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...decision is to be made when Skylab falls to a height of about 90 miles above earth, some twelve hours before estimated reentry. At that point the controllers could use some of the 6,000 remaining pounds of fuel to rotate the craft into various nose-forward, "low drag" positions, in the hope that this would prolong Skylab's life by anywhere from one to five more orbits. By contrast, a second option would be to send the vehicle into an early tumble, which would cut from one to three orbits from its natural, uncontrolled reentry. A third option would...
...because NASA is simply not certain that its efforts to select the precise final orbit will work. To do nothing in such a situation is preferable to taking a high-risk gamble and failing. Amid all those uncertainties, the engineers think the best final orbit would take the craft over the southern part of South America, across southern Africa, the Indian Ocean and India, then over China and the Pacific...
Originally, NASA had proposed in 1968 the $2.6 billion orbiting laboratory program. At that time extra rockets capable of keeping Skylab in space almost indefinitely were considered. The craft's ability to stay in orbit would be reinforced, if necessary, by astronauts transported up to it in a convenient space shuttle, then also on the NASA drawing boards. But under budgetary pressures both vehicles were simplified?and both developed unanticipated technical problems. So when Skylab's orbit began to slip, there was no shuttle to come to its rescue...
...back. But this is classic; even Sean Connery Bond flicks used such plots. (Goldfinger bought up most of the world's gold supply, Spectre took bombs from a hijacked American submarine in Thunderball, and arranged the thefts of two American and one Russian space craft in You Only Live Twice...
...caught in chaos. Though the whole concept was fatally flawed, specific botches stand out. The CIA's aerial photoanalysts had dismissed some dark blotches off selected landing sites as either "seaweed" or "clouds." They turned out to be coral reefs, which ripped open the hulls of landing craft. The Bay of Pigs had been chosen partly for its assumed isolation from Castro's defending army. As they churned toward shore, the invaders were startled to find part of the beach bathed in light from huge lamps installed by the Cubans against precisely such a pre-dawn strike. Later...