Word: commander
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...selection process. We regret that interviewing committees are sometimes unable to assess women's abilities to react to stress without raising sex-related issues. However, we also think that students should realize the obligation of committees to raise sensitive issues which may be encountered by the student, to gauge command over a plan of study, and to test commitment to a future career. Most fellowships are not strictly objective and represent an investment in an individual's potential as well as a reward for academic achievements. Hence, applicants must often demonstrate the ability to interact with others, display mature judgment...
...earlier stages of the mission were covered by correspondents stationed at NASA command centers in Texas and Florida. Houston Bureau Chief Robert Wurmstedt interviewed NASA Staff Physician Sharon Tilton to learn about the astronauts' physical and emotional condition in space. He soon discovered that the only way to communicate with technicians was by taking a crash course in scientific shorthand. Says Wurmstedt: "The major impression made on any reporter covering a space shot for the first time is the apparent inability of scientists to explain anything in laymen's terms. Even the letter F can be a mystery...
Unlike the Soviet space program command, which is military and rarely announces a space launch beforehand, civilian NASA has carried out its shots in the full glare of publicity. But under the terms of NASA'S new partnership with the military, security is being tightened at such key facilities as Cape Canaveral and the Johnson Space Center in Houston in anticipation of military launches. Military observers are now regular participants at shuttle planning sessions and have their own facilities inside Mission Control. At the height of the shuttle's development problems, there was even talk that the task...
...launch pad and a new three-mile-long shuttle landing strip, as well as fuel tanks, shops and other support facilities. It will operate under the control of a new military space center at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, hard by the North American Air Defense Command's underground headquarters deep in Cheyenne Mountain...
Indeed they were not. More than any spacecraft before it, Columbia depends on computer memory and problem-solving skills. It carries six computers in all, four primary, plus a back-up and a spare. This electronic brainpower has total command of the ship, navigating it, controlling fuel consumption, firing its rocket engines and many small, jetlike thrusters. Even when an astronaut is operating the controls, as in the final plunge back through the atmosphere, he is in effect flying the computers rather than the ship itself. Whatever maneuver he calls for, it is the computers that turn the commands from...