Word: spacecrafts
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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...
...itself-like all active pads at the Cape-is simply too busy to look back. Even the establishment of a new, $170 million NASA Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston will not diminish its activity. What is moving to Houston is administrative control and planning of manned space missions, the training of astronauts, and-beginning with the second Gemini shot scheduled for this fall-ground control of manned missions. But the place the missions will blast off from will still be the sandy flatland around Cape Kennedy. And until NASA's Saturn rocket is operational, the Air Force will continue...