Word: aloftness
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...sand, white-uniformed nurses patrol seaside stretches with names like Medical Beach and Health Beach, enforcing a 55-minute limit on exposure to the sun's rays, even for the swarthiest guest. The preferred way for getting a quick tan is to stand facing the sun with arms held aloft. Because of a shortage of swimsuits and suntan oil, beaches are crowded with thousands of pale bodies, some clad only in underwear, reaching skyward like a lost tribe of sun worshipers...
...under a chalkboard and finally slammed into the bleachers. The scene was not Edwards Air Force Base but Seattle's Kingdome, where fans usually cheer the flight of baseballs and footballs. The prototype was only 10 in. long, and its sortie of 16.26 seconds had just won the time-aloft event, professional division, in the Second Great International Paper Airplane Competition...
...tucked his into a cereal box insulated by stale flakes of Corn Total. A third, with touching trust in the U.S. Postal Service, simply scrawled the contest address across the wings of his plane and plastered a stamp onto its nose. They were competing in four events -- distance, time aloft, aerobatics and aesthetic design -- in three divisions, professional, nonprofessional and junior. The cardinal rule was that the planes had to be made from paper, tape and glue...
...young, all terrified, struggling numbly south toward Saigon. The Communists shelled and machine-gunned some columns. The refugees stumbled on across the corpses and the dying. From the Danang airfield, the last plane took off with men clinging to the landing gear and stairs. Some who went aloft crouched in the wheel housings were crushed as the landing gear cranked up. Along the coast, ARVN soldiers deserted their families and in some cases shot civilians for a place on a boat...
...during that time the missile might rise 20 miles. Because a ground- based laser could not send a beam around the curve of the earth, the generating apparatus would have to be carried aboard a fleet of satellites in low orbits. How many satellites would have to be sent aloft in order to keep some in range of Soviet missile-launching sites at all times is a subject of fierce debate among scientists; estimates have ranged from 100 to 1,600, which again means nobody really knows. In any case, the satellites would be monsters, each weighing 100 tons...