Word: targets
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Umbilical Dynamics. Plagued by abortive launchings, prevented from docking with the Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ATDA) because its protective shroud had not shaken loose, the two astronauts were exhausted by three difficult but largely successful rendezvous attempts (TIME, June 10). Even so, the Gemini 9 crew hoped to salvage most of the mission by successfully completing their last and most dramatic assignment: Astronaut Cernan's scheduled 21-hour walk in space. "Hallelujah!" shouted Cernan as he opened his hatch and emerged into space on schedule...
...effect more difficult to define will be the Institute's impact on its specific target, relations between politicians and scholars. Events in the two years since plans for the Institute were first announced have made it clear that these plans came at an especially fortuitous time. For since that time the scholars and politicians whom the Institute seeks to bring together have been threatening to fly apart entirely. The university community has been heard in public debate, and it has made it clear that it is dissatisfied with the performance of the government. Washington, in turn, has evinced little enthusiasm...
Twice the launch had been scrubbed, once on May 17 when the Agena target failed to orbit, and again earlier in the week when Gemini 9's on-board computer rejected vital data three minutes before liftoff. Now, for the third time, Astronauts Tom Stafford and Eugene Cernan wearily returned to the pad at Cape Kennedy for a mission that had the earmarks of a rueful joke...
...first, the humorous approach seemed to work. The giant Titan 2 rocket rose on schedule from the launch pad and placed Gemini 9 in an almost perfect orbit. Then, after only three revolutions around the earth, Stafford and Cernan sighted and successfully rendezvoused with their quarry-the Augmented Target Docking Adapter (ATDA) that had been launched into or bit two days before. But there before their eyes was another disappointment...
...ATDA's telemetry had suggested earlier, the two halves of the protective plastic shroud designed to shield the satellite's docking collar during its trip through the earth's atmosphere had failed to separate and spring away. Rolling through space, the target presented an astonishing sight. The two shroud "clamshells" were still attached by wires but had swung open at a 30° angle like a giant jaw. "We've got a weird-looking machine here," Stafford reported. "It looks like an angry alligator out here rotating around...