Word: cargoing
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Japan has joined a host of other nations that are striving to enter a fiercely competitive new space race. After the U.S. shuttle program was grounded last year by the Challenger tragedy, NASA ceased to be the world's principal carrier of commercial space cargo. Following President Reagan's announcement in August that future U.S. shuttle flights would carry few commercial payloads, space agencies from Peking to Paris have been hustling for their share of a world satellite-launching business that could be worth $2 billion to $5 billion annually...
...rush then began among fledgling launchers to help clear the world cargo backlog and carve out a piece of future business. In the U.S., aerospace giants Martin Marietta, McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics, all longtime manufacturers of the rockets used by NASA and the U.S. Air Force, are determined to capture a share of the new market. Space agencies in the Soviet Union and China as well as Japan are also gearing up to provide launching services...
Much smaller U.S. operators are also reaching for the skies. Robert Truax, a former Navy engineer, built a rocket in his Saratoga, Calif., backyard four years ago, and hopes to be the first private businessman to launch commercial cargo into space, possibly from Cape Canaveral. Entrepreneur George Koopman's Menlo Park, Calif., firm, American Rocket, is conducting flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. Like Truax, Koopman says the hardest part about starting a space-transport firm is raising enough money. Says he: "I'm still out there beating the bushes for funds...
...also signed an agreement to launch a Swedish satellite, and are holding talks with 17 other nations. For customers who are concerned that China may copy the technology in satellites, Great Wall suggests that they package the payload in a sealed container and send along representatives to escort the cargo to the launch site...
...hacks boards into halves, thirds and fourths for a lesson in fractions. Humphrey Bogus and Bergrid Ingman star in an "edited for television" movie, Cartablanca; at the end of this version, "Nick" decides to leave on the plane, but calculations show that his 223-lb. frame will put the cargo over the weight limit. There are MTV-style music videos, a game show called But Who's Counting?, and a funny continuing feature entitled Mathnet, in which a pair of mathematician-sleuths do a dead-on, deadpan parody of the old Jack Webb Dragnet series...