Word: spacecrafts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...supposed to start the Agena's tape recorder, already programmed to fire the Agena's attitude thrusters and begin a series of gentle maneuvers. Instead, the Gemini-Agena began to gyrate violently through space, yawing and rolling at a rapidly increasing rate. Unable to stabilize the joined spacecraft, Armstrong resorted to a last-ditch maneuver: he undocked...
...months, Astronauts Elliot M. See Jr. and Charles Bassett had been regular commuters between Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center and McDonnell Aircraft's St. Louis plant, where the Gemini 9 capsule they were to pilot next May was abuilding. To both, the flight had become almost as routine as driving to work. To both, the twin-engine T-38 jet trainer they boarded last week for the 90-minute hop to St. Louis must have seemed about as tame as a tricycle...
...test turned to Apollo coasting through space at 15,000 m.p.h. Inside the 24-ft. spacecraft and its service module was virtually everything that will go to the moon-except the three astronauts, their couches and the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), for which ballast had been substituted. At an altitude of 310 miles, a programmer-filling in for the astronaut pilot-ordered the Apollo's own 22,900-lb.-thrust engine to head the craft back to earth, increase its speed, then separate the module just before reentry...
Seared But Intact. Though the Apollo's engine achieved 10% less power than expected, the capsule still blazed into the atmosphere at nearly 19,000 m.p.h. and a temperature of 4,000°, fastest and hottest yet for any returning spacecraft. To protect the capsule, a new cone-shaped heat shield completely enveloped Apollo instead of guarding only the blunt end. It came through as expected, seared but intact. And three huge parachutes gently dropped Apollo into the Atlantic about 40 miles from its target ship, the U.S.S. Boxer...
...from the Soviet Union was characteristically terse. Two dogs had been blasted into orbit aboard the spaceship Cosmos 110 "to conduct biological tests." Beyond that the Russians said practically nothing. The intended length of the trip, the breed and sex of the dogs, the size and weight of the spacecraft, whether the experiment was concerned directly with travel to the moon or with lengthy earth orbit, whether an attempt would be made to bring the dogs back-all such matters remained a secret. Clearly the Russians were putting on the dogs to steal headlines from the Saturn IB launch...