Word: spacecrafts
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...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...
...mile-high ellipse to a near-perfect 70-mile circle. Using an assortment of cameras, they shot color and black-and-white movie and still pictures of the lunar landscape and of the distant earth. Firing their 100-lb.-thrust control jets, they continually changed the attitude of the spacecraft so that its four-dish, high-gain TV and radio antenna remained pointed directly at the earth...