Word: oceaneering
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Houston center, Skylab's final orbit (No. 34,981) looked ideal to Harlan, since it was over the ocean and sparsely populated areas. But one big problem soon emerged: the experts' best guesses as to where the satellite was first likely to re-enter the atmosphere were slightly wrong. Instead of over the middle Atlantic, as expected, Skylab could begin breaking up over Canada, endangering the Montreal area and parts of Maine. Harlan got permission from Washington to cause Skylab to tumble in space, which would delay its impact with earth by about 30 minutes...
...sending out signals when it came within range )f the NASA station on Ascension Island in the Atlantic. Said Harlan: "I got to thinking that we couldn't kill the thing " Soon, however, the signs of deterioration were clear. At a height of 69 miles over the ocean, some of Skylab's batteries registered a temperature of 100° F far above the normal 60° F. Then the radio signals faded, and finally stopped. Breakup had begun, and the projected "footprint" of Skylab's debris seemed to be safely in the Indian Ocean. Houston...
...precise final orbit will work. To do nothing in such a situation is preferable to taking a high-risk gamble and failing. Amid all those uncertainties, the engineers think the best final orbit would take the craft over the southern part of South America, across southern Africa, the Indian Ocean and India, then over China and the Pacific...
...where they can be recovered and towed back to shore for another launch. But the big tank will be carried almost all the way up, then cut loose. Tumbling end over end, it should burn up in the atmosphere, although a few pieces may plunge into the ocean. Finally the shuttle continues to fire its own engines to ease itself into orbit at elevations of 115 to 690 miles, typically 175 miles...
When dinosaurs vanished abruptly 65 million years ago, they left an enduring mystery-and created a scientific parlor game. Hypotheses abound to explain the extinction. Brains too small in bodies too large? Emerging mammals feasting on dinosaur eggs? Now comes evidence for another possibility. Geologist Walter Alvarez, probing an ocean canyon near Gubbio, Italy, discovered an abrupt increase in iridium in a limestone layer dating back to the dinosaurs' demise. Probable cause: some mysterious, still unfathomable extraterrestrial event...