question:  Why do the astronouts have to wait to talk to White Sands?
context: One thousand seventy-five miles above the wrinkled surface of Earth, a woman was in pain. There, high in the emptiness of space, Space Station One swung in its orbit. Once every two hours, the artificial satellite looped completely around the planet, watching what went on below. Outside its bright steel hull was the silence of the interplanetary vacuum; inside, in the hospital ward, Lieutenant Alice Britton clutched at the sheets of her bed in pain, then relaxed as it faded away. We're over Eastern Europe now, but as soon as we get within radio range of New Mexico, I'll beam a call in." Major Banes was all smiles and cheer now, but he hadn't been that way five months ago. "Lieutenant Britton, it is my personal opinion that you need your head examined, and not by a general practitioner, either! Why, I wouldn't let you get into an airplane, much less land on Earth in a rocket! The terrible pressure of a rocket landing would increase her effective body weight to nearly half a ton; an adult human being couldn't take that sort of punishment for long, much less the tiny life that was growing within her. And then, only half an hour ago, a meteor had hit the radar room. The self-sealing walls had closed the tiny hole quickly, but even in that short time, a lot of air had gone whistling out into the vacuum of space. The depressurization hadn't hurt her too much, but the shock had been enough to start labor. "Something wrong, doctor?" "Incubator," he said, without taking his eyes off the clock. But as soon as we get within radio range of White Sands, I'll ask them to send up an emergency rocket with an incubator. It will be at least three hours before they can get a ship up here. Major Banes was in the Communications Center a full five minutes before the coastline of California appeared on the curved horizon of the globe beneath them.
output:  They have to wait until they are in the right place in orbit to send a signal
options:  Some of their communication systems are down  They have to wait until they are in the right place in orbit to send a signal  It takes a couple of hours for a signal to get to Earth  They are waiting on a response from the base so they have more information