Word: moons
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...magazine marks its quarter century Summits of Style Esoteric treatments in a minimalist setting A Starflyer Is Born In-flight comfort with an internet connection in every seat Take a Hike Destinations to restore your sense of wonder many of them tourists sleeping off an all-night Christmas full-moon party. Thus, in a few minutes, the sea destroyed the very world that it had built. But surfers are a resilient lot. Before the tsunami, many braved Sri Lanka's civil war and Arugam Bay's previous lack of power or telephones to ride its magnificent waves. So even though...
...slapped and high-fived when the Pathfinder lander bounced down on Mars in 1997 and when the Spirit and Opportunity rovers followed in 2004. They cheered when the Cassini probe went into orbit around Saturn last summer and when the Huygens lander reached the surface of the planet's moon Titan months later. If it's possible to grow tired of popping corks and raising glasses, the J.P.L. engineers may be getting close...
...four decades it has been affiliated with NASA, the lab has dispatched probes to seven of the planets and dozens of their moons and has tossed in the sun, our own moon and a comet for good measure. "We do interplanetary," says Pete Theisinger, a deputy director of Mars exploration. "We're not the only people who can do it, but we're the only ones who have done it for 40 years...
...each failure taught Pickering something. "The era of rocketry really was trial and error," says former J.P.L. director Ed Stone. Adds Elachi: "Almost every lab director has kept the same philosophy." That has helped the lab survive many rocky patches, such as in the 1960s, when Pickering's moon probes flopped six times before Ranger 7 succeeded; and in 1999, when the Mars Polar Lander and the Mars Climate Orbiter failed. The message from management remained the same. "We encourage [employees] to push the limits in a thoughtful way," says Elachi. "We keep telling them, 'Look, setbacks are going...
Just where J.P.L.'s westward-ho push will take it next is not yet set. More missions to Mars are certain. Others to Pluto and Jupiter's moon Europa are possible. The still vague nature of these plans does not bother the veterans who know the lab best. "What we do here is try to figure out how impossible a task is and then we take it on," says Lee, a 30-year J.P.L. veteran. "The result is that we add to human knowledge. Now, can you have a better life...