Word: astronautical
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...Sundance 2007 was a filmmaker's market as 13 movies sold in the feverish first six days of the festival. Sons of Rambow, a British comedy about a boy's obsession with the movie First Blood, sold to Paramount Vantage for just under $8 million; ThinkFilm picked up the astronaut documentary In the Shadow of the Moon for $2.5 million; the Weinstein Co. paid $4 million to win a heated bidding war for the John Cusack drama Grace is Gone, prompting the indie film company's head, Harvey Weinstein, to tell the Hollywood Reporter, "F--- it. I'm good...
...Three other boys stood out. Neil had irrepressible high spirits and a budding wanderlust. If he couldn't be an astronaut, he said, "I'm going to take people to the country, and sometimes to the seaside." Bruce, an angelic blond boy with a solemn demeanor, came from a well-to-do family but, having been exiled to a boarding school in Surrey, radiated loneliness and idealism. "My heart's desire," he said soulfully, "is to see my daddy." His father was in Rhodesia, which may have had something to do with his stated ambition to go to Africa...
Flotsam and jetsam in Earth orbit, most of it the residue from old satellite explosions, is so profuse that former astronaut John Glenn, on observing the sun glinting off the pieces, once likened it to flying through a cloud of lightning bugs. But given NASA's heightened safety awareness since the 2003 loss of Space Shuttle Columbia, one piece of debris - caught on video and measuring just 2 inches by 5 inches - was enough to cause another high-profile hitch in a series of operational setbacks for Space Shuttle Atlantis...
...build a rocket,'' Arneth says. Commandeering a welder, they made a long cylinder from three 44-gallon drums, then rigged up a nose cone from an old hopper. "They got an old car seat and put that in the drum, and then they went looking for an astronaut,'' Arneth recalls. A runty stockman was chosen and inserted, too drunk to protest, into the cramped cockpit. In case he got thirsty on the moon, the men hung a water bag beside the car seat. Then they put some gelignite under the rocket, ran a trail of petrol to it, counted down...
During the 12-day undertaking, crew members of flight STS-121 will test new equipment and techniques geared toward enhancing shuttle safety. They will also perform maintenance at the International Space Station (ISS), unload over two tons of supplies, and deliver European astronaut Thomas Reiter...