Word: layered
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...really dependable safety device, say Huston and Miller, should tell on its own when the reactor is starting an excursion. The best way to trigger its action is to combine a pad of material containing uranium with a layer of high-melting solder. When the neutrons in the reactor rise above a critical level, showing that an excursion has started, the uranium fissions at a rate that creates enough heat to melt the solder. Then high-pressure gas will shoot neutron-absorbing poison into the reactor. Even if other controls have failed, this last-ditch nuclear fire extinguisher will keep...
...nose cone of a three-stage rocket, a man lies on his back with his knees drawn up, waiting for the explosion that -will thrust him into space. Blastoff. The roar swallows him; intense vibration courses through his shackled, layer-enveloped body. He is hurtling into the inky empyrean where the sun's rays give no light, where there is no such thing as height, where there is no up and no down -where, if he drops his guard for an instant, the irresistible forces of the cosmos will destroy...
...high but steady speed; when the second stage blasts off, he can take it, and his body is also ready for the acceleration of the final blast. On reentry, the g forces loosed by deceleration are likely to be far more perilous. Impact of hitting even the thinnest outer layer of the atmosphere head-on at 18,000 m.p.h. is like driving a car through a blast furnace against a cliff at 60 m.p.h. To slow down, the pilot may have to glide in at an angle of no more than 4°, then skip out to cool...
...defense: "The British schoolgirl just doesn't have the sort of figure one ought to draw attention to. Her poor little tum bulging with rice pudding, you know, and no foundation garments to take care of her seat. More often than not she is covered with a thick layer of puppy fat, and we think it more tactful to keep most of her well covered...
...Astronomer Fred Whipple of Harvard thinks that although the moon may have plenty of dust, its surface has been solidified. There may be a thin layer "like dust on a grand piano," but the underlying material, cemented together (not stirred up) by bombardment from space, is probably "crunchy" and strong enough to support an alighting spaceship...