Word: orbiter
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...planned, the flight of Apollo 204 would have tested both the mettle and the technology of the three astronauts beyond anything that men had yet experienced in space. On Feb. 21, the capsule was to be fired off the ground by a Saturn 1-B rocket to go into orbit for as long as Grissom, White and Chaffee could take it, an "open-end" mission that marked a bold departure from the rigidly limited space flights of the past. It was to be essentially an engineering flight, a manned shakedown for the Apollo systems, which had already twice been fired...
...controls-gauges, dials, switches, lights and toggles. The service module below is essentially an engine room, housing fuel, the crew's oxygen, the basic electrical system, and a large rocket with 22,500 Ibs. of thrust to be used for space maneuverings, braking the ship into lunar orbit and supplying the propulsion necessary to send it back to earth. The whole capsule is 34 ft. long, weighs about 30 tons when fully fueled. Ultimately, the Apollo will also carry a lunar module, a buglike, rocket-powered ferry that two astronauts will board for the last-leg descent...
Grissom got that chance when he was picked as the pilot of America's first two-man spacecraft. With the launching of Gemini 3 on its three-orbit flight on March 23, 1965, Grissom became the first man ever to journey twice into space. Aided by Co-Pilot John Young, he scored yet another space first when he took over the controls himself, skill- fully piloted the craft through a series of tricky orbit-changing maneuvers. After that success, Grissom seemed to loosen up. The Apollo flight would have made him the only man to enter space three times...
...lights that Everhart considered needlessly bright, he complained that the glow they cast in the night sky interfered with celestial observations. But even Hartford's street lights paled into insignificance when Everhart got wind of Project Able-a little-publicized NASA and Defense Department project to put into orbit mirror-like satellites that would reflect the sun and illuminate large areas of earth at night...
...NASA has suggested that such nighttime illumination would be useful in search-and-rescue work, in spacecraft-recovery operations and in lengthening short winter days at high latitudes. But its spokesmen have carefully avoided discussing another obvious application: military use in Viet Nam. A single mirror satellite in synchronous orbit over Southeast Asia could cast light on an area stretching from Saigon all the way to Pointe de Camau, at the southern tip of Viet Nam, thus depriving guerrillas of the protection of darkness...