Word: planeteers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Boosting heavy chunks of metal that high is expensive, however, and Iridium and its brethren are trying to fly into space on the cheap, relatively speaking. They rely on so-called low-earth-orbit satellites that zoom just a few hundred miles above the planet's surface. They're cheaper to launch since they weigh less; and since the satellites are closer to the ground, devices with small antennas and comparatively small battery packs can reach them. Most important, signals can go up and return with no perceptible delay, which is vital for voice communications. But more of them...
...Communications and by Qualcomm, a leader in cellular technology. Its European partners include France Telecom, Daimler-Benz Aerospace and Britain's Vodafone Group. Globalstar's plan is much less expensive than that of Iridium, which has built intelligent satellites that route calls among themselves, sometimes halfway around the planet. That kind of smarts makes for a system that's more flexible but more expensive and time-consuming to debug. Globalstar is betting on a network of satellites that will act as simple repeaters with all call-setup and processing accomplished in its 60 ground stations. "If you look...
...that died or never had a chance to form. The bombardment, says TIME space writer Jeffrey Kluger, continues even now: "These moons continue to be pummeled." It's a good thing, too. "The rings need to be refreshed periodically," Kluger explains. "Otherwise, they'd just fall down to the planet...
...current global crisis has no precedent since the Great Depression -? and that led to World War II. As Russia melts and Asia founders, the West?s credibility is waning fast, along with some cherished ideas, both political and economic, about the way to run a modern planet. But what works must come before what should work, and as Mahathir shakes his fist at the West and talks holy war, what he may not realize is that pragmatists everywhere ?- bankers, speculators, barbarians, maybe even George Soros -? are rooting for him. If only for a little while...
Talk about a baby boom. If you thought the postwar bulge of births was big in the West, just wait till it goes global. According to a report released Wednesday by the United Nations Population Fund, a higher proportion of the planet is entering its child-bearing years than ever before: One billion young people between the ages of 15 and 24. The most immediate result? "Millions of additional unintended or unwanted pregnancies... tens of thousands of additional maternal deaths, and at least a million more infant and child deaths," says a gloomy...