Word: weighting
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...orbiting mass of Sputnik III (official name: 1958 Delta) may not be more than dog-carrying Sputnik II, which remained attached to its rocket. The Russians gave the weight of Sputnik II's payload as 1,120 Ibs., but the whole assembly, including the rocket, was about 84 ft. long, and U.S. scientists believe that it may have weighed 7,000 Ibs. Sputnik III is probably as heavy all told, but may not be heavier...
Sputnik III, said Fedorov, is an automatic spaceborne laboratory capable of making observations of many kinds. Its instruments, which account for 2,129 Ibs. of its weight, are "considerably improved" over those of the earlier Sputniks. They are mainly in three groups. One group observes conditions in the earth's atmosphere, including composition, pressure, ionization, electrical phenomena and the earth's magnetic field. Another observes nonearthly phenomena, such as cosmic rays, meteorites and solar radiation...
...drag of gravity forces (far more powerful than the earth's) from the rocket's acceleration piles tip a crushing impact on the spaceman, whose normal weight -say 150 Ibs. -multiplies to three-quarters of a ton. On the outer skin of his capsule, hurtling away from earth at 25,000 m.p.h., the friction of the atmosphere generates temperatures tip to 1,600°F. Beyond the atmosphere, the outside temperature drops to -454°F. -close to absolute zero -and gone is the atmospheric pressure that keeps man's organs from exploding like a blood bomb...
...longer space voyages, lasting weeks, months or years, all the difficulties of food, drink and elimination snowball. Weight is the first, worst foe of the rocketeer trying to get a manned capsule into space, so everything that can possibly be saved and re-used must be conserved. Hence the futuristic proposals that in addition to recycling his oxygen supply (perhaps with elaborate photolysis, to break down the accumulating carbon dioxide), the space pilot will have to recycle his body wastes. Extraction of palatable water, though still not perfected, might be practicable for space flight if the equipment weight could...
Three Chimps First. With all these pressing medical problems to be solved, why does man feel himself impelled toward, the dark unfathom'd caves of outer space? For one thing, despite his physical and emotional inadequacies, he is still a space-saving, weight-saving gadget compared with any electronic brain yet constructed. A cynical explanation favored in cybernetic circles: "Nowhere else can you obtain a self-maintaining computer with built-in judgment, which can be mass-produced by unskilled labor -and by people who like their work so well." To Dr. Simons, first man to have so long...