Word: launching
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...unkempt, foul-smelling older man should approach you in a bus station and launch into a less than linear, sometimes obscene, clearly intelligent monologue, do not shuffle away immediately; you may be speaking to Phillip Roth, the bemedaled novelist. Just how long--and how carefully--you will listen is what interests this author. That is his schtick. Well, stick it out. With his twenty-first novel, Sabbath's Theater, Mr. Roth gives us Mickey Sabbath, an aging, disgraced, arthritic puppeteer limping, no reeling, towards death. Finally, he is a magnificent character in a compelling story, crashing backwards through...
That means Doug Herzog, Comedy Central's new president, will have to stay one step ahead. He's on the lookout for someone to replace Maher as "the face of Comedy Central" and hopes to launch three new series next year. Herzog also wants to rejuvenate that tired staple, stand-up comedy. The channel has attracted big-name comics like Whoopi Goldberg and Gary Shandling for upcoming specials, but Herzog is also looking for a way to showcase new talent that won't be "a guy telling jokes in front of a brick wall at Giggles in Cincinnati...
NASA's original plan was to launch Galileo from the shuttle in 1982 on a direct, two-year flight to Jupiter. But disputes over the type of rocket most appropriate for the launch delayed the mission for four years. Then, after agreement was reached on the liquid-hydrogen-fueled Centaur rocket, the 1986 Challenger disaster not only shut down the shuttle program for nearly three years but also heightened awareness that the Centaur was too risky for a manned craft--in Van Allen's words, "like carrying a hydrogen bomb, except it's more likely...
...when we get those pictures, what's to make us believe that they are actually of the red Jovian planet? How are we to know that the brilliant scientists on the West Coast aren't playing a huge practical joke upon us? If they're smart enough to launch satellites into space, they're certainly smart enough to touch up a red spot here and an atmospheric ripple there...
Data transmission will be considerably slowed because the probe's main antenna has failed to open, forcing engineers to rely on a much slower backup antenna. Jaroff says the problem can be traced back to 1987, when Galileo's launch was delayed by the Challenger explosion. "After the Challenger, they trucked the probe back to California to be put into storage. What engineers think happened is that the vibrations of the transcontinental trip may have worn out some of the lubricants that should have helped the antenna to open." Because of the delay, the spacecraft will only transmit hundreds...