Word: spaces
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...fact, Skylab's history of glitches demonstrated both the futility of taking technological shortcuts and the agility of men working in space to remedy unexpected ailments. When Skylab was launched by a Saturn 5 booster rocket on May 14, 1973, a large section of its meteoroid and heat shield ripped away, taking one of its prematurely extended solar-energy wings with it. A second wing jammed in a retracted position. The craft both overheated in orbit and was dangerously underpowered. But in the space age's first salvage mission, on May 25, 1973, Astronauts Charles ("Pete") Conrad Jr. and Joseph...
...higher orbit. Declared NASA'S Frosch: "The obstacles involved were insurmountable, in the time remaining." Russian scientists, in effect, agree, although they note that if plans for a cooperative effort had been started two years ago, a rescue might have been possible. Roald Sagdoyev, director of the Institute of Space Research of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, told TIME: "All the operations needed to give Skylab an additional impulse could have been made within the limits of existing rocket and space technology?either American or Soviet." The U.S., he said, could have helped modify the docking locks of Soyuz...
...problems with reduced budgets and technical mishaps, the space program survives. Indeed, it shows definite signs of increasing its slackened pace. This very week Voyager 2, a brilliantly conceived robot, is streaking past Jupiter, directing its color cameras and multiple instruments at the giant, banded planet and its great moons. Seized by Jovian gravity, Voyager 2 will swing around the planet and then fly off in the cosmic wake of its twin, Voyager 1, for a reconnaissance of Saturn in August...
...manned exploration is also about to take a new turn. At Florida's John F. Kennedy Space Center, next to the giant assembly building used for Apollo 11, workers are struggling to prepare Columbia, the nation's first operational space shuttle, for launch into earth orbit some time next year. Though plagued by financial crises and technical problems, the ship should be worth waiting for. The Apollo/Saturn system, towering some 360 ft. on the pad, was discarded or destroyed in each mission. By contrast, the shuttle is designed to make repeated journeys between earth and space...
...letting Apollo 11's birthday pass unnoticed. In Washington, Armstrong, Aldrin and their stay-in-orbit partner Michael Collins will be reunited for a round of ceremonies, capped by a replay of the original moon walk late at night at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. In Texas another old Apollo hand, Christopher Kraft, the director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, will preside at space-day ceremonies; he will open a temporary post office to cancel space-commemorative stamps for philatelists. At the Kennedy Space Center, a giant 5-ft. by 10-ft. birthday...