Word: rocketeers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Achieving the degree of effectiveness that would provide a shield for the entire U.S. population, the panel said, depends on the ability to intercept Soviet missiles just after they have been launched, when their heat-emitting rocket engines provide a distinctive radar clue. No such "signature" is available during later stages of deployment, and detection is further complicated after the booster phase, when the rocket fires multiple reentry vehicles, including some decoys. Even if only 5% of Soviet missiles penetrated the space shield, the group argued, as many as 60 million Americans would...
...Soviets already have several means of foiling attempts at booster-stage interception. For example, the U.C.S. panel said, the Soviets could increase the power of their weapons' rocket boosters, cutting their burn time from a present average of 5 min. to as little as 40 sec. "We know very well how to defeat these defensive systems," says Henry Kendall, an M.I.T. physics professor and U.C.S. chairman. "We don't know how to build them." Further work on the project, the U.C.S. scientists contend, will destabilize the strategic balance, which depends on both sides being equally vulnerable to attack...
...quiet, Lebanese-style, descended on the shattered remnants of Beirut last week. On most days, only occasional bursts of machine-gun fire flew across the "green line" separating the Christian eastern part of the city from the predominantly Muslim west. Late in the week, heavier machine-gun and rocket duels erupted between Christian and Muslim militiamen, killing two people and wounding at least 27 others. But in the early stages of the uneasy Pax Syriana imposed two weeks ago by Syrian President Hafez Assad, the main participants in the Lebanese tragedy were trying to shift most of their efforts from...
...national organization, as evidenced by his ability to file full slates of delegate candidates in only the District of Columbia, Ohio and Puerto Rico. In Iowa and New Hampshire, Hart practiced "retail politics," tirelessly addressing small audiences. The strategy paid off by winning enough votes in those states to rocket the Senator to national attention, but it will be of no use in the big, delegate-rich states to which the contest is now shifting. "There are more people who vote in my congressional district than vote in the whole of New Hampshire," says Edward Vrdolyak, chairman of the Cook...
...where the rest of the shuttle vehicle can be assembled. Like the tower, the assembly building will have a crane in its roof. Together the two machines can hoist the empty, 154.4-ft.-long, 69,000-lb. external tank of a future shuttle into place between the stacks of rocket boosters. Clearance on each side: less than ¼ in. The final element in the assembly, the main body of the shuttle, or orbiter, is mounted on the external tank by means of a double crane...