Word: orbiters
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Despite initial Russian hints of a complex mission of long duration, U.S. scientists suspected shortly after Salyut was launched that something had gone wrong. The heavy cylindrical craft, intended as the hub of a space station, reached an orbit of only 140 by 130 miles. That meant that it was passing through the outer fringes of the atmosphere, which would slow it down and cause it to burn up in a plunge back toward earth within a few weeks...
Delay in the launch of Soyuz 10 and its three-man crew stirred more suspicions. Russian officials were apparently deciding if it was worthwhile trying to rendezvous and dock with a craft that would not long remain in orbit. When Soyuz was finally launched, it was unintentionally shot into an orbit higher than Salyut's. It took nearly two days for the manned craft to reach and dock with its target-an operation that the cosmonauts later compared to bringing a train into a large railroad station. Then, only 5½ hours later, having made no attempt to board...
Cosmodromes on the barren steppes of Kazakhstan trembled with the thunder of departing rockets last week. An unmanned space vehicle named Salyut (Salute) roared off its launch pad and was sent into a near-earth orbit. It was followed four days later by a three-man crew in Soyuz (Union) 10. As many as three additional Soyuz ships were reported poised to join the others in orbit. Ten years after Yuri Gagarin's pioneering flight, the Soviet Union had seemingly begun its most ambitious venture into space: a long-expected attempt to assemble a manned station hi earth orbit...
...telescopes picked up a second craft racing in pursuit of Salyut. Observers saw the two ships, shining as brightly as first-magnitude stars, crossing the night skies of northern Europe. Actually, Soyuz 10 was given a bigger boost than intended, and it arced into a 130-by 154-mile orbit, placing it above Salyut's path. Observed Flight Commander Vladimir Shatalov, 43: "Looks like you threw us up a bit too high. Well, it doesn't matter, we'll fix it." By briefly firing Soyuz's engine, the crew lowered the spacecraft's orbit...
...ever-increasing amounts around the world, it is being incinerated, converted into fertilizer, used as landfill, recycled into new products or dumped carelessly into rivers and seas. Still it piles up. To keep ahead of the accumulating waste, some scientists have even suggested lofting it into perpetual solar orbit or rocketing it into the sun, where it would be consumed by nuclear fires. Now two University of Washington scientists have proposed what may be a much simpler terrestrial solution: burying civilization's debris deep within the earth...