Word: orbiter
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Huge Cylinders. This summer two dozen specialists, including O'Neill, will convene for ten weeks at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., to study the practical problems of getting the enormous project into orbit. Meanwhile, O'Neill, 48, is energetically continuing to press the idea in sci entific articles, television and radio talks, and in campus lectures at the rate of at least two a week. Says he: "The whole thing is exploding so fast that I am beginning to worry about how to make time for my work in physics...
...between the U.S. and Soviet launch techniques. Unlike U.S. rockets, which are restrained on the ground until close to maximum thrust is developed, Russian launch vehicles leave the pad as soon as they have achieved the minimum thrust needed for liftoff. Also Soviet rockets are aimed to go into orbit from a launch pad that can be revolved into the proper position, while U.S. rockets are electronically guided into orbit after they are airborne...
...next July's historic linkup of a U.S. Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. Both the American and Russian crews were confident that the flight would be successful; they all signed the jug of vodka, recorked it and promised to polish it off when they got back from orbit...
...conducted such a test on purpose. But the flight did help confirm the Soyuz spaceship's full potentialities-in particular, the ability to save crewmen's lives in an extraordinary situation." That may indeed be true. But if for any reason Soyuz does not make it into orbit, NASA will not be entirely unprepared. The space agency has quietly planned an alternative flight in which the U.S. team would try to rendezvous and dock with the abandoned Skylab space station, which is still circling the earth...
Marooned, which describes how American astronauts stranded in orbit are saved by a Russian spaceship, helped persuade the Soviets to take part in the historic joint mission...