Word: mooning
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...plus shipping and handling and $1.51 for Martian tax. In 1980 Hope informed various Earth governments that he was claiming ownership of all the land in the solar system; inasmuch as no one protested, he began selling it. So far, he has sold around 13,000 parcels on the moon and more than 1,000 on Mars. "It's a great investment for future generations," he says. Does Hope have plans to develop the apparently barren property? "Personally, no. But on the moon, I've had 25 companies purchase different licenses to provide things like telecommunications, water and power...
Mars is not the only place the new budget ships will visit. Last spring planetary scientists were buzzing over images returned by the Galileo space probe that provided evidence of a water ocean beneath a thin rind of ice on Jupiter's moon Europa. Where there's water, there's usually heat, and where there's water and heat, there could well be life. Sometime after 2000, NASA is hoping to launch a Europa probe that will orbit the Jovian moon at an altitude of 60 miles--about the same distance at which Apollo spacecraft used to orbit Earth...
Other hoped-for missions include a 13-year, 4 billion-mile-plus journey to Pluto and its companion moon Charon, tentatively set to launch in 2001; a comet-rendezvous mission that will take off in February 1999, fly by Comet Wild 2 in 2004 and fly back home with a bit of material from its diaphanous tail; and perhaps even a much-dreamed-of journey to Neptune's planet-size moon Triton. Says Goldin: "We're going to have the most aggressive exploration of our own solar system in the history of the human species...
...fundamental focus of these missions, said Gore, is Earth--how to live and survive here better. As Pathfinder and subsequent missions unfold, he said, "we are likely to experience an emotional and spiritual impact not unlike the one which accompanied that first picture of Earth rising from the moon's horizon a generation...
...Fourth, when we landed on Mars, I walk the beach and watch the fireworks compete with the stars in the enormous black sky. This is Independence Day, and I am alone. So are we all. This is what we discover at times like these--the first flight around the moon, the moon walk, the probe of Jupiter, the Viking missions, and now this amazing, take-your-breath-away event. Errands into space lift us out of ourselves and return us to ourselves. They tell us that we are alone in the universe, and how terrible and wonderful an idea that...