Word: orbit
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...firms have been seeking ways to obtain cheap energy by harnessing the power of the sun or wind. The Boeing Company of Seattle is working on a project called Powersat, which involves assembling a nine-mile-long solar-heat collector in space; once assembled, it can ride along in orbit beaming the sun's power back to earth. On a more mundane level, Boeing has a contract with the Energy Research and Development Administration to develop a 10 million-watt power plant using heliostats-mirror-like reflectors that would catch the sun's rays and reflect them...
...that the Government has lost contact with the people. Says Jack Spalding, editor of the Atlanta Journal: "It's not that the people are especially mad at Washington. Rather it is that Washington is so out of touch with the country. Those elitists up there are in orbit by themselves." Minneapolis Tribune Editor Charles Bailey feels that Washington fails to understand that a new self-confidence has developed in many communities, where people reckon that they can manage their own affairs...
...nose of a Delta rocket, one of the simplest satellites ever built by the U.S. roared off the launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base last week to begin an 8 million-year journey in space. The 2-ft. sphere, placed into a 3,600-mile-high circular orbit, contains no moving parts or electronic equipment and resembles an oversized golf ball. Yet it should provide earthbound geophysicists with a benchmark in the sky that will enable them to measure precisely the rotation rate of the earth and the wobble of its axis, continental drift, and the movement along geologic...
...satellite's weight. Because it is so small yet has so much mass, LAGEOS will not be much affected by any traces of the earth's atmosphere, particles in the solar wind, or variations in the earth's gravity field. As a result, its orbit will be extremely stable, and its position at any time can be precisely determined...
Because LAGEOS is expected to remain in orbit for so long, NASA has placed aboard it two stainless-steel sheets, each etched with a message conceived by Astrophysicist Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Designed to inform extraterrestrial visitors or future inhabitants of the earth about the LAGEOS mission, the message shows three maps of the earth, depicting the continental drift that the satellite will help observe. The uppermost of the maps shows the continents as they are thought to have existed 225 million years ago, when Africa and South America were joined. The middle map is a picture...