Word: spacecrafts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Apollo spacecraft sped toward the terminator (the continually moving line that divides the day and night hemispheres of the moon), the sun dropped from directly overhead toward the horizon, lengthening shadows and bringing out more surface detail. Anders described a new crater with a well-defined ray of powdery material emanating from it. He observed that the Sea of Crises was "amazingly smooth as far as the horizon," which was visible on TV screens as a curved line about 325 miles from Apollo's route. One crater in the area, said Anders, "has strange circular cracks patterned around...
...relaxed manner and cheerfulness of the astronauts during lunar orbit was in stark contrast to their mood early Tuesday morning when Apollo was approaching the moon. As time neared for the mission's most important decision-whether to allow the spacecraft simply to whip around the moon and head back toward earth or to fire the Service Propulsion System (SPS) engine and place the craft in orbit-both the astronauts and their Houston controllers fell strangely silent. Only essential voice communications were exchanged, and these were monosyllabic and tension-filled...
Finally, as Apollo raced unerringly on a course that would send it 70.7 miles ahead of the leading edge of the moon, ground controllers decided that all spacecraft systems were in perfect working order. Astronaut Jerry Carr, a communicator on duty in Houston, radioed a terse message: "This is Houston at 68:04 [68 hours and four minutes after launch]. You are go for LOI [lunar orbit insertion...
...Spacecraft Commander Borman acknowledged in equally unmemorable style: "O.K., Apollo...
...fired long enough to place the craft in orbit. Too short a burn, the controllers knew, could send Apollo smashing into the moon. But there was another problem that caused concern on the ground. Apollo's third-stage S-4B rocket, jettisoned shortly after it pushed the spacecraft out of earth orbit and toward the moon, was scheduled to pass the trailing edge of the moon about the same time that Apollo emerged from behind it. Although scientists had calculated that the spent stage would miss the spacecraft by some 2,000 miles, there remained a remote possibility...