Word: spacecrafts
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...more than 40 years, and astronomers were cursing it long before that. Its faint green luminescence, which is probably caused by the recombination of irradiated oxygen atoms, masks dim but fascinating stars from earthbound telescopes. And not until men learned how to climb above that shimmering stratum in spacecraft could observers be sure of its altitude and thickness...
Getting the communication satellite Syncom II smoothly into its 22,500-mile, 24-hour orbit (TIME, Aug. 2) was only the beginning of the job. There was still a series of delicate maneuvers to be performed before the spacecraft could do its appointed work. Accurate guidance was needed to match Syncom's orbit to the earth's rotation; it was moving a little too fast, drifting ahead of the earth by about 7.5 degrees of longitude per day. Out on the Navy control ship Kingsport in Lagos harbor, Nigeria, engineers sent radio signals that fired jets of hydrogen...
...simple way to perform such a test would be to launch two spacecraft at about the same time. One would carry the bomb; the other would be loaded with instruments and radio equipment...
When they reached the desired positions, perhaps one million miles from the earth and a few hundred miles apart, a coded signal from the earth could explode the bomb, and the "diagnostic" spacecraft would report by radio just what happened...
...Real Hooper. Dr. Van Allen is more hopeful. He thinks that careful design of spacecraft, putting fuel, food, batteries and other heavy objects toward the outside as protective shields, will do much to shield astronauts against solar protons without adding much weight. In any case, he says, the peril from flares is not too great. During a 450-day period from October 1959 to February 1961, when he measured protons in space, 21 flares affected the earth. Most of them were not dangerous. But toward the end of November 1960 came three violent solar "events," one of which reached peak...