Word: plants
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Aliens is phenomenally gripping, because it appeals to the viewer's primal instincts, like fear and motherhood. Sure, the aliens are ugly, drooling and screeching as they try to plant their eggs in their victims. But the director James Cameron creates a more general atmosphere of unrelenting fear--such as a child's fear of losing her newfound mommy--that turns your basic horror-movie shock-rush into two hours of spine-chilling terror...
...nuclei of uranium or plutonium atoms. These nuclei break apart when bombarded by neutrons, uncharged subatomic particles that are initially provided by a reactor ignition device. The shattered nuclei release energy and emit more neutrons. When uranium atoms are packed closely together, however, as they are in power-plant fuel rods, the neutrons emitted by the splitting nuclei break up other nearby nuclei. Each shattered nucleus contributes more neutrons and heat to what has now become a chain reaction, and the heat is used to produce steam that drives the electrical generators...
...megawatts of power, compared with 1,000 megawatts for large conventional reactors) ensure that temperatures never rise above 2900 degreesF. The MHTGR has another advantage, says Lidsky: its principal components could be mass- produced. Utilities could combine the outputs of several separate 80- megawatt modules to make one large plant...
...already had a bit of experience with gas reactors. Philadelphia Electric Co. successfully tested a 40-megawatt experimental version from 1967 to 1974. However, the Fort St. Vrain plant, 35 miles north of Denver, has had one breakdown after another during the decade since it began operation. But Lidsky points out that the plant is so big -- 330 megawatts -- that it needs as complex a cooling system as conventional plants. The reactor's large size, he says, has caused most of the trouble...
Already the Boeing Co. is shaping the spars and wing ribs in its Everett, Wash., plant for a new Air Force One, a 747-200B that will course the heavens with more range, communication, self-sufficiency and practical elegance than anything else in the sky. The contract let last week for the principal plane and a backup totaled $249.8 million -- a mind-boggling sum when one considers that Teddy Roosevelt, the first President to fly (19 months out of office), strapped himself into a spruce-and-wire rig down in St. Louis in 1910 and chugged over a field...