Word: spacecrafts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Space Chief Sergei Korolev died of complications after surgery for cancer. It was Korolev, said Stevens, who was largely responsible for Russia's early manned space program; his stature and prestige shielded him from political and economic expediency and enabled him to insist upon thorough testing of new spacecraft before they were flown...
...protected by a heat shield against the high temperatures of reentry. If Soyuz was indeed tumbling upon reentry, as many U.S. experts believe, its unshielded surfaces would also have been exposed to the direct frictional effects of the atmosphere. As these surfaces began to burn up, temperatures in the spacecraft cabin would quickly have reached fatal levels...
Komarov may have had a premonition of his fate. Shortly before the veteran cosmonaut entered the spacecraft, Stevens says, he handed Soviet Reporter Sergei Borzenko the book he had been reading-a biography of Joan of Arc. In a section describing the Maid of Orleans' burning at the stake, Borzenko noticed later, Komarov had underlined the following passage: "She bade her farewells and continued gazing at the clear blue sky until the final second when the black smoke blotted out that sky forever...
Shared Blame. Tapped in 1961 to build the spacecraft's command and service modules, North American was in trouble with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration almost from the start. Unhappy about costs and sloppy workmanship, the space agency eventually forced the Los Angeles-based company to lop off 3,000 workers, sent in extra quality-control inspectors, changed contracting procedures to combat what it considered North American's "time clock" approach...
Died. Colonel Vladimir M. Komarov, 40, Soviet cosmonaut who commanded the first multi-manned (three) spacecraft, Voskhod 1, which orbited the earth 16 times in 1964; when his second venture into space aboard a new capsule, Soyuz 1, ended in disaster; somewhere in the U.S.S.R. (see SCIENCE...