Word: orbiteer
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...every corner of the world, from Cuba to Syria to Madagascar to Vietnam. The United States and the Soviet Union were constantly at odds in every sphere of influence. One power tried to propound democracy while the other strove to spread Communism. The Soviets also had their own orbit of similarly modelled republics--an effective buffer to the West...
Georgia's reintegration into Russia's security orbit involves about as much mutual consent as a Mafia shakedown. Russia had cowed its independence-minded neighbors with tacit threats of dismemberment before. In the former republics of Moldova and Azerbaijan, an undeniable pattern has emerged. Secessionist rebels, abetted by rouge Russian forces, score impressive military successes. Miraculously, when these states relent and agree to join the C.I.S., Russia's ability to impose a lasting cease-fire soars...
...monsters that we need to worry about are the monsters. One of these massive asteroids intersected the orbit of the Earth on June 30th 1908. Six miles above Tunguska, Siberia, it exploded with a force 1,000 times more powerful than the nuclear weapon dropped on Hiroshima. Almost 500,000 acres of forest were destroyed. The shockwave was strong enough to be detected in America...
...reason Mars Observer had gone abruptly off the air the previous Saturday evening may never be known, although engineers suspect faulty transistors in the clocks that govern all the probe's electronics. And the ship's whereabouts are anybody's guess. It could be in orbit around the Red Planet or shooting off into interplanetary space. It could have blown up. A fringe group even swears that NASA destroyed Observer to hide the existence of a Martian civilization...
More snafus may lie ahead. In December astronauts are scheduled to ride the shuttle into orbit to repair the star-crossed Hubble Space Telescope. Should the unprecedentedly complex mission go exactly as planned, NASA could regain some credibility. But if history is any guide, it probably won't. Space is a harsh and unforgiving place, where Murphy's Law is paramount. In fact, many of NASA's best public relations successes have come at the brink of failure. Engineers restored 70% of the Galileo probe's function after its main antenna failed to deploy; astronauts grabbed the Intelsat-6 satellite...