Word: planet
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...years since John McPhee struck out for areas relatively unknown, to prove by deft reportage that anything can be interesting if it is presented well. He has written arrestingly about subjects as mundane as oranges and as momentous as high-energy physics and the geologic forces that shape our planet. The three pieces that constitute his 20th book, Atchafalaya, Cooling the Lava and Los Angeles Against the Mountains, deal with the power of determined people to tame water, fire and earth...
...Neptune, it has already made several discoveries. It has found a new moon to add to the known duo, % Triton and Nereid. Labeled 1989-N1, the object is between 125 and 400 miles across and has a surprisingly ordinary orbit. Like most moons, 1989-N1 orbits nearly over its planet's equator and in the same direction as the planet's rotation, implying that it formed with or soon after Neptune...
...then work backward and take the steps to get us there." That would eliminate the let's-build-it-and-see-what-it's-good-for approach. Far from withering, other space initiatives would be lifted by the rising tide of national interest and funding. Unmanned probes to the planets would continue, and NASA would still be able to launch the Mission to Planet Earth, a series of satellites designed to study the planet's environment and give scientists the information they need to head off ecological disaster...
...Mars mission is 2020. That allows plenty of time for a measured approach and spreads the expenditure over a sensible period. It also gives NASA ample opportunity to choose the next goal after Mars -- exploration of the asteroid belt, for example, or a manned trip to the outer planets. Robot probes would have to study the Red Planet in depth first. One, the Mars Observer, is scheduled for a 1992 launch, and others would have to follow...
...costs, the U.S. should encourage as much participation as possible by foreign governments. The Soviets, Europeans and Japanese all have active space programs, and duplication of efforts will increasingly be seen as an unnecessary waste. Many countries are interested in participating in the Freedom project or Mission to Planet Earth or both, and the Soviets have accepted international help on their Mars probes...