Word: targets
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...movement under water and keep it synchronized with the weapons-guidance system. In December 1959, three years ahead of schedule, the first Polaris sub, the George Washington, was commissioned. Six months later, the sub radioed to Atlantic submarine headquarters at New London, Conn.: "Out of the sea-to target-perfect," signaling the first live launch of a missile from a submerged craft...
...Prying Camera. Thanks to the Recce men, Viet Nam has become the most photographed war in history. Starting from scratch, the wing has made complete photo maps of all potential target areas and all possible enemy infiltration routes into South Viet Nam. Every month its 13th Reconnaissance Technical Squadron ("Recce Tech") processes and interprets an astounding 250,000 feet of film. Speed is the keynote. If pictures reveal a "hot" target, a strike can be ordered 20 minutes after the photo plane lands at Saigon's Tan Son Nhut airfield-and can be carried out almost instantaneously...
Ominous Shortage. Using the knowledge of orbital mechanics that had been refined during earlier Gemini missions, Young and Collins gradually maneuvered toward a rendezvous with the Agena 10 target vehicle that had been placed in orbit with a precise launch just 100 minutes before their own blastoff. They established radar contact with the Agena 10 during their second revolution, finally sighted the target some 50 miles ahead and 17 miles above. After rising to meet the Agena and nudging Gemini's nose into the Agena's receiving collar, Young coupled the two ships...
...high, far-flung orbit also placed the coupled craft in position to begin a rendezvous with a second target: Agena 8, lifeless but still riding on a nearly circular orbit after its role in the aborted Gemini 8 mission four months earlier. At first, last week's Gemini-Agena was 3,220 miles ahead of Agena 8; during the next several hours, the dead target ship-revolving around the earth every 99 minutes, compared to 101 minutes for Gemini-Agena-slowly passed the sleeping astronauts...
Once everything on board was squared away, with the same precision that marked its launch, the spacecraft splashed down in the Atlantic, less than three miles off target and within sight of the recovery ship Guadalcanal. Lifted to the ship's deck by a rescue helicopter, Young and Collins were greeted by cheering sailors and a band playing It's a Small, Small World. For U.S. astronauts, it is a universe that is rapidly expanding...