Word: orbital
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...hitch. Columbia's moment of triumph made it probable that as early as April the shuttle would carry an American into space for the first time since 1975 and take its place as the world's first reusable rocket ship, flying round trips between earth and orbit...
...obvious solution is to orbit a telescope out beyond the earth's atmosphere. More than half a century ago, a German spaceflight visionary named Hermann Oberth suggested that solution. He foresaw the time when there would be rockets powerful enough to carry telescopes far out into the perfect stillness and clarity of space. In 1923 that seemed a faint dream. Now NASA is pressing ahead with just such an astronomical plan. Last month the $600 million project took a big step forward. After an intense competition, NASA chose Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore as home of the new Space...
...year to operate, more than any ground observatory. But the payoff should be enormous. Because of its power, as well as its ability to "see" frequencies of light obscured by the atmosphere, the space telescope will open whole new worlds to human experience. It may spot planets in orbit around other stars, something no current instrument has done. It should measure more accurately than ever before the distance to far-off galaxies-great islands of stars like our Milky Way. By glimpsing objects as far off as 14 billion light years, it will be capturing light that has taken...
...away to the phone. He returned with a startled look on his face and whispered to Physicist Lloyd Berkner, who then rapped for silence on the hors d'oeuvre table. "I wish to make an announcement," he told the group. "I am informed that a satellite is in orbit at an elevation of 900 km. I wish to congratulate our Soviet colleagues on their achievement...
Nothing seemed to kindle Kennedy's enthusiasm like another journey into space. He was jubilant when the U.S. finally got Alan Shepard into the stratosphere and down again. Kennedy flew to Cape Canaveral, Fla., to greet John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth. The week he was killed, J.F.K. stood beneath the first stage of the giant Saturn 1 rocket. While Wernher von Braun talked quietly into his ear of the day the monster would head toward the moon, Kennedy thrust his hands in his coat pockets, rocked back on his heels, and for a fleeting second...