Word: payloads
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.: You can understand what John Glenn means when he says -- repeatedly -- that there are more important things to pay attention to on the upcoming shuttle mission than a lowly payload specialist such as himself. For example, Glenn is going to have some skittish houseguests to take care of after Thursday's blastoff: three casefuls of large, brown, southern-style cockroaches. The nose-wrinkling experiment belongs to a Maryland high school, who are paying the bugs' round-trip ticket to discover whether zero gravity throws off cockroach reproductive skills...
...after a Ukrainian-built Zenit-2 rocket carrying 12 Globalstar satellites thundered skyward from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Sept. 10, its engine failed. The 460-ton rocket fell back to Earth, showering debris across southern Siberia and driving Globalstar's stock down 40% overnight. The $190 million payload was covered by insurance, but the disaster delayed the system's debut even further. It was a big blow. Like the first cold-beer vendor on a hot beach, Iridium is more likely than ever to win those first and most eager customers--and the ones probably willing...
...joys of being hoary of head is that you can speak frankly without grounding your career. So when Vanity Fair hunted down some ex-astronauts to ask what they thought of John Glenn's jaunt into the great blue yonder, they were none too starry-eyed. "John Glenn a payload specialist? That's bulls____," said FRANK BORMAN, second from left. "NASA could get better data monitoring him for 10 days in bed." WALLY SCHIRRA, far left, was similarly wry. "I can think of several more Senators we should boost into space." Even JIM LOVELL, second from right, next...
...will be something of a new experience for Glenn, who is used to being the captain of any ship he flies. The flight plan for the October mission lists seven Discovery crew members, from Curt Brown, the commander, to Steve Lindsey, the pilot, through three mission specialists and two payload specialists. Glenn's is the last name on the list. No sooner did the crew first meet last January than Glenn made it clear that the chain of command was fine with him. "They wanted to call me Senator, and I said no," he says. "I'm coming down here...
...including such delicacies as smoked turkey, Kona coffee and dried apricots. All the meals are sealed in plastic packets, each of which is coded with a colored dot to indicate which crew member it is intended for. The color code for Brown, the commander, is red; for Glenn, a payload specialist, it's purple. "The shrimp cocktail they fix is very, very good," says Glenn, "as good as what you'd get at Delmonico's. Curt likes shrimp, and I always tell him that when he's on the flight deck and I'm hungry, I'm going...