Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Every eleven years the sun's outer layers erupt in a blaze of turbulent magnetic storms, characterized by an increase in sunspots and fiery explosions known as solar flares. In February 1980, on the eve of one such outburst, NASA launched an instrument-packed scientific satellite called the Solar Maximum Mission. Nicknamed Solar Max, the spacecraft was to photograph and monitor the sun's activity, which even at a distance of 93 million miles can disrupt global communications and power transmissions, influence weather and endanger space voyagers...
...anticipation of just such a rescue, Solar Max's creators equipped the satellite with a pin, or trunnion, near its midriff. It forms a perfect mate with a gadget to be carried by Nelson that looks like a fat belly button. NASA calls that protrusion TPAD (for trunnion pin attachment device). Nelson will attach the TPAD to the pin and then fire some of the MMU'S thrusters to brake Solar Max's rotation...
...environment of the service tower, with the tower's crane and a second device, called a strongback, attached to the Launch Mount Tower, to perform all the hoisting. The system called for a tolerance limit of as much as ¼ in. in fitting the orbiter to the tank. NASA said no, setting the maximum permissible degree of variation at a minuscule ³¹/iooo³¹∕¹ººº in. "With the wind and the weather at Slick Six, we knew we could never get it down to that," says Major Ronald L. Peck, Vandenberg...
...bubbles," David progressed from a baby in a crib to an A student who attended school by telephone; his food was sterilized and slipped in through air locks. Only briefly, in 1977, was he able to explore the world outside, thanks to a special suit presented to him by NASA. More than a million dollars in federal research grants helped cover the cost of his care...
...evidence comes from a remarkable automated observatory called Pioneer Venus. Since late in 1978 the 810-lb. machine has been circling Venus, probing it with a battery of instruments, including radar. The devices, said Pioneer Venus scientists meeting at NASA's Ames Research Center near Mountain View, Calif, have revealed that under Venus' clouds is a landscape almost as dramatic as the earth's: sprawling plateaus, mountains as high as Everest and great chasms similar to terrestrial rift valleys...