Astronauts speeding towards moon
Houston: America’s Apollo-10 astronauts sped towards the moon where two of them will soar in hazardous orbit only eight nautical miles above the mountains and craters of the Lunar landscape on Thursday.
Sweeping along the moon’s equator in the Lunar module they will be taking a final close look at possible landing sites for the first Americans due to step on to the dead world next July.
But today astronauts Thomas Stafford, Eugene Cernan and Johan Young looked forward to a leisurely day abroad Apollo-10 with the world receding as they plunged deeper into space.
Mission control reported a 19.20 hours IST that Apollo-10 was 171,000 kilometres from earth, travelling at a speed at 6,308 kilometres an hour.
Bio-medical data indicated Stafford and Cernan were awake but Young apparently was in deep slumber.
For the first time on the United States manned space flight, the Apollo-10 astronauts plan to eat most of their main meals with a spoon.
“There’s something about eating with a spoon that automatically makes food taste just a little bit better to me than sucking it out of a bag,” quipped astronaut Eugene Cernan.
Normal mealtime fare in US manned space mission has been bite-sized food pellets or dehydratable foods sucked souplike from a bag after being mixed with water.
Eating meals earth-style from a bowl or platter is impossible in weightlessness because the food would float out of the containers, becoming a nuisance and potential hazard to electronic equipment.
Called a “wet pack”, the recently developed spoon food is mixed with enough water to make it adhesive so it sticks on a spoon without floating away.
Navy Commanders Cernan and John W. Young and Air Force Colonel Thomas P. Stafford have nine meals of this type apiece aboard Apollo-10 including turkey, ham and potatoes and beef and potatoes.
The Apollo-10 astronauts have fruit cocktail, corn flakes, bacon squares and fruit drink for breakfast.
The lunch consists of potato soup, tuna salad, chicken and vegetables, biscuits and fruit drink.
Spaghetti, banana pudding and fruit drink make their supper.