Word: astronauts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...image could have come from a once and future fantasy, yet it aired on the evening news. A U.S. astronaut, looking like a modern knight-errant in shining space suit, sallies forth into the darkness, powered by a Buck Rogers backpack called an MMU (manned maneuvering unit). Armed with a space-age lance nicknamed the stinger, he spears a stray satellite and rockets back to the mother ship. There, silhouetted against the shimmering earth some 225 miles below, he spins along at 17,500 m.p.h., shouldering his prize like a sci-fi Atlas...
After discussion, crew and ground control agreed to improvise once again and use a human to help, literally, to hold the operation together. Instead of a mechanical claw, Astronaut Allen would be perched on the end of the robot arm, once again drawing the duty of hefting the satellite. Using "Mighty Joe Allen," as one reporter called him, instead of the hook was to prove exceptionally efficient. By Wednesday morning the other rogue canister was in view; an awestruck Gardner exclaimed, "Look at that satellite!" This time it was his turn to sail forth in the Buck Rogers backpack...
...turned out, sometimes starting over. At the same time, NASA was preparing for another rescue, the repair in space of the Solar Maximum Mission scientific satellite damaged in 1980. The space agency set out to fix the sophisticated $75 million instrument on the eleventh shuttle flight last April. But Astronaut George Nelson was unable to grasp the Solar Max with a device mounted on the arms of his backpack. An alternate technique worked, but the failed grappler plan had to be abandoned. In June, Astronaut Dale Gardner, who would be part of last week's mission, sketched...
...stroll. Gardner, 36, who had been on the eighth mission, would accompany Allen on the rescue space walk. Only Pilot David Walker, 40, and Anna Fisher, 35, were rookies. In a program that trumpets its firsts, Fisher was proudly presented as the first mother in space; married to another astronaut, William Fisher, she gave birth to Daughter Kristin in July...
...left his imprint on history in 1969 when he became the fourth man to set foot on the moon, and now former Astronaut Alan Bean, 52, is painting almost obsessively in an effort to capture the lunar landscape on canvas. In Houston this month Bean will launch his second one-man show with 15 of his $7,500 acrylic moonscapes. "Frederic Remington and Charles Russell painted the West as it was before it went away forever," he says. "That's kind of what I'm doing. The beginning of the space program will never come again." Bean...