Word: sec
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...which pushes the bullet forward. The maximum speed such gases-and thus the gun's projectile too -can reach is severely constrained. None of the particles in the gases can travel faster than the speed of sound through the gas, at best about 10 km (6 miles) per sec...
Rockets, which are also driven by exploding chemicals, can exceed these sonic limits because the combustion takes place in the projectile itself. But rockets also operate under handicaps. So large are the fuel requirements for reaching orbital speed of 8 km (5 miles) per sec. that no one has yet been able to place a payload into orbit totaling more than 1% of the weight of the vehicle on the ground...
...would against a motor's rotor. But instead of spinning, the plasma moves forward, guided by the rails and pushing the projectile ahead of it. Not constrained by any sonic limitation, the plasma could, theoretically at least, approach the speed of light (300,000 km per sec...
...fugitive Financier Robert Vesco, 44, however, boating is only a pastime. He devotes his main energies to trying to quash federal indictments that charge him with looting an estimated $224 million from Geneva-based Investors Overseas Services, Ltd., in the early 1970s, and then trying to stifle an SEC inquiry into his activities by illegally donating $200,000 to Richard Nixon's re-election campaign. (Former Attorney General John Mitchell and Campaign Finance Chairman Maurice Stans, who were indicted along with Vesco, were acquitted in 1974. Though Vesco is safe from extradition from the Bahamas, where he fled...
From his palmy refuge, Vesco has been busy spinning an elaborate web of bribery plots that he hopes will somehow enmesh the Carter Administration and result in getting the charges against him dropped. The Justice Department, the FBI, the SEC, a Senate subcommittee and a federal grand jury in New York City are investigating his activities. Vesco's goal, says a high Justice Department official, "is to embarrass the Administration so that he can come back home with immunity from his legal problems...