Word: solarized
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Last week, on the 157th day of an arcing, 242-million-mile journey across the solar system Mariner 6 reached its destination. In the closest approach to Mars ever achieved by a man-made object, the U.S. spacecraft flew within 2,130 miles of earth's planetary neighbor...
...reached into a sealed vacuum chamber, where the lunar package had been placed. While four NASA geologists looked on, he slowly drew off any gases that might have been given off by the rocks, opened the box, then removed a piece of foil that had been used to trap solar particles and two lunar core samples. Finally, he opened the plastic bag containing the rocks themselves. The scientific observers said that the 15 or so rocks -the largest was 7 in. long, 5 in. wide and 1½ in. thick-seemed to be covered by a fine, graphite-like powder...
...used about half to a third of the oxygen and water that we might have expected them to use." But why did Aldrin have so much trouble penetrating the lunar surface beyond a few inches with his core sampler? Why was he able to plant the stand for the solar wind experiment only a few feet away with such ease? Why did the blast from the LM's engine fail to carve out even a small crater...
Mars, however, is only one of NASA's planetary targets-and a relatively close one at that. In 1972, the space agency will send two Pioneer spacecraft on a flyby of Jupiter, largest planet in the solar system. A year later, another Mariner will try the first multiple-planet probe. After a sweep of Venus, it will use the Venusian gravity to boost itself on toward Mercury, the sun's closest and smallest satellite. In the late 1970s, the so-called "outer planets" will be so favorably aligned that a spacecraft passing Jupiter could use its gravity...
...prospects for man's first leap into the solar system will surely be enhanced by the success of such unmanned missions. Not only will they prove the feasibility of interplanetary travel, but they will help arouse the public support necessary for such journeys. To be sure, Americans will continue to agonize over the cost of the program -which NASA says will come to no more than .5% to 1% of the gross national product (currently running at $900 billion) a year. And the question of priorities will remain relevant as long as such earthly imperfections as poverty and pollution...