Word: orbits
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...where to bring one of its ships down. There was little time to spare. Columbia, already in or bit for a week, had no more than three days of fuel left for generating electricity to run the spacecraft's life-support systems or get it out of orbit...
...m.p.h. Circling over White Sands in a jet, Astronaut John Young, commander of Columbia's first mission, observed with a touch of hyperbole: "Visibility is CAVU [ceiling and visibility unlimited] to Mars." With that, Mission Control gave the go-ahead for White Sands. On Columbia's 129th orbit of the earth, 14 more than planned, Lousma and Fullerton braked to re-enter the earth's atmosphere and began a long zigzagging descent over the Pacific. When a coastline finally appeared, Skipper Lousma cheerfully announced, "I think we're booming right over the Commander in Chiefs ranch...
...gases from the sun's surface. Such plumes often reach thousands of miles into space and give off a flood of charged particles that can play devilish tricks on spacecraft. In 1979, Skylab, NASA'S abandoned space workshop, came crashing prematurely to earth after its orbit was disturbed by solar activity...
...problems were exasperating, almost tinged with gallows humor. Barely had the space shuttle Columbia settled into orbit last week than the ship's veteran commander, Marine Colonel Jack Lousma, 46, developed a severe case of motion sickness. The ship itself also suffered a recurrence of an old ailment: during lift-off it lost several dozen heat-shielding tiles. As Columbia whirled 150 miles above the earth, still other things began to go wrong-two television cameras failed, the $1.2 million toilet clogged, a latch on the cargo-bay doors temporarily jammed, mysterious static rang in the astronauts' ears...
...unfortunate that they obscured the mission's true importance. By making a record-breaking third voyage into space, Columbia was providing stunning proof of NASA's basic vision: that the U.S. could build and operate a spacecraft capable of moving in and out of orbit with the reliability of a commercial jet flying between terrestrial cities...