Word: absorber
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...modern pilot, the stresses are just as great. He must absorb hundreds of rules and procedures, study graphs, maps and reports, even occasionally take off his jet on downwind runways because airport operators prefer him to fly over open areas and avoid householders' complaints about noise. A pilot has to be able to make as many as 100 visual "fixes" per minute on his instrument panel during his busiest moments-the landing approach. He must take extra precautions to keep his health during a long flight; pilots and copilots take their meals at alternate times; American Airlines forbids crews...
...some of the worst disadvantages of solid-fuel reactors. Since solid uranium is quickly corroded at high temperature, it must be enclosed in a more resistant metal such as zirconium or stainless steel. As the uranium fissions, it generates gases that tend to burst the container. Other fission products absorb neutrons, and when too much of this "poison" has accumulated, it makes the nuclear reaction slow down or stop. At intervals, the fuel elements must be removed and their unburned uranium re-purified by a difficult and expensive chemical process...
...fuel is uranyl sulphate dissolved in heavy water (which does not absorb as many neutrons as ordinary water). When this solution is flowing in a small-bore pipe, it does not react, because the fissionable uranium atoms are too strung out to form a critical mass. But when the fuel solution flows into a spherical reaction chamber, the compact mass becomes critical. A nuclear chain reaction starts, and heats the solution. Before the reaction goes too far, the solution is sucked away by pumps and forced through a heat exchanger, where it heats ordinary water to produce high-pressure steam...