Word: spacecrafts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...unblinking electronic eyes, was swooping toward its target. Mariner II was giving earthbound scientists their first close look at the distant planet that has tugged so long at their adventurous imagination. And when Mariner's radioed reports were finally decoded by the JPL crew that had built the spacecraft and sent it on its way, Venus would never seem quite the same again...
Ranging far out into the solar system, unmanned spacecraft will feel at home in vacuum, be unbothered by radiation, take advantage of weightlessness, get their energy from sunlight as green plants do on Earth. They will perform elaborate maneuvers in response to orders built into their brains, like the instincts of insects, which lead thoroughly successful lives without a trace of reason. Sometimes they will listen with sensitive radio ears for whispers of command from millions or hundreds of millions of miles away. Some of them will send tough-skinned projectiles down into hostile atmosphere and record what they report...
...first manned space station has yet to be shot aloft, but earthbound engineers are already dealing with the possibility of accident in orbit, struggling with the difficult problem of bringing men back alive from some far-out disaster. What will happen, for example, if a spacecraft's retrorockets are disabled so that it cannot slow down for the long descent toward home? Will the occupants have to be abandoned...
...little spacecraft will have its own retrorocket to start its slanting down toward the atmosphere. Guidance apparatus will do most of the navigation and report to the passenger on the success of the perilous maneuver. Dr. Brodsky is confident that the plastic-faced wings can resist the heat of entry into the earth's air. As the paraglider gets deeper into the atmosphere, its speed will drop steadily. At last it will drift slowly near the earth, and the pilot, flying it like an old-fashioned glider, will be able to select a favorable spot on which to land...
Unlikely Field. At last week's Philadelphia meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Physicist Paul J. Coleman of the University of California said that the spacecraft's magnetometer worked perfectly during the flyby, but it reported no increase of magnetism. Coleman reminded his colleagues that Venus may have spots of strong local magnetism that do not make themselves felt far from the surface. But this is unlikely, and if Venus has a single magnetic field similar to the earth's, it must be less than 5-10% as strong...