Back came new moon-surface pictures. In came data that would reveal the composition of the lunar soil. Ad mirable scientific achievements but, for scientific drama, the most exciting accomplishment of Surveyor 5 last week was making it to the moon at all.
The spacecraft's 65-hour trip began well. Blasting off from Cape Kennedy, Surveyor was aimed so precisely that without correction it could have hit the moon within 26 miles of its intended landing siteĀone of the most accurate launches achieved by the U.S. space program. But controllers at Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,...
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