Word: orbiter
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...assumed, of course, that the first spaceman will be a Soviet astronaut riding a Soviet satellite. Most U.S. authorities tend to agree, admitting that the Soviet man-in-space program is well ahead of the U.S.'s. The Russians might well be able to put a man into orbit this week and bring him back in reasonably good condition. The five-ton satellites in which they have orbited dogs weigh about four times as much as the man-carrying cabins of U.S. Project Mercury...
...before they make their big move, the Russians are apparently trying to establish a good reliability record. So far they have launched four satellites capable, in size at least, of orbiting and landing a man. The first, launched last May, carried a man-sized dummy but did not bring it back to earth. Last August another satellite orbited two dogs and landed them alive and well. (A female, Strelka, has since had six puppies.) A December satellite carrying two dogs went into orbit, but the re-entry body burned up in the atmosphere. The fourth satellite, launched this month, carried...
...Space Administration, which is testing the X-15, emphasizes that it is a pure research airplane with no immediate applications. But it is no secret that the X-15 is an important step toward controlled re-entry from space. The first humans who return to earth from an orbit will probably depend on parachutes to lower them gently to a passive landing. This is the approach of U.S. Project Mercury and presumably of the Soviet man-in-space program. A more ambitious approach is to glide the returning space craft down through the atmosphere on red-hot wings and steer...
...five-ton Soviet space vehicle carrying a female dog named Chernushka (Blackie) and "other biological objects" last week spun into a low orbit around the earth. Announced the U.S.S.R.: "After fulfilling the outlined research program, the vessel landed on command at a preset area of the Soviet Union on the same...
...establish on them a system that will provide necessary conditions for man's flight.'' All well and good-but on the basis of announced results, hardly more impressive than the Soviets' own feat of last Aug. 20, when they landed two dogs from orbit in a spaceship weighing almost as much as the current...