Word: orbiteer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...commendable and well-kept secrecy, the U.S. fired-and guided-an 85-ft., 8,600-lb. Atlas intercontinental missile into orbit. Admittedly, the shot of the heavy bird, with its voice-receiving and transmitting equipment, was a calculated counter-symbol to the Russian Sputniks (see Space). But in the sweep of time it symbolized far more: the U.S. march into space, programed long before Sputnik stirred up the free world's self-doubters, was headed into a period of historic achievements that had important meanings both in space and on earth...
...simplest maneuver for a sailing spaceship, says Dr. Cotter, will be escape from the earth. The satellite will be placed in an orbit in the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun (see diagram). After spreading its sail, the satellite will be designed to have a slow turning motion, rotating once during every two trips around the earth. When it is moving away from the sun, its sail will be at right angles to the sun's light, and it will get the maximum push in a forward direction. By the time it gets...
...result of this feathering action will be to push the satellite into an elliptical orbit that grows longer and longer until the earth is so far away that its gravitation is negligible, and the satellite can break loose. Dr. Cotter estimates that a 50-lb. space sailer could escape from the earth in about six months...
...Orbit to Orbit. Once free from the earth, the space sailer would fall into a solar orbit, use sunlight to waft it almost anywhere in the solar system. For such maneuvering it would need a way to change its sail's angle to the sunlight; Dr. Cotter believes that this can be done by gyroscopic devices that act in response to radio signals from the earth. With its sail broadside to the light, it will be pushed farther and farther from the sun in wider and wider orbits. Eventually it will reach the orbits of Mars or the outer...
...bring the space sailer back to the earth's orbit, the operator on earth could reset the sail at such an angle that sunlight bouncing off would tend to reduce its orbital speed. As the speed slowly diminished, the space sailer would spiral inward toward the sun, eventually returning to the earth's orbit...