Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...California desert last week, it was more than a star-spangled finale to a stunningly successful mission. And not just because of the enthusiastic presence of Ronald and Nancy Reagan and half a million other Fourth of July revelers. With Columbia 's fourth and last test flight, NASA declared its own independence from such costly and inefficient vehicles as the Apollo moonships that can make only one trip. Pronouncing its flying machine fully operational, the space agency signaled the shuttle's readiness to. carry cargo and passengers on a regular basis into space...
...underscore that message, NASA barely let the dust settle from Columbia's landing before dispatching its second ship, Challenger, to Cape Canaveral. Hitchhiking atop a specially adapted Boeing 747, the new or biter passed low over the reviewing stand at California's Edwards Air Force Base while a military band played God Bless America. Reagan likened the conclusion of the shuttle test program to the driving of the golden spike that marked the completion of the first transcontinental railroad...
...built for: hoisting. satellites into orbit. The critical test will come during Columbia's next flight, scheduled for Nov. 11, when it will carry aloft two communications satellites-one American, the other Canadian. And even if Columbia passes this milestone, other questions will persist. NASA's initial justification for building a vehicle that wedded the technology of planes and rockets was to reduce the cost of space travel. However, the calculations depended on projections of extremely heavy traffic into space, with flights as frequent as every two weeks. Now, as a result of spiraling costs, scant demand from...
...volcano has been spotted at scattered locations around the globe. At the Kitt Peak National Observatory, near Tucson, astronomers say the brightness of stars has been reduced by 40%, and volcanic dust has created garish sunsets over wide areas of the Northern Hemisphere. Says Atmospheric Physicist James Pollack, of NASA's Ames Research Center, which has used U-2 aircraft to collect samples of El Chichón's dust: "This is the biggest volcanic cloud we have had in the last two decades...
Brian Toon of NASA's Ames center says the cloud could reduce temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by a degree or so next summer-enough to affect growing seasons and rainfall. Others say the effect will be too negligible, only a few tenths of a degree. Scientists will have plenty of time to decide the issue: it may take up to five years before all the dust from El Chichon settles back to earth. Says DeLuisi: "We've got a nice little experiment going on here...