Word: orbiters
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first is the double-take of the Kennedy Administration after the Soviet man-in-orbit feat. The first reaction actually began long before the actual event, when it was candidly admitted that the United States was second in boosters, would be second for a long time to come, and that the best that could be done was to keep plugging in hopes of catching up. But, like Sputnik, the achievement itself was more stunning than could have been imagined. Kennedy's statement, then, may very well presage a shift from resigned acceptance of a secondary position to withdrawal from those...
...believe that any such prospects were at beat slight 2) And what if the attempt failed? Did any one in Washington carefully consider this possibility? Now the United States has given Castro perfect justification for a reign of terror and removed any likelihood of detaching him from the Soviet orbit or encouraging developments away from a dictatorial regime...
...time Gagarin's flight was announced, the Soviet public was primed. Tension was increased enormously by the apparently reckless daring of passing the word while the Vostok was still in orbit...
...descent to earth, the most difficult and dangerous part of the flight, was still ahead. A last-minute failure might have left Gagarin in orbit to die a slow and lonely death, or fried him in the atmosphere. Earlier Soviet tune-up flights had suffered similar fates...
...Soviets really risked their space prestige so rashly? Most foreign observers felt sure that they had not. It seemed probable that Major Gagarin had arced into orbit and returned safely before anything was reported. There were also other minor mysteries about the Vostok's flight. According to the Russian official account, he checked in over South America only 15 minutes after the Vostok was launched. Yet South America is more than half an orbit away from the probable launching. At a space conference in Florence, Italy, Academician Anatoly Blagonravov, 66, a former Czarist artillery expert who often acts...