Word: bits
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Just getting Pathfinder from Cape Canaveral to Ares Vallis required a remarkable bit of cosmic sharpshooting. Mars is only 4,200 miles across--about half as big as Earth--and the floodplain NASA was aiming for is only 60 miles wide. The barest flutter in the spacecraft's trajectory could have caused Pathfinder to swing far wide of its destination. To prevent the ship from straying too far from its ideal path, the flight plan included five different opportunities for midcourse corrections during which the spacecraft's thrusters could be fired to refine the trajectory. Over the course...
...Europa and drop a 20-lb. sphere onto its surface. Striking the frozen crust with the force of a suitcase full of TNT, the cosmic cannonball would release a mushroom cloud of ice particles into space; the mother ship would then fly through the crystalline mist, collect a bit of it and carry it back to Earth for analysis...
...hoped-for missions include a 13-year, 4 billion-mile-plus journey to Pluto and its companion moon Charon, tentatively set to launch in 2001; a comet-rendezvous mission that will take off in February 1999, fly by Comet Wild 2 in 2004 and fly back home with a bit of material from its diaphanous tail; and perhaps even a much-dreamed-of journey to Neptune's planet-size moon Triton. Says Goldin: "We're going to have the most aggressive exploration of our own solar system in the history of the human species...
...thing I've ever had to deal with in my life," says commissioner Luther Mack. Enforcing civilized standards is never easy in a sport where acceptable behavior is to beat your opponent to a pulp, and where unacceptable behavior has never been bad for the gate. Holyfield himself once bit an opponent, "Jakey" Winters, during a Golden Gloves bout in 1980. Holyfield, who gnawed Winters' shoulder during a clinch, says he still had his mouth guard in at the time. Winters insists Holyfield spit it out first...
...Tyson could be a bit like putting trade sanctions on China for human-rights abuses: if American companies can't enter the market, foreign competitors will. In an age of worldwide satellite broadcasts, Tyson can easily take his salable furies offshore, featuring himself in Thrillas from Manila for however long it pays. "We have to do what is best for the state of Nevada and for boxing," says commission chairman Elias Ghanem. It's a statement open to many interpretations...