Word: craft
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Easily weathering the risky rendezvous, the half-ton craft transmitted a stream of valuable and sometimes surprising data about the 465,000-mile-long cometary tail to jubilant scientists tuned in at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. ICE's coup enabled American astronomers and space scientists to recover some of the patriotic and professional pride that was dashed in 1981 when Washington budget slashers vetoed a U.S. mission to Halley. "We wanted to make sure the U.S. didn't take a backseat to anyone," says NASA Spokesman James Elliott, "and we've done...
...miles from the earth. Its mission: to study the effect of the solar wind on the earth's magnetic field. Yet even as ISEE-3 sniffed at solar breezes, its flight director, NASA Aerospace Engineer Robert Farquhar, was plotting to divert it somehow toward a comet. "The craft was custom-made to measure plasma waves," he explains, "and that's exactly what you find at the back of a comet...
...NASA scientists call it, could occur six months ahead of the Halley encounter. Farquhar began petitioning NASA officials to spend the meager $3 million it would take to commandeer ISEE-3. To his surprise, the allocation was approved before he had figured out how to divert the craft. "It may have turned out not to be possible," he says, "but at that point there was no backing...
Life aboard any submarine, even the newest, is filled with constraints. Besides the close quarters and long patrols, there are special precautions that would occur to few civilians. Because the Soviets are constantly listening for audible signals from underwater U.S. craft, for example, submariners must be careful to keep telltale noise at a minimum. This effort includes obvious steps like maintaining complete radio silence. It also extends to such daily details as wearing rubber-soled shoes and refraining from knocking on hatches...
...submarine standards of yore, life aboard the Jackson borders on easy duty. The $2 billion Tridents contain the first flush toilets in an underwater craft, and the first stairs. The air is kept at a constant 72 degrees and circulates rapidly enough to make smoking permissible. Instead of being assigned to "hot racks," or beds that rotate among off-duty personnel, each crew member has his own bunk, equipped with stereo headphones. Food is copious, though overindulgence is rarely a problem. As one crew member explained, "We have to remember that hatches out of this place are only 24 inches...