Word: astronaut
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...narrator, a retired French-Canadian astronaut named John, relates the details of an undercover investigation into the mysterious deaths of eleven tourists visiting a health spa in Naples. As with most writers of detective stories, Lem never lays all his cards on the table; the reader only gradually learns that the victims were all middle-aged foreigners, balding and of athletic build. (Is it by chance too that the picture of Lem on the book's back cover matches this description?) In addition, the men were wealthy, single, and had been receiving treatments for rheumatism at the Vittorini mineral baths...
John has been chosen for the role of decoy because of his physical resemblance to the victims and his rigorous preparation for the job. The life of an astronaut, he claims, is one not of glamor, but of "boring and montonous routine," thus qualifying him for a mission in which his task is to reproduce Adams's exact schedule of daily activities, going so far as to wear the dead man's clothing, drive his car and occupy the same hotel room. John is under 24-hour surveillance by a team of six scientists who observe him through binolculars...
...celebrity fishing tournament, a Dallas businessman winking over hiscoke spoon the while his Mercedes is stopped at a traffic light. And Gent tries mightily to give the book some vision, tying his Neiman-Marcus set into a cocaine smuggling ring of heroic proportions, furnishing it with an ex-astronaut lackey who becomes the unwitting victim of his employer's pesticide...
...created Ford's "Better idea" and "Ford wants to be your car company" slogans, along with the famous "Sign of the cat" for Lincoln-Mercury. The theme at Chrysler will be engineering, and Astronaut Neil Armstrong will apparently remain as the corporate spokesman. Whether K&E will be able to improve the fading Chrysler quality image is a major question. Says a Detroit ad agency chief: "Iacocca could not quickly change the company's cars, so he changed what he could-the advertising...
Unfazed by NASA's skepticism, Wilson is peddling his idea again. Writing in the magazine Galileo, he calculates that in the lunar environment, with its low gravity (only one-sixth that of earth's) and virtual lack of atmosphere, even an astronaut weighted with life-support equipment could easily achieve speeds in excess of 30 kph (19 m.p.h.) aboard an appropriately designed lunar bike...