Word: translunar
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Behind them are the flight director and planning and operations officers. "Flight" is the captain of the team, the man who makes the crucial decisions. Head flight for Apollo 11 was Cliff Charlesworth, 37. His green team handled liftoff, translunar insertion and the moon walk, known in space jargon as "Extravehicular Activity," or EVA. Charlesworth admits he liked EVA least of all the mission's activities, "because there just wasn't much I could do." Other flight directors for Apollo 11 were Gene Kranz, 35, who wears a white vest to match his team's color; Milt...
Less than twelve minutes after liftoff, a brief boost from the S-4B third stage placed Apollo into a circular 119-mile orbit at a velocity of 17,427 m.p.h. Over the Pacific for the second time, just 2½ hrs. after launch, the spacecraft was cleared by Houston for "translunar insertion" (TLI). Firing for five minutes, the reliable S-4B engine accelerated the ship to 24,245 m.p.h., fast enough to tear it loose from the earth's gravitational embrace and send it toward the moon. At a point 43,495 miles from the moon, lunar gravity exerted a force...
After the deaths of Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee, when Apollo 204 burned on its pad in January 1967, the translunar vehicle was extensively redesigned. Man's first voyage to the moon also bore the imprint of two farsighted Presidents: John F. Kennedy, who exhorted the nation to "set sail on this new sea," and Lyndon Johnson, who in more prosaic language insisted to Americans that "space is not a gambit, not a gimmick," but a realistic challenge that could not be evaded...
...scheduled 7:51 am launch time Propelled by an awesome 7,500,000 lbs. of thrust, it soared into the clear Florida sky over Cape Kennedy Two hours and 20 minutes later, as Apollo whirled in orbit around the earth, came the anxiously awaited word to make the translunar insertion-the ma neuver that would send the vehicle to ward the moon...
MONDAY: Provided all went well up to this time, more navigation tests, spacecraft attitude changes and a second live telecast were to occupy the astronauts' time. Late in the evening, the pull of earth's gravity would have slowed Apollo to its minimum translunar speed of 2,170 m.p.h. At that point, 30,000 miles from the moon, lunar gravity takes over. Apollo would thus begin accelerating again as it sped closer to the moon...