Word: plugged
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...confident their ingenuity will pay off, Spektr still won't be ready for the kind of zero-G science that astronauts have been doing aboard Mir in exchange for U.S. payments of $472 million to the cash-strapped Russian space agency. That will require an "external" space walk to plug Spektr's puncture. Nor will the pressure ease on Goldin, who is already being urged by Capitol Hill to call off further visits to Mir by Americans. Joining these voices last week was Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, also the beneficiary of a celebrated space rescue. "Mir has done...
...escape capsule just in case. The blunder, which cut all power to the station's electricity, orientation, life support and communications systems, occurred while the crew was preparing to fix the station's power system, which was damaged after Mir collided with a cargo ship in June. Once the plug was pulled, the station began to spin chaotically, turning away from the sun and draining its already low energy supply. Crew members huddled in Soyuz, where independent life support and power systems are stored, breathing oxygen from its emergency canisters. As usual, Russian space agency officials insisted that...
...flights to Mir and for other joint projects--was already questioning whether it was wise to fly such a derelict ship. With two more Americans still set to ride aboard Mir before this cycle of joint flights ends, in May 1998, many on Capitol Hill want to pull the plug on the missions. "The incident," says Indiana Representative Tim Roemer, "should prompt further debate over how much we are willing to sacrifice for manned space science." NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin doesn't agree, and for now is standing by the Russians. "Things go wrong in space all the time...
Such an evacuation would almost certainly mean the end of Mir. Its aging hardware requires round-the-clock tending, even in the best of times. For a ship that recently completed its 65,000th orbit of Earth, pulling the plug may ultimately be the only sensible--and safe--answer...
...suicide in this country [is]...rejection of nearly all efforts to permit it," Rehnquist wrote. "The asserted 'right' to assistance in committing suicide is not a fundamental liberty interest..." The Justices also rejected the parallel between the practice and the request of someone on life support to have the plug pulled, a right upheld by the court in the past...