Word: orbiters
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...successful flight of the space shuttle Columbia did more than raise American spirits. It broke a Soviet monopoly. For nearly six years before Columbia 's mission, earth orbit had been an exclusive Soviet preserve. Not a single U.S. astronaut flew in space during that period, while Soviet cosmonauts set one orbital endurance mark after another, finally reaching 185 days, more than twice the duration of America's longest Skylab mission. Most of this time was spent aboard a single Soviet spacecraft, a remarkable 20-ton mobile home in the sky called Salyut...
...fully automated, unmanned supply ship) and large, winglike solar panels (to convert sunlight into electricity). Salyut carried myriad scientific and observational gear, notably a multi-spectral camera, telescopes for scanning the heavens, kilns for processing materials in zero-g atmosphere, even a small garden for growing plants in orbit...
...space station, as the Soviets liked to call it, had plenty of amenities for its occupants: 20 viewports, exercise machines for physical fitness and, for the first time in orbit, an on-board television receiver to help relieve the long hours of isolation. The monotony was also broken by the visits of other cosmonauts, who arrived in Soyuz ferry craft, the workhorses of the Soviet manned space effort. In addition to regular supplies, they carried mail, such special snacks as fresh borsch, strawberries and quail pate, not to mention a guitar. Though Salyut was designed to last 18 months...
...long-term space voyagers once they return to earth. Many observers of the U.S. space program, including scientists within NASA, feel that in contrast to the Soviets, the U.S. space agency has paid far too little attention to what happens to the human body during long periods in orbit...
With whole armies of executives now being transferred in and out almost daily by their employers, the real estate market has been kept churning, and resale values for homes have shot into orbit. In Weston, a three-or four-bedroom ranch that might have sold new in 1970 for $50,000 would today be snapped up almost immediately...