Word: orbits
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...pound Vanguard contains a six-inch satellite with a radio voice which the Navy hopes to put into orbit at a speed of 18,000 miles an hour...
Both Eggers and Ferri point out that their glide or skip missiles are also promising as vehicles for bringing a human crew back alive from a satellite orbit or a trip to the moon. But it is safe to guess that the enormous amount of money and effort already expended on hypervelocity flight would not be made available without a military motive. There is some slim chance of countering a crude ballistic missile that can follow only a predictable course to a single target. But a hypervelocity missile that moves about as fast and can change its course...
...spite of its speed (18,000 m.p.h.) a satellite is a sitting duck. Its motion on its orbit can be predicted precisely, days in advance if necessary. So if any kind of satellite makes itself objectionable to a nation that it passes over, a defending rocket can be shot up 'to meet it. A direct hit by the rocket would not be necessary. When it reaches the satellite's orbit, its warhead could explode into thousands or hundreds of thousands of tiny artificial meteors, any one of which packs enough energy to do a job on the satellite...
Whipple bases his belief in the rocket's death on the rapid shortening of its orbit in the last few days. He thinks this orbital decrease resulted from the rocket's being drawn down into the denser atmosphere which would hasten...
There is a good possibility that the shell might land in the United States. Its orbit carries it over the country six times each day. If its parts can with stand the tremendous heat of air friction it could pass through the atmosphere and land substantially intact...