Word: rocketmen
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...rays had been measured only to 80,000 ft. by balloon. The V-2s carried cosmic-ray instruments up 100 miles, measuring cosmic rays and making Van Allen, incidentally, an authority on instrumentation of rockets. They also brought him into close contact with nearly all of the pioneer U.S. rocketmen, especially William Pickering, soon to head the Army's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Pasadena...
...beat the odds. The weather was foul for all three shots-in the third, Norton Sound was hidden from her escorts by a snowstorm-but the rocketmanship and the seamanship were superb. Each countdown, with 60 Navy and civilian technicians briskly at work, took six hours. Minutes before firing, rocketmen removed the heated blanket draped around the bird to keep electrical relays from freezing up. Then they took cover, while the firing officer waited until the ship was at the right degree of pitch and roll to enable the rocket to get off in straight-up flight. At firing time...
Getting off the ground, say the nuclear rocketmen, is only part of the space-flight problem. After the earth has been left behind, and the ship is moving essentially in gravity-free space, it will need an engine that can exert a small thrust for a long time. Several nuclear systems look good for this purpose. A small stream of propellant could be heated by an electric arc, shooting out of the nozzle at very great speed. Or the propellant could be ionized and shot away from the rocket by electrical repulsion. The thrust of this system would be extremely...
...Christopher really helped your "devoted rocketmen" get the Vanguard into orbit [March 21], why don't we invite Bishop Sheen (or Billy Graham) down to Cape Canaveral to give our new satellites an extra boost? Solid fuels? Bah! All we will need is prayer and a skyhook...
Vanguard's rocketmen, too devoted to believe in anything but ultimate success, gilded their worries with sentiment. As the moment for last week's shoot approached, one man fastened a St. Christopher's medal inside the bird, after producing a formal equipment-change memo on which was printed, as the reason for the change...