with supersonic speed and the constant possibility of sudden death. To the millions who saw and heard him last week, it was obvious that John Glenn was a perfect choice to become the first American to orbit the earth...
...Operations Director Williams, "but it would have been a maximum-risk situation. It would have been a fifty-fifty chance." When Glenn lifted off last week, he, his capsule and his Atlas-D were as ready as they would ever be for a minimum risk try at attaining an orbit. And John Glenn, tempered by his years of preparation, never doubted his flight would be a success...
Christopher Columbus Kraft Jr., 37, flight director, controlled Friendship 7 from the moment the Atlas-D roared off the launch pad, had to make the heavy decisions about whether to let Glenn make a third orbit and when and where to bring him to earth if further trouble developed. Sitting in the Mercury Control Center, Kraft was fed a steady stream of monitored data about the condition of Glenn and the capsule, plus the prediction, cranked out by computers every 1½ sec. from Greenbelt, Md., of where Friendship 7 would land if the flight had to be aborted...
...conducts its space shoots has put Shorty Powers in the limelight, too. He would be the last to mind. Well aware of his role, he cultivates the deep, composed voice that, to a tense world last week, suggested that the nation's first attempt at manned orbit was no more critical than a takeoff from Idlewild. "I must not raise my voice," says Shorty Powers. "I must give the people an objective report without any display of emotion. Millions will be hanging on my every word.'' As a matter of fact, millions...