Word: spacecrafts
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Acting NASA Administrator Thomas Paine believes that risks to Apollo 8's astronauts "will be within the normal hazards of test pilots flying experimental craft." The careful design, redesign and check-out of rockets and spacecraft, the policy of including duplicate systems wherever possible, and the logical, step-by-step progression of unmanned and manned Saturn and Apollo space shots, he says, "give us a great deal of assurance" about the moon flight...
...moon flight worries, most of them centered around the functioning of the Apollo command module's SPS engine. Should the SPS fail to ignite, or should it burn for less than 80 sec. during the attempt to place Apollo in lunar orbit, there would be little difficulty; the spacecraft would simply continue around the moon and be whipped back toward the earth and safety. But if the SPS should fail between the 80-and 110-sec. marks of its scheduled 246-sec. burn, Apollo would enter what NASA euphemistically describes as an "unstable orbit." After rounding the moon...
...atmosphere at an angle no greater than 7.4° nor less than 5.4°. Reentry at too steep an angle would cause too sudden a deceleration. The force on Apollo and its occupants could then exceed 20 g's, and friction with the atmosphere would heat the spacecraft far above its design limits. Says Lieut. General Samuel Phillips, Apollo program director: "There would be a structural breakup and loss of the spacecraft and the crew...
...also loop out as far as 25,000 miles from the earth and then descend into a low earth orbit for several days-or it could re-enter the atmosphere after traveling as far as 69,000 miles into space. Or, just as the Russians will probably do, the spacecraft could simply make a circumlunar flight, loop around behind the moon, and return directly to earth...
Although they freely acknowledge the numerous possibilities of failure, NASA officials nonetheless exude confidence in Apollo 8 and its crew. They expect the mission to go all the way. In the thorough investigation that preceded the decision to send the spacecraft into lunar orbit, says Manned Space Flight ""Director George Mueller, "we found no incipient problems. The odds for complete success of Apollo 8 are as good as they were for Apollo...