Word: orbiting
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...results are starting to show. In September the Mars Global Surveyor, already en route to the planet, will settle into orbit and begin a two-year program of photographing and mapping the terrain below. Over the next eight years, up to eight more ships will follow. As these new probes are heading Marsward, others will be dispatched to places as familiar as the moon and as remote as Pluto. "In the next 10 years," says NASA administrator Daniel Goldin, "we'll be flying by, orbiting, landing, roving and bringing back samples from every critical planetary body in the solar system...
...Pathfinder lander, also able to take readings, could function for up to a year. No matter when the machines wink out, however, Mars is unlikely to remain unattended. On Sept. 12, Global Surveyor, another robot probe, will arrive at the planet, settle into a 250-mile-high orbit and begin two years of mapping the surface. A second lander-and-orbiter pair is set to be dispatched Marsward in 1998, with more to follow roughly every other year until 2004. Finally, in 2005, the program will culminate in a first-ever round trip: a probe that lands on Mars...
Such an evacuation would almost certainly mean the end of Mir. Its aging hardware requires round-the-clock tending, even in the best of times. For a ship that recently completed its 65,000th orbit of Earth, pulling the plug may ultimately be the only sensible--and safe--answer...
...calls EBEs, or extraterrestrial biological entities. Fortunately, it turns out, Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative tipped the balance of power. As Corso writes, "[The U.S. and U.S.S.R.] both knew who the real targets of SDI were... When we deployed our advanced particle-beam weapon and tested it in orbit for all to see, the EBEs knew and we knew that they knew that we had our defense of the planet in place...
...leave things be. Among the reasons: Popes have shunned Co-Redemptrix talk for a half-century; the bishops of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) decided not to give Mary any new titles; and such a dogma could raise "ecumenical difficulties." Translation: Protestants and the Orthodox would go into orbit, feeling Christ has been demeaned as the unique Saviour...