Word: orbiteer
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...time a computer on the ground was to blame, failing with just over a minute remaining in the countdown. A backup computer also would not work, leading officials to suspect a software problem. NASA scientists say they must launch the $196M Pathfinder in December in order to intercept Mars' orbit or wait two years for another chance. "We're a museum piece if we don't launch by the 31st," said Curtis Cleven, launch operations manager. If successful, the craft will be the first-ever inter-planetary rover, slated to land on July 4, 1997. Several hours after Pathfinder parachutes...
...appeared to have fallen too, with slashed budgets leading to fewer launches and worried whispers in the international community that even those missions were dangerously underfinanced. Lately, however, Russia has been funneling all its space resources into the launch of its Mars '96 probe, an unmanned spacecraft designed to orbit the Red Planet, dispatch a quartet of landers to the surface and, perhaps most important, return the country to the spacefaring pre-eminence it once enjoyed...
Five days later, Russia sustained a less conspicuous public relations blow when officials admitted that two of the country's spy satellites had recently fallen from orbit, leaving the military without any space-based reconnaissance capabilities. What raised eyebrows was not the loss of the satellites--they weren't expected to operate indefinitely--but Russia's inability to replace them. In the wake of the Mars debacle, this was enough to cause observers inside Russia and out to wonder aloud just how deep the space program's troubles run and whether any technological solution can fix what ails...
...ramshackle tenement had no gas or electricity and only one water tap and a rudimentary toilet. But the studio was an often riotous gathering place for "la bande a Picasso," a self-dubbed group of poets--including Guillaume Apollinaire and Max Jacob--attracted to the Spanish artist's creative orbit. Picasso showed these friends his paintings. One--a large work that absorbed him for six months--elicited only embarrassed silence...
Tomatoes were a rare grace note in a grueling mission that was to end this week when the shuttle Atlantis returns Lucid to Earth after six long months in space. The 53-year-old shuttle veteran will have amassed 223 days in orbit since 1985, making her America's most experienced astronaut. Besting Russian cosmonaut Elena Kondakova, Lucid will also have set the women's record for consecutive days in orbit (188), after hurricanes and technical glitches delayed shuttle flights that should have picked her up almost seven weeks earlier...