Word: padding
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Finally, at 8:32 one morning last week, Big Annie's giant gantry was rolled ponderously away from the launching pad, leaving the black and white missile standing stark against the sky, her nose a full 80 ft. above the ground. Dozens of helmeted workers swarmed about her base, and a man climbed up to tinker with valves and connecting lines. A moment later plumes of mist rose from the base as fueling with liquid oxygen began...
Cutting the Cables. For miles around the cape on Friday morning, schoolchildren, housewives, servicemen, office workers poured out into streets, yards, roadsides and public beaches not three miles from the launch pad. The red ball signifying test imminent was hoisted. The crash boats plowed out. The observation planes, two old World War II B-17s and a new Cessna, circled above, gaining altitude. At 10:42 the gantry was rolled away from the rocket; at 11:32 it was moved back again, then finally away; at 11:44 the last "umbilical" cable connecting the rocket to the disconnect pole...
...about two seconds TV3 had followed its programing perfectly. Ponderously it lifted itself off the pad-one foot, two feet, three feet. For one blink of an eye it seemed to stand still. A tongue of orange flame shot out from beneath the rocket, darted downwind, then billowed up the right side of TV3 into a fireball 150 feet high. "There it goes! There is an explosion!" an observation pilot cried into his radio. "Black smoke is now over the entire area-We do not see the satellite rocket-We do not see the rocket that is carrying our satellite...
...thing to do next is get some more hardware onto that Florida launching pad as quickly as possible, load it and fire...
...across the world's skies. Last week there was growing concern that the U.S., to whom they had looked for comfort and new leadership to meet the Sputniks' challenge, was failing their hopes. Doubts deepened when, with a thunderous rumble, the Vanguard rocket burned on its launching pad at Cape Canaveral and tossed the tiny U.S. satellite, bleating electronically, on the ground. All over Europe the U.S.'s critics snickered, and its friends quailed...