Word: liftings
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Throwaway rockets can fail too. Last month a French-built Ariane exploded on lift-off. No one cared, except the insurance companies that covered the payload, because there was no crew aboard. NASA's insistence on sending a crew on every shuttle flight means risking precious human life for mindless tasks that automated devices can easily carry out. Did Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon really have to be there to push a couple of buttons on the Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment, the payload package he died to accompany to space...
...hellish heat of re-entry by thermal blankets and about 24,000 black and white ceramic tiles. The jigsaw-puzzle pieces have given the space agency fits since the very first flight of the very first shuttle--Columbia in April 1981. Handfuls of them often flaked away during lift-off, leaving NASA with nothing to do but wait out the flight and hope that the skin had not been denuded in a critically hot spot. In a worst-case scenario, just a few missing tiles in even a relatively low-temperature area could lead to a fatal chain reaction, with...
...Politics mostly. China has a huge trade surplus with the U.S., which has Congress threatening tariffs on Chinese imports. But economics played a role too. China's off-the-charts growth would naturally lift its currency in a free market, which China is trying to achieve. This is a first step toward a free-floating yuan--possibly by the 2008 Olympics in Beijing...
...polluted slush. Instead, I stand atop the Pão de Açucar, a prominence circled by Guanabara Bay, facing the city, and I see Rio soaking in its own mild winter (scoff!) sunset, the waves washing up against the city lights. I kneel on the ground and lift my arms to the sky, weeping and shouting “No!” for a substantial amount of time...
...with Nicole briefly at the swanky hotel where she was staying to get her pre-show sentiments. Her measured excitement reminded me of my own, and I got a lift over to the Kodak Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard...