Word: orbiteer
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...Russians face a delicate diplomatic problem in trying to gain a new client on the Horn of Africa. Too many gestures of friendship to Mengistu are bound to alienate Somalia, which Russia also supplies and which is being wooed out of the Russian orbit by promises of economic aid from Saudi Arabia. Apparently unbothered by such strategic complications, Mengistu is planning an all-out assault on Eritrea, led by a people's militia of 200,000 peasants equipped with cast-off American arms and trained-if that is the word -by a small cadre of Cuban advisers. They hope...
...long-range benefits of this effort are not yet clear. With client regimes in power in Angola and Mozambique, the Russians have buckled a kind of Red belt of influence across the middle of the continent. Now if they can hold on to Somalia and bring Ethiopia into their orbit, they will have hooked a suspender onto the belt. Meanwhile the other gallus is shaping up along the Atlantic coast of Africa, involving Zaire, the Congo, Benin and Guinea-Bissau...
These twin projections of Soviet influence reaching northward alarm the Arab states situated above black Africa. "Angola yesterday, Zaire today, Sudan tomorrow," worries the prestigious Cairo daily al Ahram. What troubles the Arabs particularly is that if the Soviets can pull both Ethiopia and Somalia firmly into their orbit, they may successfully create an axis of influence along the African Horn that in time of crisis could give them control of the Bab el Mandeb Strait linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden...
...satellite Lageos, conceived and designed by scientists in the Center's division of geoastronomy, may provide a measure of continental drift. The satellite, now in orbit, is two feet in diameter, and is covered with 426 small mirrors. Scientists at two different ground stations direct lasers at the satellite. By precisely measuring the round-trip time of each beam, they hope to determine the distance between the stations to an accuracy of two centimeters--the distance many think Europe and North America drift apart each year. The researchers' accuracy is at about ten centimeters now. But most of the research...
Once the package has been hauled by the shuttle into near-earth orbit, a small rocket will push it to escape velocity. At about 100,000 kilometers (60,000 miles) above the earth, the framework will be assembled and the sail deployed automatically...