Word: orbiting
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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According to advocates of an SDI speedup, it might be possible in the mid- 1990s to orbit a space-based system of hundreds of satellites, called "garages," each capable of launching a dozen or so smart rocks that could strike Soviet missiles as they are launched. The system would also include ground-based smart rocks capable of striking warheads as they re-enter the atmosphere. Gerold Yonas, until recently the chief SDI scientist, says "even a modest deployment of this sort would run over $100 billion." By contrast, a full-fledged Star Wars system involving lasers and other futuristic technology...
Meteorologists attributed the abnormally high tides to an unusual cosmic dance. The combination of factors included syzygy (pronounced syz-uhjee), a twice-monthly condition in which the earth, sun and moon are most closely in alignment; perigee, when the moon is closest to the earth in its monthly orbit; perihelion, when the earth is at its shortest distance from the sun; and the tidal bulge caused by the moon when it reaches the southernmost point in its orbit...
...close together, and the fireworks begin. The monumental gravity of the neutron star raises such high tides on its companion that gases are torn wholesale from the white dwarf's surface and pulled into orbit around the neutron star, forming a so-called accretion disk. Some of that material continuously spirals down to smash into the surface of the neutron star -- at a rate of a trillion tons a second -- striking so violently that it literally explodes. Says Co-Discoverer William Priedhorsky of Los Alamos National Laboratory: "A neutron star can convert about 10% of the mass that falls...
...buried in space. He said that for a fee of $3,900, the deceased would be reduced to an ounce or less of ash and placed in a 2-in. by 5/8-in. aluminum capsule. A drum containing 5,000 of the capsules would then be shot into orbit in a Conestoga II rocket...
...Euromarket and interconnected national markets are on the way to becoming the 'sun' around which we all orbit," Hayes said...