Word: spacecrafts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Southwest gets more than its share of Government contract money, thanks in no small part to its important friends in Washington. NASA's new Manned-Spacecraft Center brings $3,000,000 in monthly salaries to Houston, and at least 85 aerospace companies have landed in the area since...
...space scientists may not be able to explain the last-minute failure of Ranger 6 for weeks - if ever. As the spacecraft hurtled toward the moon's Sea of Tranquillity, it sent back a vast amount of data; it reported on its changing internal temperature, its bat tery voltages, the position of its antennas. But none of the information that Ranger sent back has yet accounted for the failure of its TV cam eras. "We're still studying it," said Director William Pickering of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "I'm trying to leave the boys alone." Whatever...
...planned target. Its radio transmitter never faltered, and its instruments reported faithfully. In the estimation of many space engineers, this is a greater achievement than sending any number of astronauts on passive trips around the earth. Since the TV cameras are not a notably unreliable part of the spacecraft's equipment, there is a good chance that they will work properly on the next Ranger flight, which is scheduled for March...
Slowed by earth's gravitation and not yet accelerated by the pull of the moon, the spacecraft would have to cruise for hours more, exposed to all the known and unknown hazards of space. One hour before impact, according to the plan, when it is about 4,000 miles from the moon, Goldstone would tell it to turn again, pointing its six TV cameras at the approaching lunar surface. With the moon 900 miles away and Ranger approaching at 4,000 m.p.h., the six cameras would start taking pictures-more than five per second. Radioed back to earth, those...
...squirt out of the metal like toothpaste out of a tube. They grow fastest at 125° F., which is close to the temperature inside a home hi-fi set, but they grow well enough at average room temperature (70°), which is common in enclosed parts of spacecraft. Now a spacecraft with a faltering voice or an electronic brain that has become psychotic need not be given up for lost. Allowed a few days to grow, the little tin whiskers will make it electronically healthy...