Word: landers
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...June 19, 1976, an alien vessel, hurtling toward Mars, blasted its remaining rocket engine and moved into an elliptical orbit. It was the first of twin Viking spacecraft, each with an orbiter and a lander, launched by NASA to help satisfy man's curiosity about the possibilities of life on the planet. The Viking I orbiter's immediate chore was to survey the Martian surface and transmit pictures of potential landing sites. Once the lander was safely down (on July 20, 1976), the orbiter began snapping away at its aerial photographic study...
Following the U.S.'s successful exploration of the planet Venus with multiple Pioneer spacecraft, the Soviet Union last week landed an unmanned probe of its own on the Venusian surface. Unlike the American ships, which were primarily designed to study the Venusian atmosphere, Venera 12's lander also transmitted data from the surface for an impressive 110 min. before succumbing to the 480° C (900° F) temperature. As usual, the Soviets mixed in a little politics, placing an image of Lenin on the planet. Another Soviet craft, Venera 11, was set to reach this hot world...
...flat--partly because of easily anticipated jokes and a few wooden characterizations--and by the second act the audience waits only for the next number to start. Several fine performances, though, keep this production of Company from being a skein of loosely-woven songs, the foremost among them Bonnie Lander's funny and beautifully-timed Joanne, the bitch-queen, older-and-wiser friend. Landers dominates every scene she is in but never hams it up, the only disappointment in her performance being her rendition of "The Ladies Who Lunch," a biting blast about bored wives that is quite possibly...
...disintegrated in the atmosphere over Madagascar. A meteorological satellite was aborted on launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in 1968, and the nuclear package was recovered intact. As Apollo 13 returned from an unsuccessful moon flight in 1970, the three astronauts had to jettison their unused moon lander, and its power pack plunged into the Pacific Ocean near Australia...
Like tourists everywhere, the two Viking landers and their orbiters have spent much of the 15 months since their arrival on Mars snapping pictures of the Red Planet. The latest batch includes the best and most revealing shots yet. Among the pictures released by NASA: a photomosaic of the planet's north pole, showing a concentric pattern of striations in the ice cap; a color snapshot showing newly formed frost on the ground near the feet of the dust-covered Viking 2 lander; and a photo proving that something-wind, a tremor, a frost heave-has caused a portion...