Word: rails
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...such as meteorological and navigational satellites will not have to be placed in bulky canisters to keep them free of contamination. Instead the devices will be taken into the Payload Changeout Room, Slick Six's third movable building. This 158-ft.-high, 6,000-ton structure moves by rail toward the waiting assembly building, where a mammoth door of six panels, each measuring 30 ft. high and 130 ft. wide, will slowly rise, just like a garage door. Inside the building-within-a-building, the payload will be lifted into the orbiter's cargo bay and secured...
...principal classes of armament, production has declined in 13 between 1977 and 1981. That drop may indicate that the Kremlin has built its arsenal up to strength. But it could also reflect the stagnation in the civilian economy, as producers fail to supply quality steel and as bottlenecks in rail transport hold up vital raw materials needed by defense contracts...
...effect is corny, but nice, like a good fishing trip. His race-track humor slides in and out of straight-faced paragraphs so deftly you hardly realize you've been stung. The author reports of an unhurried race horse, for instance, that "Sterling Drive broke from the rail, with infinite care, and headed directly for the parking lot, going so wide on the first turn that several fans groaned." The deftness and dryness here, an infinitely careful nag, indeed, is worthy of Red Smith...
Lubbers responded quickly. Unemployment compensation was cut by 5%. The first of several planned reductions lowered the minimum wage by 2.5%. The biggest sting, however, was the 3% public-sector wage cut. Outraged transport workers responded by interrupting rail, bus and tram service for five weeks. Then the sanitation workers struck, turning Holland into a landscape of trash-and taking pains to block Lubbers' own street with refuse. A postal strike halted mail deliveries for three weeks. Still, Lubbers stood firm. After Parliament approved the wage cuts, the unions conceded. But Lubbers' victory came at a cost...
...mass transit, despite the fact that it would have meant no new taxes for the first leg. As a result, the city lost all but $5.5 million of the $110 million in federal aid it had been allocated from the gas-tax fund, and its proposed 18-mile heavy-rail system appears to be on permanent hold. "It's a humbling experience to take a licking like we did," admits Alan Kiepper, general manager of Houston's Metropolitan Transit Authority. Houstonians were simply unconvinced that a costly rail line was the answer to their legendary traffic jams...