Word: luna
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...screens last week showed an awkward, eight-wheeled contraption that looked somewhat like the top half of a huge samovar. But what the outlandish vehicle lacked in styling, it more than made up for in performance. Three hours after reaching the moon aboard the latest unmanned Russian moon probe, Luna 17, Lunokhod I (literally "moonwalker") lumbered down one of two ramps extended by the mother ship and moved forward under the direct control of TV monitors on earth-thus taking the first giant step for robotkind on another celestial body...
...passions of a nation. Tully and Munger are not fall guys for reformists, but men of substance, with more than a bit of sensitivity. They are even aware of their limits, perhaps too keenly: real pain comes when each realizes that the world of the ring, bounded by managers Luna and Solis, offers only ten or fifteen rounds of direct, virile action. Out of the ropes, both fighters and managers stride pitifully to find meaning and solace in love or family security, their marriages or affairs too often turning into the traditional Frankie-and-Johnny relationship of a tough mack...
...relatively primitive-a simple sphere covered with balsa wood that was ejected just before its carrier rocket smashed into the lunar surface. After bouncing and rolling to a stop, the sphere unfolded its panels like petals of a flower, righted itself and exposed its TV camera and transmitter. Luna 16 was a far more sophisticated instrument. Although the Soviets revealed few details, Western space experts believe that the spacecraft that descended to the lunar surface weighed about a ton (compared with the Apollo LM's 8 tons); it was braked first by its main engine and then...
Shortly after the successful touchdown, Soviet ground controllers performed a number of checks to determine the spacecraft's exact orientation and location on the moon-information vital for calculating Luna 16's correct homeward course. Then came the main business of the mission. On a signal from earth, an electric-powered drilling device, capable of moving horizontally and vertically, reached out like a mechanical hand; Western observers speculated that it was positioned by controllers watching it on TV. The drill then burrowed about 14 in. into the adjacent lunar soil and brought up a core sample, which...
Onto the Steppes. To the relief of the Russians, the trajectory was perfect and the terrestrial landing was as flawless as the lunar touchdown. As Luna 16 approached the earth, its shielded payload separated from the mother ship, slowed down in the thickening atmosphere, and released drogue parachutes for the final part of its descent. Twelve days after it had been sent aloft from the giant Baikonur space complex 125 miles away. the lunar package was recovered by helicopter from the bleak, sparsely settled Ap steppes of Kazakhstan in central Asia. While the Russians trumpeted news of their accomplishment...