Word: orbiters
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...moon's mysterious surface than is now known. Another moon explorer under development by JPL and Hughes Aircraft is Surveyor, which will try to make a soft landing on the moon, take closeup pictures and transmit them to earth, besides analyzing samples of moon "soil." Later spacecraft will orbit the moon, photographing its topography in detail while mechanical eyes search for safe landing places for the spacecraft of human explorers. Long before men set foot on the moon, instruments will have made many parts of its surface fairly familiar...
...thinking, there are only three possible methods for making a manned moon expedition. The direct approach requires a multistage rocket big enough to fly straight to the moon and land a manned spacecraft there with everything needed for the return trip back to earth. Mode No. 2 is Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR), which requires two rockets to meet on an orbit around the earth. One of them fuels itself from the other and departs, replenished, for the moon. In mode No. 3, LOR (Lunar Orbit Rendezvous), a single rocket will proceed to the moon and park its manned upper stage...
Until recently NASA officially favored Earth Orbit Rendezvous. But now Lunar Orbit Rendezvous has become the most favored mode. Dr. Joseph F. Shea, Holmes's deputy in charge of systems, makes a convincing case for the decision. Each mode, says Shea, was broken down into major elements, starting with takeoff from the earth. To each element was assigned a number expressing its relative hazard as accurately as possible. A very safe element, for instance, might have been given the fraction .9998, while a very dangerous one might have gotten .75, meaning that it would probably fail...
...They will also take the bug out of the rear of the service module and attach it to the nose of the command module. After arriving in the vicinity of the moon, they will burn a little more fuel to nudge their ship into a 100-mile-high lunar orbit. Then two of the crewmen will crawl into the bug through an airlock and detach...
...will have its own rocket engines. By firing those engines briefly, the crew will be able to put their ship into an elliptical orbit that will dip to within ten miles of the moon's airless surface. As they swoop through perigee, the men in the bug will study the barren geography below, trying to recognize places that they have seen on maps and photographs. They will be able to correct their orbit as they climb back to apogee...