Word: probed
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...pioneer probe vehicle weighs about 60 Ibs., is shaped like a doughnut with a sausage through its middle. If all goes well at the Cape Canaveral launching pad, a three-stage Thor-Able rocket will shoot the probe into space at an initial speed of 23,827 m.p.h. After the third-stage rocket drops off at 200 miles beyond earth, the probe, still pulled by earth, will gradually slow down as it flies for almost three days...
...Unseen Face. The probe will be fired roughly eastward to get the added throw of earth's eastward spin, and its course will be an elongated S in the plane set by the moon's 27-day easterly revolution around the earth. The reverse in the curve will come when the probe nears a rendezvous in the moon's path and feels the moon's pull...
Ground controllers at the Space Technology Laboratory of Thompson Ramo Woolridge Corp. in Inglewood, Calif, will study the flight closely. At the proper instant, an Air Force tracking station in Honolulu will trigger the probe's own rocket, guiding it so that the moon sweeps it in. Then the probe can make a lazy, 50-hour pass around the moon, performing such chores as sending an electric-eye view of the moon's unseen face. Theoretically, the moon could sling the vehicle back to earth in a figure-eight-shaped voyage (TIME, June...
...odds against success are great.They begin on the ground, where the Thor rocket has yet to prove its reliability. The probe should be launched only during the four days of the month when the moon is in the best position for tracking; if the rocket fizzles on the launching pad, another attempt must await the same short period next month. Even if the probe does get off on schedule, the perils of imprecision mount as the vehicle soars closer to the moon. The margin for error at the rendezvous point is about 30 minutes, and the slightest miscalculation...
Stirring Snooper. But any probe that sails a respectable distance into space will repay the sweat and strain. If it soars just 2,500 miles above earth, it will top all artificial satellites, and its instruments will be snooping in regions unknown to man. A probe that got within 50,000 miles of the moon would be an enormous scientific success. Its instruments could record meteorite density, perhaps reveal whether the moon has an atmosphere. Even more important, it could tell some of the secrets of the source of earth's magnetism, and of the thickness of the radiation...