Word: rocketeers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...supposed to have climbed to 300-400 miles, then gone into its orbit. Instead, the second-stage engine failed to cut off, kept the Vanguard going up instead of letting it turn parallel to the earth's surface. When the third stage fired at the wrong angle, the rocket just kept on going-straight up to 2,200 miles. The Navy's reading of Cape Canaveral instruments showed that the satellite landed near the west coast of South Africa, 7,500 miles from Florida-if, that is, the whole thing did not burn up when it re-entered...
...Soviets, famed for their spaceborne dog Laika, said they rocketed two more dogs 280 miles up somewhere over European Russia, recovered the animals-alive. The hermetically sealed passengers were both female, the Russians added, named Belyanka (Whitey) and Pestraya (Spot). Total weight of the rocket and dogs...
...roar farther and faster, rockets need a super-fuel with more bounce to the ounce. Most such concoctions are too volatile to handle. Last week Bell Aircraft announced success in taming one of them-liquid fluorine-which might boost rocket-payloads 70%. That would be enough to orbit U.S. satellites considerably bigger than Russia's very heavy Sputnik...
...rocket fuel combines a chemical that oxidizes and an ingredient that burns. The propulsive energy released is measured as "specific impulse." Present combinations, e.g., liquid oxygen and kerosene, have a specific impulse of about 245 Ibs. Using liquid fluorine as the oxidizer instead of liquid oxygen would boost specific impulse to between...
...Army Jupiter-C rocket thundered up from Cape Canaveral, Fla. this week in a perfect blastoff. Its mission: to hurl the U.S.'s 37-lb. space satellite, Explorer V, into orbit to measure lethal solar rays in outer space. Three and a half hours later, the Army glumly announced that the rocket's upper stages had somehow malfunctioned, that Explorer V was not in orbit. Army's space score card to date: three satellites in-orbit in five tries...