Word: orbiters
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More definitive answers will have to await the four additional Mars probes now planned by NASA. In 1971, during the next close approach of Mars, the U.S. will send two photographic spacecraft into orbit around the planet for at least 90 days each. The orbiters will take a series of pictures showing seasonal changes on Mars, map the entire surface and enable scientists to choose likely looking spots for future landings. High priority will be given to sites with the warmest temperatures and greatest traces of moisture...
Monster Rocket. Wernher von Braun, director of the NASA facilities at Huntsville, Ala., favored an earth-orbital-rendezvous technique; two or more rockets would be used separately to launch a spacecraft and fuel-carrying stages into earth orbit, where they would be assembled for a flight to the moon. Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is most concerned with unmanned space shots, proposed that extra fuel and supplies be rocketed to the surface of the moon and then be brought together into a supply depot by a remotecontrolled tractor. The astronauts would land near...
While the various factions wrangled, Engineer Houbolt, whose work at NASA's Langley Research Center was not directly connected with space flight, was impressed by still another moon-landing technique: the lunar-orbit rendezvous. Houbolt's plan was to leave the mother craft in orbit around the moon while a light, ferrylike craft descended from it to the lunar surface carrying only one or two of the astronauts. Later, the little craft could blast off, rendezvous and dock with the mother ship, and then be left behind in lunar orbit as the astronauts returned to earth...
Dour Rejection. Sure that he had the answer, Houbolt attended meetings of NASA's moonshot planning group to promote the lunar-orbit-rendezvous (LOR) scheme. His reception was cool. "Your figures lie," shouted one excitable member of the group. "I don't believe a word of it." Wernher von Braun, present at the same meeting, dourly shook his head at Houbolt's proposal and said, "No, that's no good." Recalls Christopher Kraft, director of NASA's manned-flight operations: "When some people first heard of Houbolt's idea, they thought he was nuts...
Embarrassed Silence. One of the hardest to convince was Wernher von Braun. But when he was finally converted to the lunar-orbit-rendezvous technique, he became a formidable advocate. During a visit to Huntsville, President Kennedy stood in embarrassed silence while Von Braun argued heatedly with Presidential Science Adviser Jerome Wiesner, the last important holdout against LOR. Pressed for a final decision, Kennedy overruled Wiesner in October 1962 and gave NASA permission to proceed with the design and construction of a lunar module...