[Nov. 10, 1959] Orlando Oranges and Space Slips

[galacticjourney]

Greetings from sunny Orlando, Florida!

I know what you're thinking: why travel across the country to central Florida, which at first glance has little to offer to the tourist?

Firstly, my only first cousin on my father's side lives here with her family. Secondly, Orlando is home to the Martin Marrietta manufacturing plant—and guess who has a free pass to see the Titan and Atlas rocket assembly lines?

Also, I wanted to see the place before it is destroyed in next month's atomic holocaust. Or at least before Fidel's revolution travels to the mainland. I imagine it will hit Florida before other states.



As you can see, Orlando has gotten its Christmas decorations up early. Someday Christmas will precede Halloween, I predict.

I haven't had a chance to tour much, so I'll save the meat of my sightseeing report for next time. In the meantime, here's a Space News round-up:

(Note that neither of these stories happened in Florida, which just figures since it is one of the rare times I'm actually in the state)

As you know from reading this column, there are two competing manned space programs in this country. Sadly, one of them has suffered a setback: On its third mission, the rocket plane X-15 experienced an explosion in mid-flight. Luckily, pilot Scott Crossfield managed to dump his fuel in a jiffy and get the plane on the ground in one piece. He's fine, and the plane will fly again, but it won't go up until it's known precisely what happened.

The Air Force has also had a mishap: Discoverer 7, their capsule-return spacecraft designed for biological sample return (which hasn't carried an actual biological sample in several flights) got up into orbit just fine; but then it started to tumble, and the boys in blue couldn't get the capsule to separate from the rest of the craft.

While I may be cynical about the stated purpose of the Discoverer program, it does underline how technically complicated even an unmanned mission can be. Getting the rockets to work is only one of many problems to be tackled before we can think of sending a person into space.

I will try to have an update in two days' time, but it may have to wait until I get back home. I've a brand-new typewriter waiting for me there!

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Comments

[laurose8]

So glad to hear Scott Crossfield made it all right. I guess that means unfit, untrained people like me are going to be kept off rockets for a while. Hope the ropcket plant was up to expectations.

Maybe Halloween will get itself hyped, too? Christmas and Halloween together?

Best of luck with the Cuba crisis! Make sure you are on the west coast asap. (oot: Buchwald wrote how reassuring it was to have advertisements even in the tensest newscast)

[galacticjourney]

I wouldn't call it a "crisis," just yet. It's not as if the Soviets are basing missiles there or anything...

[stardreamer]

Of course, if you look at it the right way, Halloween is precisely equal to Christmas...

[galacticjourney]

Don't let the newspapers catch whiff of your heresy.

[stardreamer]

No, really. It's a math thing -- OCT 31 = DEC 25. :-)

[galacticjourney]

Good Lord.

Of what possible use could knowing how to compute in octal be?

[solarbird]

Orlando! Sounds very Spanish, kind of romantic. I like it! I can also see the Martin Marrietta plant seems to be doing them some good - that's a lot of construction going on in the background of the snapshot you enclosed. Who knows; if this space race takes off the way we all rather hope it will, they could turn into a real boomtown! (Having Boeing here certainly hasn't done us any harm - with the 707 selling so well, they're starting to call Seattle the Jet City. I like it - it's much less general than "Queen City." There must be dozens of those.)

[galacticjourney]

Funny--I'd never heard of another.

The 707 is a lovely craft!