(SEE COVER) Television monitors glared eerily in the darkened U.S. Air Force command post at Sunnyvale, Calif. At a winking control console sat Lieut. Colonel Charles Glenn Mathison, commander of the 6,$4Qth Test Wing (Satellite), listening through earphones to the crackle of reports from a vast communications network. Mathison made a final check with radar tracking stations scattered around the earth. All were ready. From Cape Canaveral, Fla. came the word: "RF system ready." At T minus 10 seconds, "Moose" Mathison gave Canaveral the go-ahead: "Ready to launch." Canaveral's countdown neared its end:...
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