Word: orbitals
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Circling Sphere. The Mouse will be a sphere, weighing 100 lbs. and packed with instruments, that will be carried up by a three-stage rocket. The third and final stage will enter an orbit 190 miles above the earth's surface. Then the propulsive parts will fall away and let the spherical Mouse continue on its own. It will circumnavigate the earth every 90 minutes, but will not do so "forever." There is still a little air at 190 miles, and friction will slow the Mouse until it finally sinks into denser air and crashes to earth or, more...
...this information will be sent back to earth by the Mouse's automatic radio. Professor Singer suggests that the Mouse be put on an orbit that passes over both the poles. The earth will turn below the orbit, but the Mouse will cross one of the poles every 45 minutes, and airplanes can be sent to the polar regions to interview it. On the Mouse will be a receiving apparatus to pick up a signal from the airplane. When the signal arrives, a magnetic tape will start moving and send, in 30 seconds of telemetered code, all the information...
...military will get data about the fringes of the atmosphere, where guided missiles will fly. The U.S. as a whole will gain prestige as the first nation to get a satellite, even if only a Mouse, on an earth-circling orbit...
...warhead would contain only a mixture of weak gunpowder and fine particles of lead or steel. The particles would spread into a cloud, which would continue moving in the orbit. By the time the cloud reached the satellite, it would-be 70,000 ft. in diameter-so large that the satellite would be almost sure to pass through it. The particles would be thinly spread, but Dr. Thomas figures that at least one in a million would hit the satellite...
...inch in diameter would punch through the satellite's skin. Since each pound of metal contains more than a million such particles, a warhead weighing 8,000 Ibs. would punch 8.000 holes in the satellite station. The deadly little particles would be moving in slightly elliptical orbits around the earth. They would scatter widely, then concentrate again. Each time the damaged satellite circled the earth, it would run into the cloud of particles at the same point in its orbit, get 8,000 more hits, and soon begin to look like a cheese grater...