Word: thrustingly
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Generating 7,500,000 Ibs. of thrust, Saturn will thunder to an altitude of 38 miles and a speed of 6,000 m.p.h. in only 2½ minutes. Then, having carried out the herculean task of lifting a 3,100-ton, 363-ft.-long vehicle through the thickest layers of the atmosphere, the giant booster rocket will drop away, and the S-2 second stage will take over. With its five engines producing 1,125,000 Ibs. of thrust, the S-2 will accelerate the shortened vehicle to a speed of 14,000 m.p.h. and hurtle it to an altitude...
...Apollo spacecraft will dock nose-to-nose with a real LM before taking it into orbit around the moon. Finally, after the astronauts have jockeyed their craft some 8,000 ft. away, the S-4B will dump its remaining fuel into space. That action will generate just enough thrust to shove the S-4B out of the way and into orbit around the sun. Alone in space, the Apollo craft will continue coasting in powerless flight through the final leg of the moon trip, its velocity gradually decreasing as the earth's gravity attempts to pull it back...
Without any additional thrust, Apollo's own momentum and the weak lunar gravity would combine to carry it around the moon and fling it back toward earth in a spatial version of crack-the-whip. Indeed, if a recheck of systems and equipment convinces ground controllers and the astronauts that serious problems have developed, the crew will merely continue in this new course and travel back to earth. But if everything seems all right, Apollo's powerful SPS (service propulsion system) engine will be fired for 246 sec. to slow the spacecraft and allow it to be pulled...
...lunar-mission planners must plan realistically for troubles that would be magnified by sheer distance from earth. Should life-support or power systems begin to fail on earth-orbital flights, astronauts are usually within half an hour to three hours of recovery on land or water; a relatively small thrust from a retrorocket can lower their orbit into the atmosphere, where friction provides the additional braking necessary to return them to earth. In the vicinity of the moon, the astronauts might be as long as a three-day journey from home. They could fall victim to minor malfunctions -like...
...laws of planetary motion. Describing space flight, Kepler called the "initial movement," or launch, "most uncomfortable and dangerous, for the traveler is torn aloft as if blown up by gunpowder." He explained the bitter cold and airlessness of space, discussed weightlessness, and even suggested the equivalent of reverse thrust to land gently on the moon...