Word: rockets
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...beaches not three miles from the launch pad. The red ball signifying test imminent was hoisted. The crash boats plowed out. The observation planes, two old World War II B-17s and a new Cessna, circled above, gaining altitude. At 10:42 the gantry was rolled away from the rocket; at 11:32 it was moved back again, then finally away; at 11:44 the last "umbilical" cable connecting the rocket to the disconnect pole was slipped free. Seconds later the first traces of white-hot exhaust appeared at the base of TV3 as Dr. J. Paul Walsh, 40, deputy...
...about two seconds TV3 had followed its programing perfectly. Ponderously it lifted itself off the pad-one foot, two feet, three feet. For one blink of an eye it seemed to stand still. A tongue of orange flame shot out from beneath the rocket, darted downwind, then billowed up the right side of TV3 into a fireball 150 feet high. "There it goes! There is an explosion!" an observation pilot cried into his radio. "Black smoke is now over the entire area-We do not see the satellite rocket-We do not see the rocket that is carrying our satellite...
After water and carbon dioxide from automatic extinguishers had put out the fire, the worn-out and heartsick missilemen found the sole survivor: the U.S.'s tiny satellite, intact, thrown out of the nose section of the rocket, broadcasting the signals that were meant to be sent down from space. The U.S. Sputnik sending from the ground was right on frequency: 108 megacycles...
...right: somewhere between accurate reporting and scientific enthusiasm the U.S. and the world lost sight of the fact that the complete Martin rocket had never before been test-fired, and first firings of test missiles are remarkably uncertain affairs...
...rocket is said by the experts not to have got off the ground because of a "loss of thrust." It is an arresting phrase. Loss of thrust is what the Western democracies have been suffering from...