Word: liftoff
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...taking photographs, naps, and at one point producing a tiny Chinese flag?an iconic image that would soon be broadcast to 1.3 billion fellow citizens back home. The mission-control room outside Beijing burst into cheers, already buoyed by a message from President Hu Jintao who announced that the liftoff was "the glory of our great motherland." Then, Yang fished around and produced another flag, this time a pale blue one bearing the emblem of the United Nations, and held it up beside the red Chinese ensign...
...before the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests and the 1999 NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade?only to see China turn inward again. Even during the heralded manned space mission, there was a reminder that the central government remains authoritarian and insecure. China refused to air the liftoff live, lest state TV broadcast a midair disaster. But, for now, the rest of the world seems willing to share in the internationalist spirit that inspired astronaut Yang to hold up that little blue flag...
...tomorrow." Lieut. Colonel Yang Liwei, China's first astronaut, shortly before liftoff of the Shenzhou V spacecraft...
...pledge to help track down the group's kidnappers. Space Tragedy BRAZIL A rocket exploded on its launchpad at the Alcantara Launch Center, killing 21 people and injuring 20. Those caught in the blast were mostly technicians carrying out final tests just days before the rocket's scheduled liftoff. Triggered by an accidental ignition of one of the rocket's four engines, the catastrophe marks Brazil's third failed attempt since 1997 to become the first Latin American nation to launch satellites into space. High Seas Chase THE SOUTHERN OCEAN An Australian customs ship and a South African polar vessel...
...Achilles heel has always been liftoff, and the dangers posed by massive fuel load involved. Reentry has, of course, always been a difficult part of the space program. But this is, in fact, our first fatal accident on reentry. Apollo 13 is remembered as our most difficult ever reentry, but the ship and crew survived. The Soviets lost a crew on reentry in 1970 after an oxygen leak that caused the cosmonauts to suffocate on the way down. Reentry is a very difficult process, but the Russians mastered it in 1961 and we did the same a few years later...