Word: orbiter
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When argument broke out, after Gordon Cooper's 22-orbit mission, about whether to continue Project Mercury, Holmes again was ignored. Though Holmes personally opposed another Mercury flight because of the high cost, Webb and other high NASA officials publicly dubbed it "unlikely," without once consulting him. The astronauts paid no attention to Holmes either, and got in their own high-level politicking in favor of the flight over cocktails with President Kennedy at Cooper's Washington reception...
This was man's first radar contact with the distant planet. It is a tough target to hit, for it is only 3,010 miles in diameter, not very much bigger than the moon, and its orbit keeps it close to the troublesome sun. When Goldstone's radar waves set out for Mercury, they had an effective strength of 25 billion watts. By the time they straggled back, they mustered only five ten-thousandths of a billionth of a billionth of a watt. They had lost the even regularity of oscillation with which they had started...
...knowledge about the target planet. JPL's radar contact measured the distance of Mercury with an error less than 100 miles-an accuracy that is not possible in optical astronomy. It also timed Mercury's slow rotation, which has the same speed as its 88-day orbit around the sun. Most of the results agreed with predictions. But there was one surprising variation: the surface of Mercury proved to be unexpectedly rough. "We're not talking about vast mountains and valleys," says JPL Radio Astronomer Richard Goldstein. "We're talking about something the size...
Ballet in Orbit. Another scientific faction, typified by Lloyd Berkner, former chairman of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences, deplores the race-with-Russia aspect of the space program but yearns for the moon just the same. "Human society," says Berkner, "rises out of its lethargy to new levels of productivity only under the stimulus of deeply inspiring and commonly appreciated goals. In the conquest of space, men, ideas and materials are pushed beyond previous limits and capabilities. The seemingly impossible is brought within the range of daily employment...
...frequency off the belt. According to J.A. Kessler of Lincoln Labs, theWest Ford experiment is operating on schedule and the results of wave propagation and actual communication experiments have been "quite good." If the "needles" program succeeds, the Air Force may want to put two permanent communication belts in orbit...