Word: earthwards
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...first thing I noticed was the screaming. Then I looked up ... and up ... and up ... and there, 14 stories above me, the front car climbed over the apex and began to plunge. My stomach did the opposite, rising inside me as though I was hurtling earthward at a 55-degree angle. I looked away. But morbid curiosity got the better of me, and I followed the train. It rose; it dipped; it soared; it whipped--spinning finally into a whirlpool of track to the base...
Then John Young edged the "stick" forward, and his ship's porpoise-shaped nose dropped slightly. Plunging earthward, Columbia was falling at an angle about seven times steeper than a normal airliner's descent and was traveling half again as fast. Powerful as it had been on takeoff, the ship was now functioning as a 102-ton glider with no engine to correct its course...
...that stabs down at the earth, then withdraws. "There it is!" shouts Moore, screeching to a halt. He and Moyer scramble out and hoist their cameras as the monstrous sky, churning and converging, forms a crooked funnel once, twice, half a dozen times. Each time the terrifying funnel snakes earthward and scratches the grassy field, dancing unsteadily, then retreats...
They'll never top first stunt: skier hurtles off precipice. Long breathtaking plunge. Shucks off skis in midair, free-falls for a while, then opens parachute and floats earthward...
...moment when some kids in the audience begin to chant "Fall! Fall! Fall!"-comes when Bale climbs outside the cage and does the whole heart-stopping routine standing on top, with nothing between him and a nasty tumble but an exquisite sense of balance. As the cage dives earthward from the peak of its arc some 45 ft. in the air, he is in danger of being tossed by centrifugal force into the cheap seats. Bale often loses balance on the downswing and has to hang on for dear life...