Word: coppers
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...object of the experiment was to shoot a bunch of copper wires into a thin, high band that could be used to relay radio microwaves around the curve of the earth. But even before the first rocket of the Air Force Project West Ford blasted off its pad, the protests of outraged scientists soared into orbit. Metal wires, the world's astronomers warned, would also reflect sunlight, fogging the photographic plates of optical telescopes. They would foul up radio astronomy by reflecting man-made radio waves and masquerading as distant stars or galaxies...
...protests were still mounting when the first attempt at Project West Ford flopped. Its collection of copper wares went into orbit as scheduled, but the wires failed to spread out. Circling the earth as a few lumps, they remained inactive, bothering neither optical nor radio telescopes...
...dispenser shot 18 rapidly spinning disks. The disks were only 0.7 in. thick and 4.5 in. in diameter, but each was made of 22 million copper wires one-third as thick as a human hair. The wires were stuck together with naphthalene, the familiar material of mothballs. As the disks spun in space, the naphthalene slowly vaporized, releasing a cloud of wires that spread into a sausage shape, then into a long cylinder curving around the earth, 2,000 miles above its surface...
Electrical Support. For all practical purposes Honeywell's ESG has no friction at all. The beryllium sphere that is its rotor is enclosed in a ceramic case lined with copper electrodes that do not quite touch the sphere's surface. The electrodes carry powerful electric charges so that each of them tugs at the sphere. Whenever the tug gets uneven, a quick and intricate electronic circuit adjusts the charges so that the beryllium ball remains precisely in the center of the cavity, supported by nothing but electrical force...
They run the biggest textile plant in Central America, the largest fishing fleet in Venezuela, the greatest shipyard in Brazil. They chatter in soprano Spanish with the first families at El Salvador's Club Salvadoreno, mine copper in Bolivia, spin yarn in Argentina, produce drugs in Mexico. The resourceful investors from Japan, venturing where U.S. businessmen have become reluctant to tread of late, have made Latin America their No. 1 in vestment target. Though Japan's total investment of some $390 million is hardly in the same league with the U.S. commitment of $8.2 billion in Latin America...