Word: orbitals
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Russians weren't going to give up their rights without a fight. It wasn't only principle at stake: Tito is reportedly funneling $20 million into that country's financially strapped space agency for the privilege of spending quality time in orbit. The original plan was to send him for a visit to Russia's aging Mir space station. But when Mir took a controlled dive into the Pacific Ocean earlier this spring, the Russians insisted that he be allowed aboard the ISS instead...
...tried to stop Tito's trip since January. That's when the Russian Space Agency informed NASA that Tito would be aboard the April taxi mission scheduled to replace a Soyuz rescue vehicle now on orbit at the space station with a fresh one. NASA officials claimed that an untrained tourist would present a danger aboard the space station. They were also anxious about the precedent of one of the station partners' launching a unilateral commercial venture. But the cash-strapped Russians insisted. Eventually, the fight involved the other 14 countries who are partners in the space station. To space...
Last week marked several important dates in the history of space exploration. Forty years ago last Thursday, an unknown 27-year-old Soviet pilot named Yuri Gagarin took flight in the small spherical Vostok capsule. His one-orbit, 108-minute flight made him the first man to travel in space and marked one of the most important events of the 20th century. Twenty years later, also on Apr. 12, the space shuttle Columbia entered space. The 54-hour maiden voyage of the reusable spacecraft signified the dawning of a new age of exploration...
...paucity of achievements in space exploration. As Astronaut Buzz Aldrin has said, “History will remember the inhabitants of the last century as the people who went from Kitty Hawk to the Moon in 66 years, only to languish for the next 30 in low Earth orbit.” This slowdown can be attributed to the fact that NASA’s funding has been cut repeatedly, and ambitious programs have been scrapped for more cost-effective and passive endeavors...
...Despite anxieties in Japan and Australia that the dying craft could miss its trajectory and hit land, Russian ground controllers successfully steered it to its final watery resting place some 2,900 km southwest of the Pitcairn Islands. Most of the giant 136-ton structure, which had been in orbit since 1986, burned up as it re-entered the earth's atmosphere. About six fragments survived to splash down...