Word: aloftness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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NASA'S carefully detailed script for the mission was showy but simple. Its highlight was to be a free-floating walk in space to retrieve the ailing Solar Maximum Mission satellite (Solar Max). Sent aloft to monitor the sun's activity, Max broke down three years ago, after only ten months in orbit. Challenger's mission last week was to stop the rotation of Max, use the spacecraft's 50-ft. remote-controlled arm to lift the satellite into the ship's cargo bay, and set it back in orbit after repairs were made...
...orbit 10½ months to collect cosmic materials, test solar cells and measure the effects of space on a variety of materials, including 12 million tomato seeds, which will be distributed next year to biology students. Other passengers on the flight: 3,300 honeybees, which are being sent aloft because one collegian wants to see if the insects build the same honeycomb structures in zero-g that they do in normal gravity...
Like most beer ads, the TV commercial for Texas Select foams over with machismo. The blurb, aired in Houston and Dallas, portrays a group of poker-playing buddies whooping it up while holding aloft glasses filled with an amber beverage. Then comes the kick or, rather, the lack of one. Texas Select is virtually alcohol free. Claims the card-party host: "The guys couldn't tell the difference...
...building, shelters the newly assembled spacecraft until it is ready for loading. The job begins in a hulking concrete structure called the Payload Preparation Center, a stationary, 147-ft-high building. There, in a relatively particle-free chamber, the spy satellites and other exotic space gear to be carried aloft will be given final checks in sealed chambers. Explains Engineer O'Gorman: "If we do the job right you should be able to take a transistor radio in there and not pick up a single outside signal." This feature is designed to prevent accidental interference during testing and, obviously...
...twelve years. But if the numbers were dim, the moments were bright, and the attitude of the least eminent athletes from the quietest sports added to that. "Up in the air, I was ecstatic, I could tell I had a good jump," cried Jeff Hastings of the U.S., still aloft after finishing fourth in the 90-meter jump. According to their own scale of accomplishments, people doing their best rejoiced. There was enough happiness in the Olympics. No need to want anything to be better. -By Tom Callahan