Word: astronautical
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Administration and its predecessors from 1949 to 1976; of cancer; in Troy, N.Y. It was Low who suggested, in a 1960 memo to President John Kennedy, that a man could be put on the moon by decade's end. After the disastrous January 1967 fire that killed three astronauts, NASA Deputy Director Low took charge of redesigning and rebuilding the Apollo craft; with 90-hour, detail-obsessed work weeks, he met his deadline when Apollo 11 reached the moon in July 1969. In 1976, Low became president of his alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Seven weeks...
After a series of exasperating delays because of a slipped thermal shield and a computer blackout, the new space shuttle Discovery sat perched on its Florida launch pad last Tuesday morning, its nose poked impatiently toward the sky. In a chase plane high above Kennedy Space Center, Astronaut John Young took a last look at the weather and gave the final O.K. for takeoff. The shuttle's on-board computers began the final countdown. "We are go for main-engine ignition," NASA Commentator Mark Hess announced. The engine grumbled noisily, snorting smoke and fire... Six, five, four...
Computers programmed to simulate the flight characteristics of complex aircraft have been used for training pilots since the late 1960s. Each space shuttle astronaut logs a minimum of 200 hours on a pair of $100 million NASA simulators before his first shuttle flight. In 1979 a University of Illinois engineer named Bruce Artwick squeezed all the features of a full-fledged simulator into a tiny microcomputer, thus giving the general public a chance to sit in the pilot's seat. The early Apple and Radio Shack versions of his program developed a cult following among computer hobbyists...
Most of the space garbage consists of nonfunctioning satellites and space probes launched from earth. There is also fragmentary junk, resulting from mid-space collisions between spacecraft and meteorites. Astronauts have dumped sewage, food containers and spent oxygen cylinders overboard. On rare occasions, space walkers have accidentally dropped objects in space. Astronaut Ed White lost a shiny white glove during the Gemini 4 flight in 1965. George ("Pinky") Nelson fumbled away two tiny screws while repairing the Solar Maximum Mission satellite during the shuttle flight last month...
Still, to many people the character was unsympathetic-monstrous or, worse, ridiculous. The cancer-ridden daughter, played by Debra Winger, would get most of the sympathy, and Jack Nicholson's breezy, boozy ex-astronaut would get most of the laughs. Even more perilous for an actress past 40, Aurora had to age, painfully, gracelessly. Unlike stars who demand that the camera flatter them, the vibrant MacLaine made herself look ravaged, the neglected ruin of a beauty...