Word: spacecrafts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...camera followed as Leonov tumbled and turned through casual somersaults while the curving edge of the distant, sunlit earth supplied a moving backdrop. Next came TV shots of Voskhod's interior, with Leonov relaxing next to Capsule Commander Belyayev. Light streaming through a porthole showed the spacecraft to be revolving at about one revolution per minute...
They had been expecting a space spectacular for months; the sharp-eyed, long-range radars of the North American Air Defense Command watched the launch of the Voskhod II and followed it on orbit. Forewarned that a hole might open in the side of the spacecraft, changing its reflectivity, the radar men watched the reflected blip with special attention. As expected, they saw an irregularity develop in the space ship's electronic "signature." That was the instant when Leonov opened the hatch...
...normal, then it soared into a slightly more elliptical orbit than is usual for manned satellites, rising to 307.5 miles above the earth at apogee. Leonov took his vacuum stroll during the second orbit, when, as the Russians patriotically pointed out, he was over Russian soil. Then the spacecraft made 15 more orbits around the earth, followed all the while by U.S. trackers...
Still, landing on firm ground, instead of the warm oceans where U.S. astronauts dunk themselves, has its advantages. The Russians may do it primarily because they possess vast areas of flat and almost uninhabited territory, but they also prefer it. A spacecraft that descends too fast will hit the ground with little more impact than if it hits water. And survival on solid ground is a lesser problem than after a water landing. There is no chance that the men will drown or that their ship will sink if not picked up promptly. Storms do not corrugate the land with...
Apparent Error. If any Soviet spacecraft has gone astray and landed on an ocean or other inhospitable spot, the world has not been told about it. Last week's landing near Perm was the first apparent error. A late report said that Colonel Belyayev fired his retrorockets while over Africa to check the ship's speed and start it curving down toward the earth. He was said to be the first Soviet spaceman to take over the landing controls himself, but whether this action was planned or was forced by some failure of the automatic-landing system...