Word: boosters
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...would put the Russians firmly back into the space race. Spy-in-the-sky satellites had actually photographed the monster rocket on its launch pad, and former NASA Administrator James Webb had spoken of its existence. But last summer, according to U.S. intelligence sources, a prototype of the giant booster exploded on the launch pad at the Tyuratum space complex in Central Asia, killing a number of technicians...
Soyuz Failure. The big booster was apparently designed for at least one of three alternative missions: 1) a direct landing on the moon by two cosmonauts, 2) the launch of an unmanned lander that would scoop up lunar material and return it to earth, or 3) the launch of major components of a manned orbiting platform. But the accident delayed further tests of the rocket. The lofting of three manned Soyuz shots last month, for example, apparently fell short of its goal. Two of the craft were equipped with docking collars, but failed to link up. Why? According to Aviation...
...rest of the Soviet space effort has not gone as smoothly as Soyuz. U.S. officials, for example, are still awaiting the first successful flight of Russia's Nova-class booster, which is supposed to be nearly twice as powerful as Saturn 5 with its 75 million Ibs. of thrust; Nova's glitches, in fact, may well have cost the Russians the race to the moon. And there is no doubt that they find the loss embarrassing. Musing over the meaning of the Soyuz flights last week, a young Muscovite commented somewhat wistfully: "It's not much compared...
Riding atop a thundering Saturn 5 booster, the Apollo 12 astronauts will use a rocketry system virtually identical to the one that propelled Apollo 11. Yet their nautically named command ship, Yankee Clipper, will blaze its own distinctive path. Halfway to the moon, Apollo 12 Skipper Charles ("Pete") Conrad, 39, a veteran of two earth-girdling Gemini flights, will fire the spacecraft's service propulsion engine, jolting the ship out of its "free-return" trajectory. No longer able to loop the moon automatically and return to earth, should its engine falter, Apollo 12 could be lost forever...
Whenever the landing, the Mars expedition will be vastly different from the voyages to the moon. Unlike Apollo's nonreturn booster and lunar module, the vehicles that take men to Mars will be used on many voyages. "When a vehicle returns from Mars to earth orbit," said NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine, "it will be left in earth orbit. After refueling, resupply, and providing a new crew, the vehicle would be ready to go again-back to Mars, to Venus, or on a shuttle run to the moon...