Word: cosmically
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...cosmic terms, humans may be uncomfortably like those pale, soft-bodied insects that live under stones and dare not venture into the open. For it is becoming increasingly apparent that man is not going to be able to venture beyond the shelter of the earth's protecting atmosphere unless he develops massive, mechanical shells to protect his vulnerable body from the searing hazards of outer space...
Lyttleton and Bondi believe that cosmic rays are the protons that were expelled from galactic units to make their interiors electrostatically neutral. Those expelled from big units have the highest energy, perhaps many billion billion volts. They cross intergalactic space at close to the speed of light. They are not bothered much by the thin hydrogen gas between the units; they can travel through it for trillions of years without encountering anything that will check their progress...
Lyttleton and Bondi challenge physicists to devise experiments that can measure the charges of protons and electrons with new precision. If the charges prove to differ, the difference will explain both the expanding universe and cosmic rays...
...early in March, but Explorer III was launched successfully on March 26. It contained a modified version of Ludwig's tape recorder-an amazing little instrument full of tiny, glittering parts that weighed only 8 oz. If it worked, it would gush out in five seconds all the cosmic-ray data from an entire orbit...
...March 28 Van Allen got the first tape and sat up all night poring over it. The cosmic-ray count seemed reasonable as long as the bird was at low altitude. When it climbed upward, the rate increased rapidly. Then, for some unaccountable reason, the count fell to nothing, stayed at nothing until the bird was back at lower altitude again...