A Dictionary of the Space Age

New Series in NASA History

Steven J. Dick, Series Editor


Paul Dickson

The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore

This book has been brought to publication with the generousassistance of the J. G. Goellner Endowment of the Johns HopkinsUniversity Press.

2009 United States Government as represented by theAdministrator of the National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationAll rights reserved. Published 2009Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This volume was produced under contract with the NationalAeronautics and Space Administration.

The Johns Hopkins University Press2715 North Charles StreetBaltimore, Maryland 21218-4363www.press.jhu.edu

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dickson, Paul.A dictionary of the space age / Paul Dickson.

p. cm. (New series in NASA history)Includes bibliographical references.ISBN-13: 978-0-8018-9115-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)ISBN-10: 0-8018-9115-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)1. AeronauticsDictionaries. I. Title.TL509.D475 2009629.403dc22

2008022679

A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. Formore information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 [email protected].

The Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly bookmaterials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible. All of our bookpapers are acid-free, and our jackets and covers are printed on paper withrecycled content.

In time ofrapid change, few things

changemore rapidly than languageitself. Newly discovered phenomena, tech-

nologies that until lately have not even existedeachof these demands marked growth in the little conceptual

handles that we call words, and that we use as tools to com-municate and to record. Sometimes this growth takes the formof newmeanings added precariously to the top of loads carried by

existing words, thus setting traps of incomprehension for the unwary.The growth of language is a process that races past generally unperceived

by most of us. Yet today surely millions of people must have at least anodding acquaintance with words and terms that, a few years ago, wouldhave quite baffled them in their current contexts, e.g. ablation, staging,

mid-course correction, and hold, to cite only a few. At times weare afforded a momentary glimpse of the phenomenon of

language change: today we used the word astronautwith casual ease, but only a few years ago as it first

crept into the language it sounded bizarreand even pretentious to

many ears.

Melvin S. Day, Director,

NASA Scientific and Technical

Information Division, foreword to

Dictionary of Technical Terms for

Aerospace Use (NASA SP-7, 1965)

This page intentionally left blank

Contents

Foreword, by Steven J. Dick ix

Introduction and Notes onMethod xi

Scope and Criteria xviii

How to Use This Dictionary xix

Sources xxii

Abbreviations xxiii

A DICTIONARY OF THE SPACE AGE 3

Acknowledgments 245

Bibliography 247

Foreword

More than three decades have passed since Origins of NASANameswaspublished in the NASA History Series in 1976. As that volume rolled offthe press during the nations bicentennial year, the final remnants of theApollo program had been played out, with three crews having visitedSkylab in 197374 and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project having come to asuccessful completion in July 1975. The Space Shuttle was still five yearsfrom its first launch in 1981, and the initial assembly of the InternationalSpace Station was more than two decades in the future. TwoVikingspacecraft would make first landfall on Mars in 1976, but the Voyagershad not yet made their tours of the outer planets, and Pluto was still aplanet (rather than a dwarf planet, as redefined by the InternationalAstronomical Union in 2006an example of the importance of defini-tion). The inspiring images of the Hubble Space Telescope were still 15years away, and the other Great Observatories were little more than agleam in astronomers imaginations.

In the intervening decades since Originswas first published, the lexi-con of aerospace (see its entry!) has increased substantially. Althoughthis compilation is by nomeans comprehensive, it is a fascinating com-mentary on how one technological discipline has affected the meaningand use of words and language, both within the aerospace communityand in the broader world.

As a longtime space reporter, author, lexicographer, and space enthu-siast, Paul Dickson is well qualified to undertake this update of Origins.His knowledge and love of the subject shine through in each entry. It isappropriate, too, that this volume should appear on the occasion of the50th anniversaries of NASA and of the Space Age. Space exploration hasarguably addedmuch to history and culture, and as language evolvesover the coming decades, one anticipates that a next edition of thisvolume will reflect the evolution of both the Space Age and the culturein which it is embedded.

Steven J. DickNASA Chief HistorianWashington, D.C.

ix

Introduction and Notes on Method

It was silver in color, about the size of a beach ball, and weighed a mere184 pounds (83 kg). Yet for all its simplicity, small size, and inability to domore than orbit the Earth and transmit seemingly meaningless radioblips, the influence of Sputnik on America and the world was enormousand totally unpredicted.

The reaction to Sputnik, including early attempts by America to getinto orbit, gave rise to a popular new vocabulary within months of itslaunch on October 4, 1957. The process began the next day when news-papers all over the world proclaimed the dawning of the Space Age, anabstract term rendered real in a matter of 24 hours.

Sputnik became a name, a word, and a metaphor overnight. TheRussian name for the satellite was Sputnik Zemlyi, a term that meanstraveling companion of the world,or Earth satellite. Almost at once,Sputnik Zemlyi was shortened to Sputnik, and in that form it entered thelanguages of the world.1 The first syllable of the word was hardly everpronounced as it would have been in Russian. Spootnik! Spootnik! saida Russian woman I interviewed when working on a book on the subject,Sputt-nick is an American word.

Indeed, it was an American word. Some newwords take years to getinto the language, said lexicographer Clarence L. Barnhart at the time.Shes a record breaking word.So sure was he that the day after thelaunch of Sputnik 1, Barnhart called his printer to dictate a definition, andit was included in the next Thorndike-Barnhart (1958).2

A new subset of English languagecalled variously space-Speak,Nasan, NASA-speak, or NASAesewas created. It was, to one writer,composed of a vocabulary as new as fresh paint that generatedmorethan a score of official and unofficial dictionaries and glossaries duringthe first decade of the Space Age.3

xi

1. The News of theWeek in Review,NewYork Times,November 10, 1957, p. E1.2. John G. Rogers, Sputnik Soars into Type in a U.S. Dictionary,NewYork Herald Trib-

une, December 18, 1957, p. 17.3.William B. Stapleton, Space Age Sign Language,Houston Post, July 12, 1964, p. 6.

Suddenly, words that had belonged to the worlds of science, aviation,and science fiction were part of the larger language appearing in news-papers and television. The world was learning a host of new propernouns and namessome of which, like Gemini and Mercury, wereancient allusions while others, like Vanguard and Explorer, evoked visionsof adventure and the future. The nature of this high-speed endeavor wassuch that it created its own newspeak of verbal shortcuts, abbreviations,acronyms, and initialisms.

In the rush to create a vocabulary to fit the new age of satellites androcketships, there were lexical glitchesmostly minor and obscured bytime. For instance, the hurry to describe the behavior of a satellite led tothe use of two ts in the word orbiting in both official documents andthe press.4

With the beginnings of NASA and the Mercury, Gemini, and Apolloprograms, the process was accelerated. InMoonport: A History of ApolloLaunch Facilities andOperations,Charles D. Benson andWilliam BarnabyFaherty wrote, Apollo scientists and engineers were establishing a termi-nology for new things; no one had defined them in the past becausesuch things did not existmodule is an example. As late as 1967, theRandomHouse Dictionary of the English Language gave as the fifth defini-tion of module under computer technology, A readily interchangeableunit containing electronic components, especially one that may be read-ily plugged in or detached from a computer system.The space world waswell ahead of the dictionary because, as every American television viewerknew, a modulecommand, service, or lunarwas a unit of the space-craft that went to the Moon.

As real-live astronauts were introduced into the program, their voicesfrom space and the words spoken by their controllers were heard by mil-lions and their slangy speech flew into the larger language. Things aloftdid not just go according to planbut were, variously, A-OK, sitting fat,tickety-boo,or copasetic. Astronauts drove (rather than piloted)their spacecraft, and when they did something that was daring anddetermined, they were given the ultimate accolade: steely-eyedmissileman.When NASA sent the early astronauts on the road to plump forsupport of the space program, it was known to them as a week in thebarrel, a sly allusion to the political pork barrel.

And while the Space Age brought with it a host of colorful namesnames that should resonate for centuries to come from Sputnik through

Introduction and Notes onMethod

xii

4. The first use of the word orbitting in the press is in 1955 in a description of theVanguard program in theWashington Post: U.S. to Send up 10 Space Satellites,Wash-ington Post,October 7, 1955, p. 1.

Ares and Orionsome of the most memorable naming derived from theold American military tradition of giving your craft a name that is both acall sign or radio handleand a nickname. Freedom 7 was a name givenby Alan Shepard himself to the first American spacecraft carrying anastronaut. The crew of Apollo 11 picked the name Eagle for their LunarModule, which was immortalized in the line uttered on July 20, 1969:Houston, Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed.

In those early days of human spaceflight, every word seemed to beworthy of attention nomatter how seemingly trivial. In the final minutesof Gordon Coopers 22-orbit Mercury flight in 1963, he was told by hisflight controller that he had fired his retro rockets right on the money.Cooper seems to have replied, Right on the old gazoo.

Gazoo? Immediately, some insisted that he had really said bazoo,while others were certain that it was kazoo.Headlines in some Floridanewspapers used bazoo,and the NewYork Times gave its readers achoice in an article entitled Right on the Old BazooOrWas It the OldKazoo? And a Third Version Reports Cooper Said GazooAnyway HeWas on It.5

Sometimes the impulse to create a newway of speaking went astrayand drifted into the wholesale use of abbreviation: acronyms and ini-tialisms. The problemwith initialisms, when used in abundance, is thatthey can be a barrier rather than an aid to comprehension. Consider thisverbatim exchange from the log of Apollo 12, Day 5, as the crew preparesfor lunar descent:

106:57:29 [Col. Gerald P. ] Carr: Intrepid, Houston.

106:57:35 [Charles Pete] Conrad: Go ahead, Houston.

106:57:37 Carr: Roger.Were about a minute from LOS. Everythings lookingreal good. Your computer and everything is fine. The most possible idea wecan think for your 1106 alarmwas, if you turned your DUA off about whenyour computer was running, that might have possibly caused it.

106:58:02 [Alan] Bean:Whats a DUA?

106:58:06 Carr: Roger. Thats your digital uplink assembly.

106:58:12 Bean: Oh! Okay.6

Over the decades NASA has created hundreds of thousands of acro-nyms and initialisms that have allowed simple sets of letter combinationsto stand for a multitude of things. Take, for example, the initials LL, which,according to two NASA glossaries, can stand, variously, for Low Level,


xiii

5. NewYork Times,May 17, 1963, in NASA Current News,May 21, 1963, p. 11.6. See http://history.nasa.gov/ap12fj/12day5_prep_landing.htm.

Lever Lock, Lower Limit, Lower Left, Launch and Landing, Launch Left,Long Line, and Long Lead. Then there are all the other initialisms thatbegin with LL:

LLC Logical Link ControlLLCF Launch and Landing Computational FacilitiesLLI Limited Life ItemLLIL Long Lead-time Items ListLLLTV Low Light Level TelevisionLLNL Lawrence Livermore National LaboratoryLLOS Landmark Line-of-SightLLP Launch and Landing ProjectLLPO Launch and Landing Project OfficeLLRF Lunar Landing Research FacilityLLRV Lunar Landing Research VehicleLLS Launch and Landing SiteLLT Long Lead-TimeLLTV Lunar Landing Training Vehicle7

The ultimate three-letter acronym beginning with the letter L may beLOA: List of Acronyms.

The impulse that led to this alphabet soup was, in fact, aimed at get-ting information recorded quickly and accurately while describing a fast-moving newworld. Everything was a shorthand, and a word as simple asovercould be shortened to OVR in NASA-speak. Little-recalled todaywas an early attempt by NASA and other space agencies to create its ownshorthand version of the proprietary Gregg Shorthand system. Describedby the Houston Chronicle as a system of squiggles, fishhooks and gravyladles, the elements of the NASA systemwere described in a bookletentitled Shorthand Symbols for the Glossary of Terms Used in the Explo-ration of Space.8

There are elaborate acronyms that work on paper as clever descriptorsbut tend to be confusing when spoken or referred to out of context, suchas the Space Shuttle experiments known as Project Starshine for StudentTracked Atmospheric Research Satellite Experiment.


xiv

7. See www.ksc.nasa.gov/inforcenter/acronym.htm and Space Transportation Systemand Associated Payloads: Glossary, Acronyms, and Abbreviations, RP-1059 (Washington,DC: NASA, 1981), p. 166.

8. Stapleton, Space Age Sign Language.The symbol for zero-gravity, for example, isdescribed as a squiggle, a curved overline and, underneath, two bat-eyed umlautslying sideways.

Over time this language becamemore andmore complicated andconfusing. In preparing for the retrieval of the Long Duration ExposureFacility (LDEF) on January 12, 1990, the followingmessage was sent tothe crew of Shuttle Columbia from the CAPCOM (spacecraft communi-cator) in the MCC (Mission Control Center) at JSC (the Johnson SpaceCenter in Texas): Weve already had AOS IOS.We expect LOS TDRS Eastin about four minutes. Probably pick you up on the west side AOS TDRSWest at 22:12. However, we will continue with IOS for another six minutesand 40 seconds until LOS.

Martin Metzker, a reporter for Knight-Ridder newspapers, wrote aboutthis in an article entitled When NASA and Astronauts Communicate,Theyre Speaking in Tongues.He translated for his readers: We willcontinue to hear you through the Indian Ocean station for six minutesand 40 seconds. In four minutes, well lose your transmission through theeastern satellite, but will pick you up later through the western satellite.The original message was, in fact, so confusing that the public informa-tion officer at the scene told Metzker, The consensus at mission controlis that CAPCOM Frank Culbertson may just have set a record for excessiveuse of acronyms.Evenmore to the point, after the message was sent,Columbia co-pilot JamesWeatherby replied, Sounds pretty fishy to me.9

Fishy? Could anyone confuse this bit of slang with some elaborate ini-tialism or acronym? Although NASA was willing to embrace a dizzyingarray of shorthand and jargon, for reasons that are not clear it shied awayfrom slang and colloquialisms. NASAs early attempt to define its ownterms in the 1965 Dictionary of Technical Terms for Aerospace Use, SpecialPublication 7 (SP-7) stated that slang would not be included.10 As a beatreporter covering NASA Headquarters during the mid- to late 1960s, thisauthor can assure the reader that the people who were running thespace programmay have been writing reports that used the languageof SP-7, but they were speaking another that was both slangy and tothe point.

This rich and often irreverent slang created a universe parallel to thatof the jargon and abbreviations. The slang was part of an older traditionof barnstorming aviators, fighter pilots, and test pilots whose reaction todanger was to make linguistic light of it. The original astronauts whowere willing to sit atop a rocket booster in a tiny capsule and be sent intospace let it be known that they felt like spam in a can.Reporters unableto get straight information on the Apollo 1 fire would cynically invoke the


xv

9. Martin Metzker, When NASA and Astronauts Communicate, Theyre Speaking inTongues,Akron Beacon Journal, January 13, 1990, p. 4.

10. SP-7, p. vii.

acronym NASA, standing not for the National Aeronautics and SpaceAdministration but for Never a Straight Answer.11

The common touch language that the astronauts brought to thespace programmade it both popular and accessible. The astronauts con-tributed not just words but also memorable expressions and quotations.At the time ofWally Schirras death in May 2007, CBS News correspondentPeter King recalled a famous line Schirra had uttered when asked abouthis thoughts as the clock ticked down to zero before his Mercury flight:He said, Just think of these millions of parts put together by the lowestbidder! Everybodys used that line since; John Glenn used it, I think theyuse it on the shuttle todaybut its still a good line!

Because American space exploration was so public, it took little forNASA-speak and slang to make the jump into common parlance. In aninterview with JessicaWeintraub, Jonathan Lighter, editor of the Histori-cal Dictionary of American Slang, talked about the phenomenon thatoccurs when a character uses an expression on a popular television showandmillions of people are exposed to it. The first time this probablyhappened was in 1961. Alan Shepards sub-orbital flight was shown liveon TV. In Shepards communication with Shorty Powers, one or both ofthem said A-OK,a phrase that was probably coined in NASA. Forty yearslater were still using it.

The public nature of space has continued into the era of cable televi-sion with the advent of NASA TV, carried onmost U.S. cable systems andmany others worldwide, featuring live air-to-ground transmission ofShuttle and Space Station activities.While the broadcasts include narra-tive and explanation, the chatter is that of an operational vehicle, notnecessarily structured for public use but in fact heard by many. In thissense the language of space is an open book.

Yet much of what was heard coming out of the space program had acertain elegance, power, and grace to it befitting the fact that a bold,heroic endeavor had begun.We were learning about black holes (objectswhose gravity is so strong that the escape velocity exceeds the speed oflight), brown dwarfs (dim objects in space that are too small to be stars


xvi

11. This may have originated from the writing ofWilliam Hines: NASAs feet of claywere exposed on January 27, 1967just nineteen years and one day before a bloodierand evenmore public exposure. A crew of three Astronautsincluding one of theoriginal Mercury Sevenwas incinerated inside a sealed Apollo spacecraft on alaunching pad while rehearsing the countdown for a liftoff scheduled as the maidenEarth orbital test leading to actual moon flights. In the fires aftermath, the initials NASAacquired newmeaning when some said they stood for Never a Straight Answer.Hines,TheWrong Stuff,Progressive 58 (July 7, 1994): 8.

and too large to be planets), and blue moons (the occasional blue colorseen in the Moon due to the Earths atmosphere).

Some of these words were borrowed from other realms and seemeda bit odd at first in their new contexts: the mundane housekeepingused to describe spacecraft maintenance, the romantic rendezvousnow applied to great hunks of metal meeting in space, and insertionbecoming the point at which one achieved orbit. Windowswere nowopportunities, and envelopeswere things to be pushed. Redundancywas a virtue, not an excess, and reentrymeant you were coming home.Guillotinewas given a reprieve from describing Gallic beheadings andnow described a device equipped with explosive blades to cut cables,water lines, and wires during the separation of spacecraft modules fromone another or from launch towers (called umbilical towers). Old termswere put to uses that had nothing to do with ordinary human activities:breadboards that had never seen flour or water and boilerplate thathad nothing to do with steam.

Still other terms came out of the space-speak and were reapplied toother realms. Soft landingbecame a term used by the likes of formerFederal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to describe the national econ-omy, while the burnoutof rockets andmissiles became a descriptor foroccupational overload. Such transfers are detailed in the followingentries under the heading of ExtendedUse.

The language of the Space Age and the Space Race served a broaderrole in that it enriched the language in general. Its influence rangedfrom the serious (in the form of entries in the Oxford English Dictionary,Merriam-Websters Collegiate Dictionary,Websters NewWorld Dictionary,and other mainstream dictionaries) to the downright frivolous. Therewas, for example, a moment in 1961 when amajor fashion show stagedinWashington, D.C., featured creations with Planet Pinks, BoosterBlues, WeightlessWhites,and Blast-off Blacks.12

Given the reality that the future of space exploration as a publiclyfunded human endeavor is strongly dependent on public understandingand support, the program should therefore be able to describe itself inlanguage accessible to a larger and larger percentage of an increasinglydiverse population. The space program should not be, as one longtimespace reporter complained at a 1988 Cape Canaveral launch, like thepriesthood using symbols to keep the outside out.13


xvii

12. RuthWagner, Fashions Take to Space,Washington Post, February 2, 1961, p. C17.13. Coping with NASA Jargon Like Being Able to Order Your Meals in French,AP

dispatch by Deborah Mesce, p. 1. The reporter quoted was Ronald Kotulak of theChicago Tribune.

Scope and Criteria

October 4, 2007, marked the 50th anniversary of the first Earth orbit ofSputnik 1 and the beginning of the Space Age. October 1, 2008, markedthe 50th anniversary of the creation of the National Aeronautics andSpace Administration (NASA) from portions of the 43-year-old NationalAdvisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and elements from otheragencies, largely the Department of Defense. The purpose of this work isto capture the language and terminology of this first half-century of theSpace Age.

At a basic level this volume is concerned with the proper namesassociated directly with NASA, the Communications Satellite Corp.,and certain U.S. military and intelligence space programs. At this level,ADictionary of the Space Age is simultaneously a revision, an expansion,and a large-scale updating of Origins of NASANames (SP-4402), whichwas published in 1976 (directed by Monte D.Wright, Director, NASA His-tory Office, and written by Helen T.Wells, Susan H.Whiteley, and Carrie E.Karegeannes). Because it is now 30 years later, the newwork will containmany new entries from areas not covered in the original book, publishedjust before the joint U.S.-Soviet manned Apollo-Soyuz mission. LikeOrigins of NASANames, this dictionary pays attention to proper names,whether they were defined by a NASA committee or arrived at via acontest, as with the 1999 Terra EOS satellite, which was named by high-school senior Sasha Jones of Brentwood High School in St. Louis.

In addition, this work concerns itself with those proper names asso-ciated with the Soviet/Russian space program and the space programsof other nations. In this regard ADictionary of the Space Age serves as acatalog of space programs dating back to the launch of Sputnik.

On a second level, this dictionary attempts to capture a broader foun-dation for language of the Space Age based on historical principles asemployed in the Oxford English Dictionary andWebsters Third New Inter-nationalthat is, based on considerations of the etymology of a term,its earliest recorded use, and variations in meaning. The definitionsadhere to the principles of lexicography and are also written to beunderstood by a wide audienceacademically correct, but accessible.Word histories for major terms are detailed in a conversational tone, andtechnical terms are deciphered for the interested student or lay reader.

One issue involved in compiling any dictionary is what to include andwhat to exclude. First and foremost, this is not meant to be a compilationof technical details and terms associated with space but is rather an at-tempt to capture the culture of the Space Age including slang, colloqui-alisms, nicknames, and the actual language used by the men and womeninvolved. Some well-established terms from aviation and astronomy that


xviii

predate our Space Age but are germane to the understanding of theperiod have been included.

The dictionary is not comprehensive but rather prismatic, in the samesense that a Merriam-Websters collegiate dictionary is prismatic of anunabridged dictionary: it attempts to cover the most important terms.What will not be addressed and defined in this work are ephemeral ornonce words. (Marsapaloosa, for example, a term created by the PublicAffairs Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to create public interest inMars-boundmissions, is not here.) However, simple, seemingly self-explanatory terms that have historical relevance will be included, suchas O-ring and gap filler (the fire-retardant strips glued between theSpace Shuttles heat shield tiles that protect the vehicles exterior).

How to Use This Dictionary

First and foremost, this is a dictionary meant for a multitude of readers,and for that reason it attempts to be both accurate and accessible. But itis also a book meant for browsing, and for that reason there is flexibilityin the presentation of entries. If, for example, a good story begs to betold as a digression, it gets told. This is therefore a discursive dictionary.It should also be said that this dictionary is descriptive rather than pre-scriptive. Each definition has been created to reflect the actual use of theterm rather than the officially approved one. Case in point: Throughoutthe period when the United States and the Soviet Union were trying toland a man on the Moon, NASA officially argued that it was not a race.But racewas in fact the term used by both the press and the public.

Basic Format of Entries

Entries follow this general format:

1. Term (in boldface). If there is more than one spelling of a term, the vari-ants are separated by slashes and are listed with the most common onecoming first. For example, in the entry A-OK/A-Okay/A.O.K./AOK, thefirst spelling is the one used by theOxford English Dictionary and others,the second is the one used by TomWolfe in The Right Stuff, and the finalexamples appear at various times in the New York Times and other news-papers.14 Terms that are spelled the same except for style ofcapitalizationfor example, pogo (describing the vertical vibration of


xix

14. Some of the spelling issues prompted newspapers to address such questions inprint. A column on space semantics in theWall Street Journal (September 9, 1965,p. 12) said that the paper was having a tough time deciding on the spelling andcapitalization of a-okay (or is it A-OK?).

a launch vehicle) and POGO(acronym for Polar Orbiting GeophysicalObservatory)are defined in separate entries, with the lower-cased termappearing first. Nicknames and terms that are clearly slang or colloquialare so noted.

2. Pronunciation/translation/category/word combination.When appro-priate, any or all of these may be given in parentheses.

3. Part of speech. Part of speech is given when there is more than onedefinition or when there could be confusion.

4. Earliest meaning. If there is more than one definition for the term, thedefinitions are numbered, with the first being the earliest meaning. Thisprinciple is also applied to names. In the entry for Antares, for example,the definition third stage of a Scout rocketcomes before call sign forthe Apollo 14 Lunar Module.

5. Synonyms and cross-references. A term appearing in italics within orat the end of a definition indicates a synonym or cross-reference. If thecross-reference appears as a terms first definition, the reader should turnto that terms entry for a full definition.

6. Sources. Sources are cited either within parentheses or as a separateparagraph at the end of the entry.

Etymological and Usage Notes

As an aid to the reader, many terms are illustrated in the context of anattributed, dated quotation. I have also included, as part of the definition,the historical background of the concept or object in question. An entrymay include commentary under any the following headings:

ETYMOLOGY.When possible, the history of the term is given. If there areseveral theories about the origin of a term, all are included, often fol-lowed by a discussion of their relative merit. Such explanations are notattempted when the term is self-descriptive or suggests its own origin.The etymology of a term like space vehicle is self-evident, but that ofspace law is not, because the latter comes out of a set of specific pro-posals for the creation of a new legal realm that comes into play at agiven altitude. The etymology of space lawthus involves a discussionof the altitude at which space itself begins.

Some terms will have more than one etymology, and these mean-ings may be in conflict with one another. The principle at work in thisdictionary is that all claims should be presented. If there is a bias lurk-ing in this book, it is that words have multiple origins and those originsact cumulatively.


xx

FIRST USE. In the case of selected new termsthose with the greatestimpact, in the authors estimationthe entry will supply a dated refer-ence marking the terms debut, often accompanied by a display of a termas it appears in that reference. This dictionary builds on historical prin-ciples, and so knowledge of the time and place of the debut of a term isessential to understanding the term as a (for lack of a better expression)verbal artifact.

In most cases it is, of course, impossible to cite the very earliestexample that appears in print, so this feature is really meant to give thereader a feel for the relative antiquity and early use of the word or phrasein a public forum. Because of the rigors imposed on the concept of firstuse, the process is at best problematic. As DaveWilton points out in hisarticle Moonshot Terms,Neil Armstrong is credited with two first cita-tions in the Oxford English Dictionary for the words postflight (Therewas some suspicion, lingering in the postflight shock of the first Sputnik,that this was the road the Soviet Union had chosen) and topo (Thebest we can do on topo features is to advise you to look to the west ofthe irregularly shaped crater). Of course, Armstrong is unlikely to haveactually coined these words; rather, they were probably common inNASA jargon at the time. Armstrong gets credit because he used themin his 1970 book, First on theMoon.15 Postflight, for example, was in com-mon newspaper use for years before Armstrongs book.16

Lest there be any question, the citation given under First Usewill bethe earliest found in print or in a written transcript. In terms of the dailypress, the authors primary newspaper sources are the Atlanta Constitu-tion, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, Christian ScienceMonitor, Los AnglesTimes, New York Times,Wall Street Journal, andWashington Post, althoughothers are included.

USAGE.Where appropriate, the entries include commentary on termsthat should not be used in certain contexts, or that have come into com-mon use but are objected to by members of the aerospace community.See, for example, the discussion under the entries for blastoffor rocketscientist.This also holds true for the terms mannedand unmannedas


xxi

15.Wilton in AWaywithWords: TheWeekly Newsletter of Wordorigins 4, no. 17 (July22, 2005), www.wordorigins.org.Wilton notes, 67 other words in the OED are givencitations from this book by Armstrong, among them A-OK, hypergolic, lift-off, lunar,non-flammable, pitch, playback, preflight, psych, read-out, rocket, rog, selenocentric,slingshot, smack-dab, spaceship, splashdown, transearth, umbilical, undock, andzero-G.

16. An AP dispatch of May 8, 1961, contained this lead sentence: The 3,000-poundcapsule that carried Alan B. Shepard Jr. into space may wind up in the SmithsonianInstitution, but for several weeks it will undergo extensive postflight tests.WashingtonPost,May 9, 1961, p. A10.

modifiers to terms like spacecraftand exploration,which are still usedwidely but are being replaced by the terms humanand robotic.

EXTENDED USE. Many terms that originated in the space program havetranscended their original meanings. It is through extendedmeaningsthat one can see the immense influence of space terminology on the lan-guage at large. The more common examples include window(for anopportune moment), destruct, launch, countdown, black box,andbackup.

Sources

Because this is a dictionary rather than a narrative, source citations areembedded in the definition rather than in footnotes or endnotes. This isthe style common to all major dictionaries including both the OxfordEnglish Dictionary andWebsters Third International.

In the case of items carried over from Origins of NASANames, I havecompressed the original source notes into one per entry and have elimi-nated some notes, including the most ephemeral onesphone conver-sationsas there is no way of confirming or referring to them 30 yearsafter the fact. Most entries will have light updating and extended refer-ences. All entries from Origins of NASANameswill be tightened to con-form to a terser dictionary-type style.

The principal lexical sources consulted in the compilation of this dic-tionary are listed in the Bibliography. This aspires to be the most compre-hensive list compiled to date on sources pertaining to the language ofthe Space Age, and it includes ephemeral material. According to a searchof the holdings of the National Technical Information Service, there aremore than 800 NASA publications that include a glossaryoften littlemore than a list of a dozen or so acronyms replicated elsewhere, butsometimes containing terms of no lexical value: ordinary English wordsdefined in standard dictionaries. For instance, one book about Skylab hasa glossary that includes the common words doffingand donningasterms used for astronauts dressing and undressing.17

I have also included narratives that concerned themselves with thespoken language of spaceTomWolfes The Right Stuff, for exampleand a number of books in the NASA Special Publications series that werewritten as narratives.

Many of the news clippings referred to in this book were found inissues of NASA Current News, a Public Affairs publication that served asa regular (daily to weekly) review of NASA press.


xxii

17. Skylab Experiments, vol. 7, Living andWorking in Space, EP-116 (Washington, DC:NASA, 1973), p. 37.

Abbreviations

The abbreviations that appear in this dictionary are those currently usedin NASA publications as well as those commonly used in lexicography.Books listed in the bibliography are generally cited in the source notes inshort form (surname/short title). The following additional abbreviationsare used in the source citations.

adj. adjective

ALSJ Glossary Garry Kennedy, comp., Glossary appended to NASAs on-lineApollo Lunar Surface Journal, http://history.nasa.gov/alsj

ASP Glossary Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Introductory AstronomyGlossary,www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/14/14.html

AP Associated Press

CP- NASA Conference Publication

EP- NASA Educational Publication

FY fiscal year

Glossary of Glossary of Aerospace Age Terms, in CanYou Talk theAerospace Language of the Aerospace Age? (brochure published byAge Terms the U.S. Air Force Recruiting Service,Wright Patterson Air

Force Base, Ohio, 1963)

n. noun

NASA NASA Names Files, in NASA Historical Reference Collection,Names Files History Division, NASA Headquarters,Washington, DC

obs. obsolete

OED Oxford English Dictionary

Paine Report National Commission on Space, Pioneering the SpaceFrontier: Report of the National Commission on Space (NewYork: Bantam, 1986)

xxiii

Abbreviations

xxiv

RP- NASA Reference Publication

SP- NASA Special Publication

SP-4402 Helen T.Wells, Susan B.Whiteley, and Carrie Karegeannes,Origins of NASANames, SP-4402 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1976)

SP-7 William H. Allen, Dictionary of Technical Terms for AerospaceUse, SP-7 (Washington, DC: NASA, 1965)

SP-6001 Apollo Terminology, SP-6001 (Washington, DC: NASA,August 1963)

TM- NASA Technical Memorandum

UPI United Press International

USA United States Army

USAF United States Air Force

USN United States Navy

v. verb

Aablation. The wearing away or burning off of the outer layers of an

object reentering the atmosphere. The process cools and protectsthe outer surfaces of a spacecraft ormissile nosecone. The suborbitalJupiter C nosecones were ablative (susceptible to ablation), as wasthe Apollo CommandModule.

Able (launch vehicle upper stage).An upper stage used in combinationwith Thor or Atlas first stages. It was one of several upper stagesderived in 1958 from Vanguard launch vehicle components by theDepartment of Defenses Advanced Research Projects Agency, DouglasAircraft Company, and Space Technology Laboratories. The namesignified Aor first (from the military practice of having commu-nication code words for each letter of the alphabet). It is sometimesreferred to as Project Able. See Delta. (SP-4402, p. 5; MiltonW. Rosen,Office of Defense Affairs, NASA, telephone interview, February 16,1965.)

Able and Baker. Names of the twomonkeys the United States recoveredafter launch in a Jupiter nosecone during a suborbital flight on May 28,1959. The flight was successful, testing the capability to launch fromCape Canaveral, Florida, and to recover spacecraft in the AtlanticOcean, but Able later died.ETYMOLOGY. Named for the first two vocables in the phonetic alphabet,A and B.

ABMA. Army Ballistic Missile Agency, part of the Army Ordnance MissileCommand (AOMC). Prior to the creation of NASA, when it was home toWernher von Braun and other members of the German rocket team, itwas a pioneer in early spaceflight responsible for, among other things,the first American satellite, Explorer 1.

abort. (1, v.) To cut short or break off an action, especially because ofequipment failure; to effect a time-critical termination. (2, n.) Aninstance of a rocket, missile, ormission failing to function effectivelyand not achieving its objective.USAGE. Although the term was first applied to aviation duringWorldWar II for the premature termination of a mission, when applied to rocketlaunches it had a jarring effect on many Americans because theyassociated it with what was at the time an illegal medical procedure.

ACE. Advanced Composition Explorer. Majormission of the Explorerprogram, launched August 25, 1997. It orbits the L1 libration point

3

about 1 million miles (1.6 million km) from Earth and is studyingenergetic particles originating in the Sun and interstellar space.

acoustic velocity. The speed of propagation of sound waves.Hopelessly old-fashioned people call it the speed of sound,notedJack Rice in an article on the language of the Gemini program (St. LouisPost-Dispatch, September 10, 1965).

acquisition of signal (AOS).When an Earth tracking stationmakes aninitial contact with an orbiting spacecraft (a process that ends withloss of signal). The same could occur in orbit around the Moon or Earth.

active-repeater. A satellite that allows a signal transmitted to it to bestrengthened and rebroadcast to a ground station. The principle wasfirst tested in 1958 as part of Project SCORE.

Adam. See Project Adam.Advanced Composition Explorer. See ACE.Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). Unit within the

Department of Defense created by President Eisenhower andCongress immediately following the launch of Sputnik to assure thatthe United States would never again be left behind in the area of newtechnology. It sired, among other things, the first communicationsrelay satellite (Project SCORE) and the Internet (in the form of theDARPANET/ARPANET). The name was changed to DARPA (DefenseAdvanced Research Projects Agency) in 1972.

Advent. See Project Advent.Advisory Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program. See

Augustine Report.Aerobee/Astrobee (sounding rocket). A two-stage sounding rocket

designed to carry a 150-pound (68-kg) payload to an altitude of 80miles (130 km). Development of the Aerobee was begun in 1946 bythe Aerojet Engineering Corporation (later Aerojet-General Corpora-tion) under contract to the U.S. Navy. The Applied Physics Laboratory(APL) of Johns Hopkins University was assigned technical direction ofthe project. In 1952, at the request of the Air Force and the Navy,Aerojet undertook design and development of the Aerobee-Hi, ahigh-performance version of the Aerobee designed expressly forresearch in the upper atmosphere. An improved Aerobee-Hi becamethe Aerobee 150. The uprated Aerobee 150 was called Astrobee.Aerojet used the prefix Aero to designate its liquid-propellantsounding rockets and Astro for its solid-fueled rockets.ETYMOLOGY. James A. Van Allen, the first director of the project at APL,proposed the name Aerobee. He took the aero- from Aerojet Engineeringand the -bee from Bumblebee, the name of the overall project to developnaval rockets that APL was monitoring for the Navy.

acoustic velocity

4

SOURCES. Peter T. Eaton, Office of Space Science and Applications, NASA,letter to Historical Staff, NASA, May 2, 1967; James A. Van Allen, EleanorPressly, and JohnW. Townsend Jr., The Aerobee Rocket, and Townsendet al., The Aerobee-Hi Rocket, chaps. 4 and 5 in Sounding Rockets, ed.Newell; GSFC, Encyclopedia: Satellites and Sounding Rockets, p. 321;WilliamR. Corliss, NASA Sounding Rockets, 19581968: A Historical Summary,SP-4401 (Washington, DC: NASA, 1971), pp. 7980; Herbert J. Honecker,Advanced Vehicles Section, Flight Performance Branch, Sounding RocketDivision, GSFC, memorandum to John H. Lane, Head, Flight PerformanceBranch, January 10, 1975; GSFC, United States Sounding Rocket Program,p. 38; Edward E. Mayo, Flight Performance Branch, Sounding RocketDivision, GSFC, information sent to Historical Office, NASA, January 30,1975.

aerobraking. The deliberate use of a planets atmospheric drag to slow aspacecraft down and lower its orbital altitude. Among others, theMarsGlobal Surveyor andMars Odyssey spacecraft used this method. Seealso atmospheric braking.

Aeronautics and Space Report of the President. An annual reportmandated by the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, toinclude a comprehensive description of the programmed activitiesand the accomplishments of all agencies of the United States in thefield of aeronautics and space activities during the preceding calendaryear. In recent years the reports have been prepared on a fiscal-yearbasis. Recent editions are online at www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/presrep.htm.

aeronomy. The study of the chemical and physical processes takingplace in the upper regions of the atmosphere.

Aeros. (1) Name used briefly in the early 1960s by NASA for the Synchro-nous Meteorological Satellite project. See SMS. (2) German researchsatellite. A June 10, 1969, memorandum of understanding betweenNASA and the GermanMinistry for Scientific Research (BMwF) initiateda cooperative project that would put into orbit a German scientificsatellite designed to investigate particle behavior in the Earths upperatmosphere. This was the second U.S.-German research satellite proj-ect, following Azur. Aeros 1 was launched successfully on December16, 1972. A second satellite in the series, Aeros 2, was launched on July16, 1974. (SP-4402, p. 33; NASA News Release 6991; Lloyd E. Jones Jr.,Office of International Affairs, NASA, telephone interview, June 4, 1971;NASA, Project Approval Document,February 27, 1970; NASA programoffice.)ETYMOLOGY (definition 2). BMwF chose the name Aeros (the ancient Greekgod of the air) for the proposed aeronomy satellite in early 1969. NASA

Aeros

5

designated it GRS-A-2 (German Research Satellite A-2) before launch andgave it the official name Aeros upon launch.

aerospace/aero-space. (1, adj.) Of or pertaining to the Earths atmo-sphere and the space beyond it. (2, n.) The realm combining the Earthsatmosphere and space.ETYMOLOGY / FIRST USE. On October 29, 1957, just three weeks afterSputnik, the U.S. Air Force sent a memo to all of its commands talkingabout air/space vehicles of the future. This was the beginning of acampaign to add a new word and concept to the language, making airand space one environment. The hyphenated word aero-space firstappeared in print in February 1958 in the title of a small glossary entitledInterim Glossary: Aero-Space Terms, edited byWoodward Agee Heflin andpublished by the Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. Theterm was also defined there as an adjective: Of or pertaining to the earthsenvelop [sic] of atmosphere and the space above it, the two consideredas a single realm for activity in the launching, guidance, and control ofballistic missiles, earth satellites, dirigible space vehicles, and the like (p. 1).USAGE. The term was created by the Air Force as a proprietary wordstaking out the atmosphere and the space above it as a single realm. If itcould be argued that air and space were one, then the Air Force would be,logically, Americas Space Force.Writing in Reportermagazine in 1963,David Burnham noted that the Air Force saw the word as its own secretweapon in the bitter inter-service battle for the space dollar. The majorrival for those space dollars was the Army, which saw space linked to theEarth, the platform that allowed one to get into space.

This lexical power play was demonstrated by Gen. Thomas D.White,then Air Force Chief of Staff, testifying before the House Astronautic andSpace Committee on February 3, 1959. Aerospace,he told the committee,is a term which may be unfamiliar to some of you. Since you will hear itseveral times during the course of our presentations, I would like to defineit for the committee. The Air Force has operated throughout its relativelyshort history in the sensible atmosphere around the earth. Recentdevelopments have allowed us to extend our operations further awayfrom the earth, approaching the environment popularly known as space.Since there is no dividing line, no natural barrier separating these twoareas, there can be no operational boundary between them. Thus air andspace comprise a single continuous operational field in which the Air Forcemust continue to function. This area is aerospace.

After a fewminutes of testimony in whichWhite managed to use theterm eight times, Rep. John McCormack (D-Mass.) interrupted to askexactly when this new term had been coined. Within the last year and bythe Air Force, I am willing to add, the General responded proudly.

aerospace/aero-space

6

The term was applied with such abandon that at one point the Air Forceactually began calling airplanes aerospace planes.At the Air ForceAcademy, cadets puckishly renamed physical education aerospacedynamics, and chapel attendance became aerospace theology.

Finally the Army and Navy came to see the Air Forcecentric coinageas such a blatant linguistic power play that the Joint Chiefs of Staff werebrought in to offer a compromise definition: The earths envelope ofatmosphere and the space above it, two separate entities considered as asingle realm for activity in launching, guiding and controlling of vehicleswhich will travel in both realms (NASA Names Files, record no. 17498).

aerospacemedicine. The branch of medicine dealing with the effectsupon the human body of flight through the atmosphere or in spaceand with the prevention or cure of physiological or psychologicalmalfunctions arising from these effects.

aerospace power. The entire aeronautical and astronautical capacity of anation (Glossary of Aerospace Age Terms,p. 7).

afterbody.Object that trails behind a satellite or spacecraft.afterburning. Irregular burning of fuel left in the firing chamber of a

rocket after fuel cutoff. Also applied to turbojets. (SP-6001, p. 3.)Agena (launch vehicle upper stage). An upper stage used in combination

with Thor or Atlas first stages. Agena was originally developed in thelate 1950s for the U.S. Air Force by Lockheed Missiles Systems Division(now Lockheed Martin).

Agena A, the first version of the stage, was followed by the Agena B,which had a larger fuel capacity and engines that could restart inspace. The later Agena D was standardized to provide a launch vehiclefor a variety of military and NASA payloads. NASA used Atlas-Agenavehicles to launch large Earth satellites as well as lunar and inter-planetary space probes. Thor-Agena vehicles launched scientificsatellites, such as OGO (Orbiting Geophysical Observatory) andAlouette, and applications satellites, such as the Echo 2 communi-cations satellite and Nimbusmeteorological satellites. In Project Geminithe Agena D, modified to suit the specialized requirements of spacerendezvous and dockingmaneuvers, became the Gemini Agena TargetVehicle (GATV).ETYMOLOGY. In 1958 the Department of Defenses Advanced ResearchProjects Agency (ARPA) proposed to name the stage for the star Agena inthe constellation Centaurus because it would be a rocket igniting in thesky.The name Agena had first appeared in the Geography of the Heavens,published in the 1800s by the popularizing Connecticut astronomerElijah H. Burritt, and was preserved in American dictionaries as the popularname for the star Beta Centauri. Burritt was thought to have coined the

Agena

7

name from alpha (A, for first or foremost) and gena (knee) because he hadlocated the star near the right forelegof the constellation. Lockheedapproved the choice of the name, since it followed Lockheeds tradition ofnaming aircraft and missiles after stellar phenomena (e.g., the Constella-tion aircraft and Polaris intercontinental ballisticmissile). ARPA formallyapproved the name in June 1959.SOURCES. SP-4402, pp. 67;W. F. Whitmore, AGENA: The Spacecraft andthe Star, Lockheed Missiles and Space Co. research paper, January 16,1969; Dick Bissinette, Andrews AFB, letter to Judy Gildea, NASA, March 27,1963; R. H. Allen, Star Names: Their Lore andMeaning (NewYork: Dover,1963), p. 154; R. Cargill Hall, Lockheed Missiles and Space Co., letter toHistorical Staff, NASA, August 26, 1965; Hall, The Agena Satellite,unpublished essay, November 1966.

Algol. The first stage of the Scout rocket, named for a star in theconstellation Perseus. See Scout.

all up. Approach to spaceflight testing that did not allow for learningfailures, or success on the second try. Under this approach, accordingto Arnold S. Levine, a vehicle is as complete as practicable for eachflight, so that the maximum amount of test information is obtainedwith a minimum number of flights (Levine,Managing NASA in theApollo Era, SP-4102 [Washington, DC: NASA, 1982], p. 6). As Levineexplains, this meant all three stages of the Saturn Vwere to be flownwith the Apollo Command and ServiceModule instead of being flownseparately.ETYMOLOGY. The approach was created by George Mueller, who tookover the Office of Manned Space Flight in September 1963. In Apollo,explained Homer Newell, the all up philosophywhich called for assem-bling a complete launcher and attempting to carry out a complete missioneven on early test flightswas intended to produce economies as well asto preserve an image of success (Newell, Beyond the Atmosphere, SP-4211,p. 160).FIRST USE. More important to the moon program, the flight justifiedNASAs decision to try the so-called all up concept that was adopted inhopes of meeting the 1970 lunar landing goal. This concept was toassemble and put the entire Saturn 5 rocket into space, even though manyof its major components had never been tested in space before (Saturn5s Success Enhances the Odds of US Landing Men on the Moon by 1970,Wall Street Journal, November 10, 1957, p. 5).

Alouette. Canadian satellite project undertaken in cooperation withNASA. Alouette 1, a topside sounder scientific satellite instrumented toinvestigate the Earths ionosphere from beyond the ionospheric layer,was launched into orbit by NASA from the PacificMissile Range on

Algol

8

September 28, 1962. It was the first satellite designed and built by acountry other than the United States or the Soviet Union and was thefirst satellite launched by NASA from theWest Coast. Alouette 2 waslaunched later as part of the U.S.-Canadian ISIS project. See ISIS.ETYMOLOGY. The satellite was given its name in May 1961 by theCanadian Defence Research Board. NASA supported the boards choice.The name was selected because, as the French-Canadian word formeadowlark, it suggested flight. Alouette was the title of a popularCanadian song and, in a bilingual country, called attention to CanadasFrench heritage.SOURCES. SP-4402, pp. 3435; Jonathan D. Caspar, The Alouette (S-27)Program: A Case Study in NASA International Cooperative Activities,HHN-42, 1964 (commented) and 1965 (revised ms.); N.W. Morton, Dept.of National Defence, Canadian Joint Staff, letter to ArnoldW. Frutkin,Director of International Programs, NASA, April 27, 1961; Robert C.Seamans Jr., Associate Administrator, NASA, letter to N.W. Morton, May 11,1961; NASA Announcement 312, May 24, 1961; NASA News Release64-207;Wallops Station News Release 6477.

Alpha. Temporary name for the International Space Station (ISS).ALSEP. Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package.Altair. The fourth stage of the Scout rocket, named after a star in the

constellation Aquila. See Scout.America. Call sign for the CommandModule for Apollo 17, the last of

the six Apollo missions to the Moon, and the only one to include ascientist-geologist (Harrison Schmitt) as a member of the crew. RonaldEvans piloted the America while Schmitt and Eugene Cernan under-took extended EVAs on the lunar surface (22 hours 4 minutes for each)from the LunarModule, named Challenger.ETYMOLOGY. According to Cernan, the name was a way of paying tributeto the American public (quoted in Lattimer, All We DidWas Fly to theMoon,p. 94).

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Aprivate organization of scientists active in space exploration since itsearliest days. Key organization in Americas early thrust into space. Theabbreviation is sometimes pronounced triple A, S.

Ames Research Center (ARC). Originally one of NASAs aeronauticscenters, now specializing in nanotechnology, information technology,fundamental space biology, astrobiology, biotechnology, thermal pro-tection systems, and human factors research. Located at Moffett Field,California, Ames was created by Congress on August 9, 1939, asWorldWar II began, as a second National Advisory Committee for Aero-nautics (NACA) laboratory for urgent research in aircraft structures.

Ames Research Center

9

Ground was broken for the laboratory on September 14, 1939. TheNACA facility began operations as the Moffett Field Laboratory inearly 1941.

NACA named the facility Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in 1944 inhonor of Dr. Joseph S. Ames, a leading aerodynamicist and formerpresident of Johns Hopkins University. He was one of the first mem-bers of the NACA and served as NACA chairman from 1927 to 1939.When Dr. Ames retired, he was cited by President Roosevelt for hisinspiring leadership in the development of new research facilitiesand in the orderly prosecution of comprehensive research programs.

On October 1, 1958, as a facility of the NACA, the laboratory becamepart of the new National Aeronautics and Space Administration andwas renamed Ames Research Center. Mission responsibilities of ARCfocused on basic and applied research in the physical and life sciencesfor aeronautics and space flight. The center managed the Pioneer andBiosatellite space projects, as well as providing scientific experimentsfor other missions. It contributed to development of experimental tilt-wing and fan-in-wing aircraft and solutions to high-speed atmosphereentry problems, including the blunt-body concept, which is used onevery spacecraft to prevent burning up upon atmospheric entry.

Wind tunnels are central to Ameshistory. Several wind tunnelswere opened in the 1940s to test and refine aircraft, guidedmissiles,satellites, and reentry bodies. Of particular note are three tunnels laterdesignated key national resources. The 40- by 80-foot (12- by 24-m)wind tunnel opened in June 1944 to conduct aircraft developmentwork. The 12-foot (3.7 m) subsonicwind tunnel opened in July 1946.The Unitary PlanWind Tunnel enabled Ames to conduct new research;almost all NASA crewed space vehicles, including the Space Shuttle,were tested in the Unitary. In the 1970s through the 1990s, all threefacilities were renovated. Ames added an 80- by 120-foot (24- by 48-m)tunnel to the 40- by 80-foot tunnel, renamed it the National Full-ScaleAerodynamics Complex (NFAC), and dedicated it in 1987. The 12-footpressure tunnel was rebuilt in the 1980s and rededicated in 1995. Theworkhorse Unitary received multiple upgrades in the 1990s. Today,only the Unitary is still in regular use.

When Ames became part of NASA in 1958, its most vital input toNASAs top priority, the lunar program, was the blunt-body concept forreentry capsules, a concept tested and refined in Amesnew arc jetfacilities and hypervelocity ranges. The arc jets contributed to thermalprotection for all NASAs crewed programs, including the Space Shuttle,and also for planetary missions (e.g., the Galileomissions Jupiterprobe). The complex will continue to be central to the research anddevelopment of materials suitable for heat shield applications.

Ames Research Center

10

In the 1960s Ames emerged as a leading builder of flight simulators.In particular, in 1969 the Flight Simulator for Advanced Aircraftbecame part of a wide range of simulators, equipment, and facilitiesdeveloped by Ames to improve pilot workloads, cockpit design, andsafety, among other things. Another, the Vertical Motion Simulator,still enables testing of a variety of aircraft and the Space Shuttle.

Ames longstanding life sciences program conducts research invarious centrifuges, two of them unique to the agency, and genomefacilities. In addition, Ames took major new strides in supercomputingin 2004 with the Project Columbia facility, which will present research-ers with unprecedented computing capabilities. Amescontinuinginterest in aviation safety manifests itself in a variety of advancedsimulators and facilities, among them Future Flight Central, a sophisti-cated facility for basic research onmovement into and around airports.The center still pursues human factors studies in the Human Per-formance Research Laboratory (1990), and advanced aerospacetechnology applications in the Automation Sciences Research Facility(1992).

In the 1990s Ames began to undertake different kinds of research,requiring different kinds of facilities. Its nanotechnology laboratorieswill help revolutionize space exploration by reducing mass whileincreasing capability. The centers astrobiology facilities include aworld-renowned astrochemistry laboratory to simulate deep space.

For more information about Ames Research Center, see Edwin P.Hartman, Adventures in Research: A History of Ames Research Center,19401965, SP-4302 (Washington, DC: NASA, 1970); Elizabeth A.Muenger, Searching the Horizon: A History of Ames Research Center,19401976, SP-4304 (Washington, DC: NASA, 1985); Glenn E. Bugos,Atmosphere of Freedom: Sixty Years at the NASA Ames Research Center,SP-2000-4314 (Washington, DC: NASA, 2000).

AMR. AtlanticMissile Range.Amundsen. Deep Space 2 instrument probe named for Norwegian

explorer Roald Amundsen. SeeMars Polar Lander.Angry Alligator. Nickname given to the Augmented Target Docking

Adapter on the Gemini IXmission of June 36, 1966, piloted by ThomasP. Stafford and Eugene A. Cernan.When a rendezvouswith the upper-stage Agena docking port was thwarted when its fiberglass shroudopened only partially, the shroud had the appearance of an alligator.ETYMOLOGY. As Stafford began slowing the spacecraft to rendezvouswith the target vehicle, he noted that the shroud was still open: Then heexclaimed, Look at that moose!As the distance dwindled, he knew thathe had been indulging in wishful thinking. The shroud is half open on thatthing! Seconds later, Cernan remarked, You could almost knock it off!

Angry Alligator

11

When the final braking was completed, the two vehicles were only 30meters apart and in position for station keeping but it did not seem likelythat the spacecraft nose could slip into the mouth of the moose and dock.The crew described the shroud in detail and wondered out loud whatcould be done to salvage the situation. One of Staffords remarksgraphicand memorablebecame the trademark of the entire mission. His animalanalogy switched to reptilian when he said, It looks like an angry alligatorout here rotating around.He itched to nudge it with his spacecraft dock-ing bar to open its yawning jaws, but Flight Director Kranz told him tocontrol the urge. (Hacker and Grimwood, On the Shoulders of Titans,SP-4203, pp. 33334.)

Anik (Inuit for brother). Name given to Canadian Telesat satellites when inorbit. Anik A-1 was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard aDelta rocket on November 9, 1972. The second Anik was launched onApril 20, 1973. The last Shuttle-launched Anik was Anik C1, aboardSTS-51D in 1985. The latest in the series was launched in April 2007aboard a proton Breeze M rocket. These satellites, designed to operatefor 7 years, were usually retired after about 10 years of service. FourAniks are still operational, and the duration record is about 14 years.(SP-4402, p. 75; Canadian Satellite,Washington Post, April 16, 1969,p. A17; NASA News Release 71-85.)

anomaly. A deviation from the norm.USAGE. Critics of NASA-speak have argued that the term has been usedby NASA to take the edge off critical situations. Anomaly turns catas-trophes into irregularities, charges Dawn Stover (Anomaly = Disaster, andOther Handy NASA Euphemisms,Popular Science, February 2004). Stovercites a line from a 2003 NASA Press Release (NASA Mishap Board IdentifiesCause of X-43A Failure, July 23, 2003): Shortly thereafter, the X-43A beganto experience a control anomaly characterized by a roll oscillation.

ANS. Astronomical Netherlands Satellite. In June 1970 NASA and theNetherlands Ministries of Economic Affairs and Education and Sciencereached agreement to launch the first Dutch scientific satellite. Thesatellite was designated ANS, and an ANS Program Authority wascreated by the ministries to direct the cooperative project. NASAprovided an experiment and the Scout launch vehicle, and the ProgramAuthority designed, built, and tested the spacecraft and providedtracking and data acquisition. The satellite, launched August 30, 1974,carried an ultraviolet telescope to study selected stellar ultravioletsources and instruments to investigate both soft and hard x-raysources. (SP-4402, p. 35; NASA News Release 70-91.)

Ansari X Prize. Competition to launch a privately funded space vehicle.Created in 1996 for a team to privately build, launch, and finance a

Anik

12

vehicle capable of carrying a single pilot and added ballast to compen-sate for the weight of two hypothetical passengers. In order to claimthe prize, the same vehicle had to repeat this trip twice within twoweeks. According to the rules and guidelines of the competition, as ademonstration of economic reusability, no more than 10 percent ofthe vehicles non-propellantmass could be replaced between the firstand second flights. On October 4, 2004, SpaceShipOnewon the prizeof $10 million by achieving its second suborbital spaceflight. Thepilot was Brian Binnie; the first flight was piloted by Mike Melvill.SpaceShipOne was funded solely by Paul G. Allen, designed by BurtRutan, and built by his company, Scaled Composites. The vehicleachieved the first privately funded human spaceflight in history. Thevehicle cost an estimated $30million to produce. (http://history.nasa.gov/x-prize.htm.)

Antares. (1) The third stage of the Scout rocket, named for the brighteststar in the constellation Scorpius. See Scout. (2) Call sign for the Apollo14 LunarModule, piloted by Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell, whowent to the lunar surface while Stuart Roosa piloted the CommandModule, Kitty Hawk. They performed nine hours of Moon walks andbrought back 98 pounds (44.45 kg) of lunar material. Apollo 14 was thethird U.S. lunar landingmission, and the first since the near-disaster ofApollo 13.ETYMOLOGY. (definition 2). According to Roosa, the name was given to thecraft by Edgar Mitchell: His logic was that Antares was the most visiblelandmarkas they pitched over during the powered descent to the lunarsurface.Roosa, who ended up naming the CommandModule Kitty Hawk,added, It is a very difficult task to name a spacecraft. Ed and I spent hourstrying to find two names that would be coordinated. Finally I told Ed, Youname the Lunar Module anything you want, but Im going with KittyHawk. (Quoted in Lattimer, All WeDidWas Fly to theMoon, p. 82.)

anti-g.Designed to counteract the effects of high acceleration.anti-g suit. A garment to protect astronauts from certain physiological

effects of acceleration.anti-matter. A form of matter of which the atoms are composed of anti-

particles, as protons, electrons, etc. assumed to carry charges oppositeto those associated with ordinary matter. Particles having suchproperties have been produced in particle accelerators.

anti-satellite (ASAT). A satellite or other device whose purpose is todestroy or otherwise negate themission of an enemys operationalsatellite. Methods employed could be the physical destruction of asatellite (exploding ballistic satellite) or interference with the satellitescommunications or power systems (laser beam or particle beam). The

anti-satellite

13

need for such a device was seen within days of the Sputnik launching.The first use of such technology was the Chinese ASAT test in January2007, in which China destroyed one of its own satellites.

A-OK/A-Okay/A.O.K./AOK. Shorthand signifying that everything is inperfect working order. The term has a strong association with theearliest days of crewed spaceflight.ETYMOLOGY / FIRST USE. In reporting the Freedom 7 flight, the pressattributed the term to astronaut [Alan B.] Shepard, and indeed a NASANews Release of May 5, 1961, has Shepard report A-OKshortly afterimpact. A replay of the flight voice communications tape disclosed thatShepard himself did not use the term. It was Col. John A. ShortyPowerswho reported Shepards condition as A-OK in a description of the flight.(Swenson, Grimwood, and Alexander, This NewOcean, SP-4201, p. 375.)

During the secondMercury flight, Powers used the phrase at least fourtimes, according to a SundayOregonian article about the phrase: Gusreports he is in very good condition; his trajectory is A-OK. Reports herein the Mercury Control Center are A-OK all the way. Our instruments hereindicate A-OK. The flight surgeon reports [Grissom] came through the highG of re-entry in A-OK condition. (Father of A-OK,SundayOregonian,December 18, 1961, in NASA Current News, December 22, 1961, p. 6.) Thewriter then adds, But the phrase is absent from the official transcript ofGrissoms radio communications released by NASA after his flight.Thearticle goes on to bestow on Powers the title of the father of A-OK.

Powers got the term from engineers building the voice networks forhuman flight. It was attributed to Paul Lein, of theWestern Electric Com-pany, who about four months earlier when confronted with static andbackground noise used the letter A with its brilliant sound in order to beheard clearly. In The Right Stuff, TomWolfe holds that the termwas emblem-atic shorthand for Shepards triumph over the odds and for astronautcoolness under stress (p. 270). (NASA Names Files, record no. 17497.)

AOS. Acquisition of signal.Apache (sounding rocket upper stage). Solid-propellant rocket stage devel-

oped by Thiokol Chemical Corporation (later Thiokol Corporation) andused with the Nike first stage. Identical in appearance to the Nike-Cajun,the Nike-Apache could reach higher altitudes because the Apache pro-pellant burning time was longer (6.4 seconds versus Cajuns 4 seconds).It could carry 75-pound (34-kg) payloads to an operating altitude of130 miles (210 km), or 200 pounds (100 kg) to 78 miles (125 km).ETYMOLOGY. The Apache, named for the American Indian tribe, followedthe Thiokol tradition of ethnic and Indian-related names, a tradition thathad begun with Cajun and also included the Hawk, Malemute, andTomahawk.

A-OK/A-Okay/A.O.K./AOK

14

SOURCES. Rosenthal, Venture into Space, SP-4301, pp. 12729; Space: TheNew Frontier, EP-6, p. 38; GFSC, Vehicles Section, Spacecraft Integration andSounding Rocket Division, telephone interview, March 19, 1970; GSFC,United States Sounding Rocket Program, pp. 38, 47.

aphelion. Point at which a body (planet, comet, etc.) in solar orbit isfurthest from the Sun. See also perihelion.

apogee. (1, n.) Point at which a body in orbit around the Earth or anothercelestial body is furthest from that body. See also perigee. Strictlyspeaking, apogee and perigee refer only to Earth orbit, but the termsare often applied to orbits around other celestial bodies. (2, v.) For arocket or satellite to reach its highest point.

Apollo. American space program of 19 missions, which included sixpiloted lunar landings between 1969 and 1972, four Skylabmissionsin 1973, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project in 1975. It has been termedthe most famous name in space exploration.

Project Apollo took onmore urgency when the goal of a humanlunar landing was proposed to the Congress by President John F.Kennedy onMay 25, 1961, and was subsequently approved by theCongress. It was a program of three-man flights, leading to the landingof men on the Moon. Rendezvous and docking in lunar orbit of Apollospacecraft components were vital techniques for the intricate flight toand return from the Moon.

The Apollo spacecraft consisted of the CommandModule, servingas the crews quarters and flight control section; the Service Module,containing propulsion and spacecraft support systems; and the LunarModule, carrying two crewmen to the lunar surface, supporting themon the Moon, and returning them to the Command and ServiceModulein lunar orbit. Module designations came into use in 1962, when NASAmade basic decisions on the flight mode (lunar orbit rendezvous), theboosters, and the spacecraft for Project Apollo. From that time untilJune 1966, the Lunar Module was called the Lunar ExcursionModule(LEM), or sometimes the bug. It was renamed Lunar Module by theNASA Project Designation Committee because the word excursionimplied mobility on the Moon, and this vehicle did not have thatcapability. The later Apollo flights, beginning with Apollo 15, carriedthe Lunar Roving Vehicle, or rover, to provide greater mobility for theastronauts while on the surface of the Moon.

Beginning with the flight of Apollo 9, call signs for both theCommand and Service Module (CSM, sometimes just CM) and theLunar Module (LM) were chosen by the astronauts who were to fly oneachmission. The call signs for the craftwere: Apollo 9, Gumdrop (CM),Spider (LM); Apollo 10, Charlie Brown (CM), Snoopy (LM); Apollo 11,

Apollo

15

Columbia (CM), Eagle (LM); Apollo 12, Yankee Clipper (CM), Intrepid (LM);Apollo 13,Odyssey (CM), Aquarius (LM); Apollo 14, Kitty Hawk (CM),Antares (LM); Apollo 15, Endeavour (CM), Falcon (LM); Apollo 16, Casper(CM), Orion (LM); Apollo 17, America (CM), Challenger (LM).

The formula for numbering Apollo missions was altered when thethree astronauts scheduled for the first human flight lost their lives in aflash fire during launch rehearsal on January 27, 1967. In honor ofastronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H.White II, and Roger B. Chaffee,the plannedmission was given the name Apollo 1 even though it hadnot been launched. Carrying the prelaunch designation AS-204 (forthe fourth launch in the Apollo Saturn IB series), the mission was offi-cially recorded as first manned Apollo Saturn flight, failed on groundtest.Manned Spacecraft Center Deputy Director George M. Low hadurged consideration of the request from the astronautswidows thatthe designation Apollo 1, used by the astronauts publicly and includedon their insignia, be retained. NASA Headquarters, Office of MannedSpace Flight, therefore recommended the new numbering, and theNASA Project Designation Committee announced its approval onApril 3, 1967.

The earlier, uncrewed Apollo Saturn IB missions AS-201, AS-202, andAS-203 were not given Apolloflight numbers, and nomissions werenamed Apollo 2 or Apollo 3. The next mission flown, the first Saturn Vflight (AS-501, for the first launch in the Apollo Saturn V series), becameApollo 4 after launch into orbit on November 9, 1967. Subsequentflights continued the sequence through 17.

The Apollo program carried the first men beyond the Earths fieldof gravity and around the Moon on Apollo 8 in December 1968 andlanded the first men on the Moon in Apollo 11 on July 20, 1969. Theprogram concluded with Apollo 17 in December 1972 after having put27 men into lunar orbit and 12 of them on the surface of the Moon.Data, photos, and lunar samples brought to Earth by the astronautsand data from experiments they left on the Moon began to give apicture of the Moons origin and nature, contributing to the under-standing of how the Earth had evolved.ETYMOLOGY. In July 1960 NASAwas preparing to implement its long-rangeplan beyond ProjectMercury and to introduce a human circumlunar mis-sion project, then unnamed, at the NASAIndustry Program Plans Confer-ence inWashington. Abe Silverstein, Director of Space Flight Develop-ment, proposed the name Apollo because it was a name from ancientGreek mythology with attractive connotations, and the precedent fornaming piloted spaceflight projects for mythological gods and heroeshad been set with Mercury (which had also been named by Silverstein).

Apollo

16

In a 1969 interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Silverstein said,I thought the image of the god Apollo riding his chariot across the sungave the best representation of the grand scale of the proposed program.So, I chose it.Apollo was the god of archery, prophecy, poetry, and music,and most significantly, he was the charioteer of the Sun, pulling the Sunacross the sky each day in his horse-drawn golden chariot. NASA approvedthe name and publicly announced Project Apollo at the July 2829, 1960,conference.FIRST USE. The National Aeronautics and Space Administrationyesterday disclosed plans for 260 major launchings in the next decade,including a manned spacecraft called Apollo that will follow ProjectMercury (US Plans 260 Major Space Launchings in Next Decade,LosAngeles Times, July 29, 1960, p. B1).SOURCES. NASA Names Files, record no. 17512; Merle G.Waugh, Office ofManned Space Flight, NASA, letter to James M. Grimwood, Historian, MSC,November 5, 1963; NASA Ad Hoc Committee to Name Space Projects andObjects, minutes of meeting, May 16, 1960; Bulfinch,Mythology, pp. 17, 40ff;Abe Silverstein, Director, Office of Space Flight Programs, NASA, memo-randum to Harry J. Goett, Director, GSFC, July 25, 1960; JulianW. Scheer,Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs, NASA, memorandum from ProjectDesignation Committee, June 9, 1966; George E. Mueller, AssociateAdministrator for Manned Space Flight, NASA, memorandum to Robert C.Seamans Jr., Deputy Administrator, NASA, February 9, 1967; Scheer, memo-randum to Seamans, February 17, 1967; Mueller, memorandum to Scheer,March 28, 1967; George M. Low, Deputy Director, MSC, letter to Mueller,March 30, 1967; Scheer, memorandum to distribution, April 3, 1967;Mueller, TWX to KSC, MSFC, and MSC, Apollo and AAPMission Designation,March 24 and April 24, 1967.

Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP). The collection ofexperiments flown to the lunar surface by Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17.

Apollo on steroids. Name used by NASA Administrator Michael Griffinin 2005 to typify a second lunar landing program that would returnhumans to the Moon as early as 2018 with a new spacecraft that wouldreplace the Space Shuttle. Think of it as Apollo on steroids,he toldreporters at NASA headquarters inWashington at a September 18,2005, news conference.

The term contains its own implied criticism: that a 21st-centuryspacecraft/program is based on 1960s technology. This is not good,wrote Abram Katz in response to the term. Thirty-six years afterApollo 11 landed on the Sea of Tranquility, were simply planning topursue an expanded version of 1960s technology (NewHaven Register,October 9, 2005, p. F6). Intended or not, the term so firmly attached

Apollo on steroids

17

itself to the new lunar initiative that many news accounts mentionedthe nickname when the announcement was made on August 31, 2006,that the Martin-Marietta Company had been selected to build theOrion spacecraft: In picking Lockheed Martin for Orion, described byNASAs chief as Apollo on steroids,NASA bypassed Apollo throwbacksNorthrop Grumman of Los Angeles and its chief subcontractor Boeingof Chicago (Seth Borernstein, Lockheed MartinWins NASA Contract,Houston Chronicle, September 1, 2006, p. A1).FIRST USE. Mott described the Boeing OSP [Orbital Space Plane] conceptas Apollo on steroids,with a crew capsule attached to different modulesto meet different mission requirements (Mike Mott, General Manager,Boeing NASA Systems, quoted in AviationWeek & Space Technology,January 25, 2004).USAGE. When NASA officials dabble in slang, the results can be difficult tocontrol. A case in point is the use of on steroids to mean a more powerfulversion of something, like an athlete who has used anabolic steroids toenhance his strength. For reasons unclear, in the wake of Apollo onsteroids the phrase was attached to a number of NASA projects andphenomena, including a flying wing on steroids, solar flares on steroids,x-rays on steroids (describing gamma rays), and the Adirondacks onsteroids (a mapping enhancer).

Apollo-Saturn (AS). The program that would use Saturn rockets to putApollo spacecraft in orbit.

Apollo-SoyuzTest Project (ASTP). The first international human spaceproject, carried out in July 1975. The joint U.S.-Soviet rendezvous anddockingmission took its name from the spacecraft to be used, theAmerican Apollo and the Soviet Soyuz.On September 15, 1969, twomonths after the Apollo 11 lunar landingmission, the Presidents SpaceTask Groupmade its recommendations on the future U.S. space pro-gram.One objective was broad international participation, andPresident Nixon included this goal in his March 1970 Space PolicyStatement. The President earlier had approved NASA plans forincreasing international cooperation in an informal meeting withSecretary of StateWilliam P. Rogers, Presidential Assistant for NationalSecurity Affairs Henry A. Kissinger, and NASA Administrator Thomas O.Paine aboard Air Force One while flying to the July Apollo 11splashdown.

The United States had invited the Soviet Union to participate inexperiments and information exchange in previous years. NowDr. Paine sent Mstislav V. Keldysh, President of the Soviet Academy ofSciences, a copy of the U.S. post-Apollo plans and suggested explora-tion of cooperative programs. In April 1970 Dr. Paine suggested, in an

Apollo-Saturn

18

informal meeting with academician Anatoly A. Blagonravov in NewYork, that the two nations cooperate on astronaut safety, includingcompatible docking equipment on space stations and shuttles topermit rescue operations in space emergencies. Further discussionsled to a October 28, 1970, agreement on joint efforts to design com-patible docking arrangements. Three working groups were set up.Agreements on further details were reached in Houston, Texas, June2125, 1971, and in Moscow November 16December 2, 1971. NASADeputy Administrator George M. Low and a delegation met with aSoviet delegation in Moscow April 46, 1972, to draw up a plan fordocking a U.S. Apollo spacecraft with a Russian Soyuz in Earth orbitin 1975.

Final official approval came in Moscow onMay 24, 1972. PresidentNixon and Soviet Premier Aleksey N. Kosygin signed the AgreementConcerning Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space forPeaceful Purposes, including development of compatible spacecraftdocking systems to improve the safety of human spaceflight and tomake joint scientific experiments possible. The first flight to test thesystems was to be in 1975, with modified Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft.Beyond this mission, future human spacecraft of the two nationswould be able to dock with each other.

During the work that followed, engineers at the Manned SpacecraftCenter (renamed Johnson Space Center in 1973) shortened the lengthyphrase joint rendezvous and docking mission to rendock, as a handyproject name, but in June 1972 the NASA Project Designation Commit-tee approved the official designation Apollo Soyuz Test Project (ASTP),incorporating the names of the U.S. and Soviet spacecraft. NASA andthe Soviet Academy of Sciences announced the official ASTP emblemin March 1974. The circular emblem displayed the English word Apolloand the Russian word Soyuz on either side of a center globe with asuperimposed silhouette of the docked spacecraft.

Apollo 18 and Soyuz 19 were launched on July 15, 1975, with ameeting in spaceon July 17. Soyuz 19 landed July 21, and Apollo 18splashed down three days later. This, the first international crewedspace mission, carried out experiments with astronauts and cosmo-nauts working together, in addition to testing the new dockingsystems and procedures.SOURCES. The Post-Apollo Space Program: Directions for the Future, SpaceTask Group report to the President, General Services Administration,National Archives and Records Service, Office of the Federal Register,Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 5 (September 22, 1969),p. 1291; Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Richard Nixon

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project

19

(Washington, DC: GPO, 1971), pp. 25053; Thomas O. Paine, Mans Futurein Space,1972 Tizard Memorial Lecture,Westminster School, London,March 14, 1972; NASA News Release, Text of US/USSR Space Agreement,May 24, 1972; NASA News Release 72-109; Washington Roundup,Avia-tionWeek & Space Technology 96 (May 15, 1972): 13; Richard D. Lyons,Chief Astronaut Foresees Further Cuts in the Corps,New York Times,May28, 1972, p. 1; John P. Donnelly, Assistant Administrator for Public Affairs,NASA, memorandum to Dale D. Myers, Associate Administrator for SpaceFlight, NASA, June 30, 1972; Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, Project ApprovalDocument, Office of Manned Space Flight, NASA, December 19, 1972, andOctober 6, 1973. For more information about the Apollo program, see Ezelland Ezell, The Partnership, SP-4209, online at www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/SP-4209/cover.htm.

Aqua. EOS PM-1. A multinational NASA scientific research satellite in orbitaround the Earth, studying the precipitation, evaporation, and cyclingof water. Additional variables being measured by Aqua include radio-active energy fluxes, aerosols, vegetation cover on the land, phyto-plankton and dissolved organic matter in the oceans, and air, land,and water temperatures. It is the secondmajor component of theEarth Observing System (EOS), following on Terra (launched 1999)and followed by Aura (launched 2004).ETYMOLOGY. Aqua (Latin for water) was named to be complementary tothe satellite Terra (Latin for Earth). (http://aqua.nasa.gov/.)

Aquarius. Call sign for the Apollo 13 LunarModule, the third lunar landingattempt. Themissionwas aborted after the rupture of one of theService Module oxygen tanks, which damaged several of the power,electrical, and life support systems, leaving the module unable tosupply sufficient air, water, and electricity to return the three crewmembersJames A. Lovell Jr., John L. Swigert Jr., and FredW. HaiseJr.to Earth. The Aquarius LM, a self-contained spacecraft unaffectedby the accident, was used as a lifeboat to provide austere life supportfor the return trip. The mission was termed a successful failurebecause of the experience gained in rescuing crew.ETYMOLOGY. According to Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell, Contrary topopular belief, [the LM] was not named after the song in the play Hair, butafter the Egyptian goddess Aquarius. She was symbolized as a water car-rier who brought fertility and therefore life and knowledge to the NileValley, and we hoped our Lunar Module, Aquarius, would bring life backfrom the Moon. (Quoted in Lattimer, All We DidWas Fly to theMoon, p. 77.)

ARC. Ames Research Center.Arcas. All-purpose Rocket for Collecting Atmospheric Soundings

(sounding rocket). A small solid-propellant sounding rocket named in

Aqua

20

1959 by its producer, Atlantic Research Corporation. It was no accidentthat the first three letters of the acronymwere also the producersinitials. An inexpensive vehicle designed specifically for meteorologicalresearch, Arcas could carry an 11-pound (5-kg) payload to an altitudeof 40 miles (64 km). Later versions were the Boosted Arcas, BoostedArcas II, and Super Arcas, all of which NASA used.

Two other sounding rockets developed by Atlantic Research wereused briefly by NASA. The Arcon was named by Atlantic Research, andthe Iris was named by Eleanor Pressly of Goddard Space Flight Center,which managed the rockets.SOURCES. Atlantic Research Corp., announcement released by U.S. ArmyMissile Support Agency, January 26, 1959; Peter T. Eaton, Office of SpaceScience and Applications, NASA, letter to Historical Staff, NASA, May 2,1967;W. C. Roberts Jr. and R. C.Webster, Atlantic Research Corp., ArcasRocketsonde System Development, September 3, 1959; GSFC, Encyclo-pedia: Satellites and Sounding Rockets, p. 321.

ARES. Advanced Rover Engineering and Science Tool. The softwarescientists and engineers used to drive the Mars Exploration Rovers(MERs).

Ares (pronounced air-eez or ah-rays). Name for the next generation oflaunch vehicles that will return humans to the Moon, announced offi-cially on June 30, 2006. It includes a crew launch vehicle, referred to asAres I, and a cargo launch vehicle, which will be called Ares V.

Ares I will use a single five-segment solid rocket boos

A Dictionary of the Space Age

Documents

Transcript of A Dictionary of the Space Age