Word: airlessness
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...made it to the embassy is told in the Hemisphere section. When he thought it safe to leave the embassy for the airport, escorted by a Swiss official, he became for 3½ hours a member of the nerve-racked crowd, sitting amidst their belongings in a hot, airless waiting room, wondering whether they could get aboard the plane, whether they would first be stopped by an official, perhaps even led off to jail. The G-2 official who questioned Mallin, unaware that Mallin was on a wanted list at headquarters, was unexpectedly polite and incurious, and ended the interview...
Under the French protectorate (1912-56), the once proud university sank even lower as a kind of Moslem Kaffeeklatsch, without exams or degrees, a place of courtyard classrooms where masters and disciples swatted at fusty theological disputes. Students lived in airless cubicles, three to one windowless room, sleeping on the floor and cooking on charcoal burners...
...mihi dulce sub urbe est," sang the Roman epigrammatist Martial in the ist century A.D. "To me, the country on the outskirts of the city is sweet." And small wonder, for the towns and walled cities of Europe, from ancient times through the Middle Ages and beyond, were airless, fetid places choking with humanity. The big crisis of the cities came with the Industrial Revolution. In England lonely voices cried out against the grime and stench of the cities. "Hell is a city much like London," wrote Shelley, "a populous and smoky city...
...world has a new scout in the space between the planets. Its paddle-shaped solar batteries wheeling in the glaring sunlight of airless space, Pioneer V, a 94.8-lb. sphere only 26 in. in diameter, was the first interplanetary traveler with a far-ranging and long-lasting voice. If all goes well, scientists will be hearing from Pioneer V steadily for the next five months, then sporadically for years to come, as it swings back within range...
...principle; nor do modern railroad cars bear much resemblance to the horse-drawn carriage prototypes. There must be a somewhat visionary or even fanciful approach to the future as well as a conventional one." New approaches to knowledge are as out of this world as the moon itself. Its airless environment and its fantastic temperature range make an ideal laboratory for high-vacuum and cryogenic (refrigerants) research; the vast amounts of solar energy, if properly harnessed on the moon, might be used to affect or control the earth's weather...