Word: lander
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Space shots may be old hat to launch crews at the Kennedy Space Center. But there was an unusual air of excitement as technicians made final preparations for the blast-off of the first of two Viking spacecraft bound for Mars. Each of the ships carries a lander, the first ones designed specifically to seek evidence of life beyond the earth. Viking I, scheduled to take off this week, will follow an arcing, 460-million-mile path for more than ten months before it goes into orbit around Mars in mid-June 1976.* The spacecraft will circle the Red Planet...
Then, on the Fourth of July, Viking Orbiter I will cut loose Lander I for its descent to Mars' surface. The lander, almost 10 ft. wide and 7 ft. tall overall, will start work at once. In the Martian atmosphere, only 1% as dense as earth's, its radio reports on atmospheric pressure, composition, temperature and ion concentrations will be relayed to earth by the Viking orbiter. Slowed by a parachute, the lander will spread its three spidery legs and will be braked by retrorockets for what is hoped will be a gentle setdown near the mouth...
...station, a truckstop, a few shacks, 200 people--all in white; and blistering vacant roads. Over the endless, straight, dust-heaped earth, the van torches at 95 mph, slowing up every 15 minutes or so for an oncoming car. At 9:30 p.m. we catch the night at Lander and sleep...
...Super Bowl football game (hurrah!) along with (alas!) both teams, the TV play-by-play and color men, beer vendors, pigeons, Pinkertons and some 100,000 spectators, including the President of the U.S. The sociopath who plans this provocation is not an Arab but a defecting American named Lander, who went sour while serving time as a P.O.W. in North Viet Nam. Now he pilots the advertising blimp that floats (aha!) above every important football contest. To get all the plastic explosive he needs, Lander applies to the Palestinians, an alarming people indeed: "Najeer ... wore a hood of shadow...
...Gary Cooper role goes to Major Kabakov of the Israeli Secret Service, a tough mensh who (unlike the book's CIA men) is in no danger of stepping on his own necktie. Kabakov's stalking of Dahlia and Lander is competently described, violent, technically interesting and utterly predictable...