Word: crafted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Half a world away, the American space scientists who had sent Skylab aloft six years ago were calling themselves lucky, too. Although the 77.5-ton craft presumably broke into some 500 pieces, including two weighing about two tons each, there were no reports of anyone's being hurt. That was mainly because Skylab, pretty much on its own, had re-entered the earth's atmosphere while on an orbit that carried the craft over Canada, Maine, and the Atlantic and Indian oceans, posing minimal danger to the world's most populated areas. Despite months of meticulous planning...
There was, nevertheless, plenty of suspense as Skylab slipped ever closer to its doom. The craft was monitored by the worldwide network of NASA and NORAD's space-tracking stations. From NORAD'S underground headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., calculations about the craft's flight were transmitted to the Skylab Control Center at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center near Houston. There Charles Harlan, the Skylab flight director, estimated the vehicle's probable reentry point, and the possible dangers. He, in turn, was responsible for advising the Skylab Coordination Center at NASA headquarters in Washington whether...
...within radio range of NASA's tracking station in Santiago, Chile. The coded words were phoned by Houston Flight Controller Cindy Major, 27, to the Santiago center. "Load mark," she said, "one, zero, six, two." The order caused Skylab's adjusting jets to fire briefly, propelling the craft into the wobbling motion. Said Harlan: "We shot our last...
...TODAY the earth, speeding along at the present clip of 66,000 miles per hour, will have circled the sun exactly ten times since two men inside a spidery little space craft wrapped in gold tin foil hit the dust of the Sea of Tranquility...
...methods of rescuing Skylab were considered by NASA and then discarded as impractical. There was talk of a joint Soviet-American mission, using the Soviet Soyuz system, but it had to be abandoned because the Russian craft's docking hardware was incompatible with Skylab's. Soyuz also lacked sufficient propellant to maneuver with the ailing U.S. vehicle and then give it a powerful boost into higher orbit. Declared NASA'S Frosch: "The obstacles involved were insurmountable, in the time remaining." Russian scientists, in effect, agree, although they note that if plans for a cooperative effort had been started two years...