Word: orbiter
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With all the publicity generated by the new movie The Right Stuff, perhaps the presidential candidacy of the Ohio Senator and former astronaut ought to be in some kind of celestial orbit. In reality, down-to-earth problems seem to be causing the John Glenn campaign to sputter. The latest sign of trouble: a major shake-up of Glenn's staff that reflects serious problems within the Senator's campaign effort...
...been reported by Western intelligence sources, Soviet officials nonetheless insisted that the failure of the resupply effort in no way endangered the Salyut 7 cosmonauts. As if to prove the point, Moscow television last week showed Alexandrov and Lyakhov bantering with mission controllers. Still, after three months in orbit, the cosmonauts need fresh supplies of food, oxygen and fuel. To provide those materials, the Soviets last week launched an unmanned Progress 18 space "freighter" that was expected to dock with Salyut...
...Soviets might attempt an emergency evacuation of the cosmonauts via their original Soyuz ferry ship (which is still attached to Salyut), so the decision to send up Progress 18 was regarded as an encouraging sign for the spacemen. Said veteran Soviet Space Watcher James Oberg (Red Star in Orbit): "There seems to be little real anxiety in mission control." However, as Oberg notes, Salyut's steering problems, combined with the launch-pad fiasco, show that the Soviets cannot yet manage replacement of crews on a regular, scheduled basis. Such a capability is a prerequisite for operating a permanent orbital...
...delay was especially embarrassing to NASA because Columbia was to have carried into orbit the $1.1 billion European-built Spacelab. A self-contained scientific station, it will perform a wide variety of experiments while parked in the shuttle's open cargo bay. At Kennedy last week crews stripped away the questionable booster while tests continued on why the insulating material failed. NASA said that there would be no firm word on a new launch date before Nov. 1. Lift-off could take place as soon as Nov. 28, but if that "window" is missed, the next opportunity would...
...Soviets, he says, have set a new speed record, and he is determined to break it. As the astronauts comfortably watch a Sally Road feather dance from their banquet hall seats. Yeager goes too for too fast and loses control. But in an act more heroic than any earth orbit he survives a crash landing and wails away from the smoldering metal heap smiting...