Word: liftoff
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...anything humorous happen on your mission? -Eve McGivern, Pittsburgh[Laughs] Mike Collins called Neil the "Tsar" and I said a couple of humorous things for levity. When Houston cleared us for liftoff I said, "Roger, we are number one on the runway." When we landed on the moon I said, "Be careful not to lock the hatch on the way out." It wasn't appreciated at the time...
Yesterday's launch included plenty of respectful grace notes. Sixty of the 114 candidates for the Teacher in Space slot in 1985 were at the liftoff, as were a number of relatives of the astronauts lost in the 1986 explosion. NASA was almost defensive in insisting that Endeavour is a sound ship, pointing out that in the nearly five years since it last flew it's undergone improvements so extensive as to leave it almost unrecognizable. "It's like a new space shuttle," shuttle program manager N. Wayne Hale told a news conference...
...astronauts seemed to feel the need to argue for the mission too. "This is serious business we're in here," shuttle commander Scott Kelly radioed shortly before liftoff, as if spacewatchers needed to be reminded of that fact...
Welcome to the prelaunch program of Virgin Galactic, which hopes to be the world's first private spaceline, with liftoff by 2009. The adventure-addicted British entrepreneur says that over its first 10 years Virgin Galactic will send 50,000 civilians on a thrill ride more than 62 miles (100 km) up into space--to escape gravity and ogle our small fragile planet. Initial cost for the two-hour adventure...
...Even though the rocket failed 40,000 ft. in the air, corkscrewing back to earth for a crash landing moments after liftoff, the event marked a milestone in the rapidly approaching future of personal space travel...