Word: smooth
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...miles away, and Kuiper said that it showed just about as much detail as the best photographs obtainable with the biggest telescopes on earth. Picture by picture, as the spacecraft sped toward the moon, the scene expanded. Craters seemed to blossom on lunar plains that had looked perfectly smooth; in the next pictures even smaller craters appeared...
...some parts of the moon. They seem to have fairly steep slopes that might topple any spacecraft that attempts to land on them. Dr. Kuiper thinks that regions splashed with rocks tossed out of big craters should be studiously avoided, but other parts of the lunar plains are probably smooth enough for landing. An encouraging sign is the comparative scarcity of small primary craters blasted by meteor impacts...
Surveyor & Orbiter. What will buoyant J.P.L. try next? Two more photographic Rangers are in preparation, and they will probably search for smooth lunar plains unscored by splashed-out rocks, and otherwise suitable for landings. Later, J.P.L.'s unmanned Surveyor spacecraft will soft-land on the moon, collect lunar material, analyze it on the spot and radio to earth reports of its chemical and physical character. For large-scale moon-mapping, J.P.L.'s Orbiter will whirl closely around the moon, transmitting thousands of pictures of its surface. With J.P.L.'s unmanned space, technology now in full flower, such...
...Clouds (left) with about as much detail as best pictures taken by biggest earth-based telescopes. Cross-shaped marks are reference points on the camera. Sunlight is falling from the left, casting shadows that permit measurement of elevations and depths. Areas between crater rims look smooth, but closer pictures (below) show this to be illusion. Fine spacing of TV lines gives pictures the quality of good photographs...
...then ground and polished to remove imperfections. The float process, devised by Alastair Pilkington, the company's production head and a distant cousin of the founder, produces better glass more simply and cheaply. In the process, molten glass flows onto the surface of hot liquid tin, acquiring a smooth, flawless surface as it floats, then is quickly cooled and hardened before it can be marred by touching any solid object. By reducing the steps in the production process, the method saves 30% of the ordinary cost of glassmaking...