Word: rocketings
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...accomplished without grave risks-from the initial launching atop a rocket brimful of explosive propellants, to the final splashdown in rolling seas. Perhaps most perilous of all were the maneuvers near and on the moon-if only because they had never before been attempted. As the mission reached its climactic moments and Eagle, the lunar module, was curving down to within a few miles of the moon, Eagle's computer reported: "Program alarm." Eagle's on-board computer was being asked to make too many calculations in the frenetic moments before touchdown. It had begun to balk...
Columbia's homeward heading was so accurate" that only one of the three scheduled course-correcting rocket firings was needed. The uneventful journey also gave the astronauts unusually long periods of sleep and relaxation. "Apollo 11, this is Houston," crackled the ship's radio during one particularly long silent stretch. "Are you still up there...
...NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, the moment of splashdown set off a screaming cacophony of sirens and church bells. With the town at a total standstill for two hours, there was time for a crowd of 8,000 to gather at the courthouse square to greet Rocket Engineer Wernher Von Braun. Von Braun was hoisted off his feet by the sheriff and three city councilmen and carried through the cheering crowd-an experience, he said, that "must have been as thrilling as riding one of our Saturn 5s into space...
...lunar expeditions become more ambitious, so will their hardware. NASA is now improving the life-support systems in the lunar module to allow visits to the moon of up to three days by 1970. The agency is also developing more flexible space suits and designing a small rocket-propelled "lunar flyer...
Even the readers of the New York Times may have forgotten, but some time ago, an editorial-page column dismissed Rocket Pioneer Robert H. Goddard as one who "seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." What bothered the Times was Goddard's idea that rockets could fly through a vacuum. After Apollo 11 's launch last week, the Times recanted. Under the heading A CORRECTION, the paper declared: "Further investigation and experimentation have confirmed the findings of Isaac Newton in the 17th century, and it is now definitely established that a rocket can function...