Word: ju
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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During World War II, the Germans built an experimental Junkers JU-287 jet bomber with wings that raked sharply forward. The plane flew well in tests. But once the sound barrier was broken in 1947, the design presented a problem: forward-swept wings tore away from the fuselage at supersonic speeds, and strengthening the wings with steel or aluminum made the craft unacceptably heavy. Now, newly developed graphite-epoxy composites can produce a wing stronger than steel and up to 45% lighter. These materials form the skin of the X-29A's wings...
Around the fringe of the dusty, sprawling Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez (pop. 625,000) rise row after row of corrugated-steel and beige brick structures bearing the logos of RCA, General Electric and GTE. Inside a Honeywell building, hundreds of women wearing red smocks hunch over an assembly line as they put together tiny electronic devices. Ten million parts a month are turned out here and then trucked across the border to U.S. plants, which ship them off to be used in Apple computers, Xerox copiers and instrument panels for the space shuttle...
Many of the residents of Ciudad Juárez are both bewildered and resentful. Some citizens do not understand what radiation is. Notes Sotelo's wife Alicia: "Down at the laundry, people asked the owner to keep me from going in. They thought I had some sort of contagious disease." To complicate matters, Mexican authorities have been reluctant to tell those who may have been exposed to radiation what the consequences might be. Says Sotelo: "They've said it could have long-term effects, but they haven't said what those effects...
Roberto Trevino, the technical secretary of Mexico's National Nuclear Safety and Safeguards Commission, stresses that "there is no danger now." Nonetheless, two technicians are still searching for radioactive material on the Chihuahua-Ciudad Juárez highway, and the U.S. Department of Energy has conducted an airborne scan of the contaminated areas. The accident is a symptom of a larger problem, insists Antonio Ponce, a representative of Mexico's Nuclear Workers Union. He charges that the nuclear commission has been lax in cracking down on firms that handle radioactive material carelessly. Responds Trevino: "Their accusations are unfounded...
...Richard Stengel. Reported ááby Matt Pritchard/Ciudad Juárez and Gail Seekamp/Mexico City