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in the summer of nineteen sixty-two
final preparations were underway for the

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first u_s_ attempt to reach earth's
nearest planetary neighbor

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phoenix provided the best chance for a
spacecraft to reach its destination

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the space craft though

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what jpl engineers had first planned on
sending

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that it was to be in the design

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will this second generation space craft
that

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was specifically designed to go to mars
and venus

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design was also on off long for that to
be used for the the is sixty two

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opportunity

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so we actually took a ranger with all
the marijuana into the first to merit

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missions as he does but they worry just
base right not many people know that

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then one night stand

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and on july twenty second nineteen sixty
two

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first of all what

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hamas rocket accelerated through mock
one

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then me and listening and reading and
hearing on

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victory

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israeli radio

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entire dot

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manner was only seconds away from
separating from the air and market

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when the range safety officer had no
choice but to give the construct connect

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no

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dance

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parat

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analysis showed that the cause of the
rocket failure

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was a software error

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a single misplaced symbol of cold

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and resulted in the loss of the first
u_s_ space craft

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destined for another planet

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results show a little bit about our
knowledge we had another when they go

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will maybe we can reserve

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resurrects these years i think i should
put all these days

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in in into that

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software

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manner to the standoff begins
three-and-a-half months journey defeats

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your sister

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when you first heard it on out there
like telling her she was working fine

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who is working in a much lower level
sensitivity and then we head

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uh... designed into it

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actually got far far away from earth we
knew that this has to be seems like

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that's he wouldn't be able to stay are
like ten years to all the way to the

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plantings

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as mariner to raced away from her

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the signal strength continued to lower

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if the signal could not be boosted all
communications would soon cease

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there would be no science return

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only another mission failed

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just a few days before it live stocks
did be able to track

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ceo st jumped up to her we designed it

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and we were able to do the rest of this
mission is five newsletter shack

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another pressing issue was keeping
mariner to one of proper course

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good afternoon

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if you decided to go ahead with the
introductory

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goldwell engineers several and article
and

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living around

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the motorist fire

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manual dot on dot

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dollywood

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you're talking to you

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for one hundred days j_p_l_ ours worked
around the clock

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steadying what was becoming an ever more
troublesome spacecraft

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one of the members of the team

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was a twenty two-year-old flight
controller who was both a pioneer in

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exploring the planets

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and venturing into the male dominated
world of engineering

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i found myself

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not only involved in the planning of the
operations but the actual conduct

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of the operations and before i knew it
harmless twenty-two

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and i'd have been assigned this one

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several flight controllers somewhere in
there too

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understood

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at that work

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understood it

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operations work

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i have a shift

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apply on usually midnight they the
market

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women didn't have opportunities like
that and

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there were some number of people who are
pretty sure that they shouldn't

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was probably the

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largest experiencing growing up annually
for him

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hike up through it

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and i was very proud of myself for
getting through it

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uh...

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but from then on

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everything seemed easier

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in december mariner too was closing in
fast on these

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but it was in a precarious state too

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portions of the space craft for
overheating

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several critical telemetry censors had
stopped working altogether

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it was taking all the energy the solar
panels could produce to keep the

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spacecraft functioning

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on december fourteenth mariner to make
its closest approach to the news flying

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by in the distance of twenty thousand
marks

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in pasadena a steady stream of science
data came pouring back as portables

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sounds throughout mission control are

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scientists were killing

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although most of the results were more
confirmations from you discover

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there was no on-board camera so there
were no pictures

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there was also no sign of a magnetic
field of more radiation felt like hertz

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for a planet considered first went in
for its size and your proximity

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venus revealed itself to be a hellish
world filled with carbon dioxide

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and where surface temperatures are hot
enough to melt away

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if the science returns models

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the public reaction to the technical
achievement was enormous

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for the first time the united states
could point to its first first in the

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race for the states

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it is a fraud time for the u_s_ time
magazine for plane

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know what she meant by russian
cosmonauts for u_s_ astronauts

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no experiment made by any of the myriad
other satellites that have been shot

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aloft has talked manually so much is the
improbable voyage of mariner too

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william pickering found himself featured
on the cover of time

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pasadena honored the j_p_l_ director by
naming him grand marshal of the

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tournament of roses correct

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nasa arranged for pickering and his
management team to meet john kennedy at

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the white house

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in the oval office

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they presented the president with a
model of the space craft

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twenty days after passing penis

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aruna to transmitted half an hour of
telling a tree

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and then went silent

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today the space craft is a mute piece of
metal that endlessly circles the south

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but inside the space craft thermal
blanket

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is a small american flag

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secretly placed aboard against official
wishes