Word: astronaut
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More than three years have passed without an American astronaut in space, and the once vigorous U.S. program of unmanned planetary exploration has been at low ebb since the Viking landings on Mars in 1976. Compared with the ambitious Soviets, whose cosmonauts have just spent almost 140 days orbiting the earth, U.S. space officials have had little to crow about. All that is about to change. Last week the U.S. made a dramatic start on what should be a spectacular twelve months in the annals of space exploration...
...remote-controlled ferry craft, they conducted extensive observations of both the heavens and earth, and performed such experiments as growing crystals for electronic components and testing the effects of zero gravity on bacteria, and tried out a new, flexible space suit. All in all, said former Apollo-Soyuz Astronaut Tom Stafford, it was "a significant achievement...
...knack not only for finding water but also for stranger things, like out-of-the-body trips. "I've been to the moon," he announces with utter solemnity. Then, before a skeptical visitor can mutter "Really?" Harmon explains that he once encountered a moon-walking NASA astronaut at a meeting. "The fellow said to me, 'My gosh, didn't I meet you somewhere before?' " Harmon chuckles. But the apostle of science, shaking his head, does not laugh. Because Harmon clearly believes his own story...
...that defines the size of the black hole. It is the point of no return that scientists call the black hole's "event horizon." Anything crossing this border would be stretched spaghetti-thin, pulverized by gravitational tidal forces, and sucked into the singularity. To an observer outside?say an astronaut watching his abandoned craft plunge into the black hole?the result would be different. Because of relativistic effects, the spacecraft would appear to move ever more slowly, and closer and closer to the event horizon, without ever reaching...
Captain James Lovell Jr., president of a telecommunications company, on his days as an astronaut: "I didn't have to worry about the profit motive on Gemini or Apollo...