Word: thrustingly
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...speed of about 14,000 m.p.h. to a target five miles in diameter at a 5,500-mile range. Atlas has 300,000 parts, is so thin-skinned that it must be pressurized to stand upright; its three engines, simultaneously ignited on the ground, can generate a total thrust of between 300,000 and 400,000 lbs., or roughly what it took the Soviets to put up Sputnik II; its snub nose cone is designed to withstand the intense heat of reentry into the earth's atmosphere. Because Atlas got a later start than its Russian opposite number...
...rocket fuel is really safe, even the scraped-off match-head material that is popular with subteen-agers. When the fuel burns, it generates gas inside the rocket. If the gas is allowed to escape too easily, its pressure remains low and it generates too little thrust to get the rocket off the ground. If it is confined too much, its pressure rises too high and makes the rocket explode...
...heretic, my dear sir," he wrote, "is a fellow who disagrees with you regarding something neither of you knows anything about." Or: "Marriage is, perhaps, the only game of chance ever invented at which it is possible for both players to lose." Against religiosity, he thrust: "Too many people presume that they are full of the grace of God when they're only bilious." When readers complained that he was too harsh, he had a ready riposte: "I have not yet mastered the esoteric of choking a bad dog to death with good butter...
...solid fuel is by no means a proved item. Solid-charge missiles have less thrust than liquid propellants, cannot carry as heavy a warhead per pound of fuel. Critics of solid fuel argue that it requires a canister that can withstand great pressures, that solid fuel blasts off with a jolt that is rough on the missile's complex guidance systems; the Navy insists that it can control the blastoff, but it has not yet tested its technique on the missile. Another key problem: how to shut off the solid-charge propulsion at the precise point needed to drop...
...writing is as limp as a watch by Dali. All vigils are "lonely," vistas are always "sylvan." time "slips by on leaden wings." Yet, despite the leaden feet of the cliches, the book does move. Author Voelker's characters come most alive in the courtroom, in the thrust and parry of cross-examination and in the springing of tactical ambushes and legal traps by opposing counsel. It is quite ordinary writing but good entertainment, and few readers will turn aside until the fate of Lieut. Frederic Manion is finally decided...