Word: orbit
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...months, Moscow had been hinting at new space spectaculars to help celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. When a brand-new spacecraft called Soyuz 1 was launched into orbit last week carrying veteran Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, 40, it seemed certain that the first manned Soviet flight since March 1965 was aimed at overtaking and even surpassing the faltering U.S. Apollo program. Barely 24 hours later, Komarov was dead, killed in a crash landing that may ground the Russian man-in-space program for months...
There was good reason to believe that Komarov's ill-fated flight had been planned as Phase 1 of a highly ambitious mission. Unofficial reports from Moscow had indicated that Soyuz would be joined in orbit by another spacecraft carrying several men and that the two ships would attempt to rendezvous, dock, exchange crews and set up an orbiting space station. There was speculation that the second ship had a restartable engine that would push the joined ships as far out as 50,000 miles-a first step toward a flight later this year in which a manned Russian...
Unlucky 15. The rumors were given credence by Soyuz's name (it means "union") and its initial low and nearly circular orbit, which appeared to be designed to make Soyuz an easier rendezvous target. Also, the orbit's 51.5° inclination to the equator was close to the 51° parking-orbit inclination previously used by unmanned Russian moon probes...
Although the Russians have so far provided few details, Western experts believe that Komarov ran into real trouble on the 15th orbit, when an attitude thruster misfired, sending Soyuz tumbling wildly. It was the same kind of malfunction that nearly proved disastrous to America's Gemini...
...when Kansas City's Nelson Gallery staged a month-long "Sound Light Silence" show last November. The minuscule Howard Wise Gallery on Manhattan's 57th Street was jammed to its sockets with 20,000 visitors when it displayed 36 artists from nine countries in its "Lights in Orbit" show this February. The same show, with 20 exhibits added, is currently breaking all attendance records at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis...