Word: orbiter
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...note the Army's Jupiter has reached an altitude higher than Sputnik's orbit. Why isn't the last stage of Jupiter's rocket or missile orbiting about in space...
...vehicle cannot be set in orbit merely by getting it up to the required height; it involves many factors, including speed, rocket stages, angle of firing...
Somewhere out of the desolate steppes of the Soviet Union a giant rocket roared off into space last week, putting the second Soviet satellite, which carried an experimental dog named Little Curly, into orbit more than 1,000 miles above earth. Sputnik II weighed 1,120.8 Ibs., six times the weight of Sputnik I, heavier than many types of nuclear warheads. The Soviet rocket generated a total thrust more than enough to power an atomic bomb to the moon (see SCIENCE), more than enough to power a missile around the earth. "The unfathomed natural processes going on in the cosmos...
...second Soviet satellite, officially named 1957 Beta by International Geophysical Year authorities, is much more ambitious than 1957 Alpha (Sputnik I). According to Moscow, it weighs more than six times as much (1,120.8 Ibs.), and it circles on a higher orbit, reaching more than 1,000 miles above the earth at its highest point, and taking slightly longer (1 hr. 43.7 min.) to complete a circuit. The instrumented section is not designed to separate from the casing of the final-stage rocket, as Sputnik I did. This suggests that the rocket can be deliberately turned tail forward...
...Thrust. The greatly increased size of the second Soviet satellite means that it probably was not launched by the same rocket system that launched the first one. It takes roughly 1,000 Ibs. of fuel to put 1 Ib. of satellite on an orbit. So more than 1,000,000 Ibs. of fuel must have been burned to give Little Curly her ride. The loaded rocket, with its fuel, structure, instrumentation and payload, must have weighed considerably more than 1,000,000 Ibs. To lift it off the ground at reasonable speed must have required a rocket motor...