Word: skylab
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Although the U.S. Skylab space station has overshadowed recent Russian manned space ventures, the Soviet Union is pressing ahead as strongly as ever in unmanned exploration of the cosmos. Last week the Russians took advantage of the current favorable position of the earth and Mars-an alignment that occurs only once every two years-to launch two more unmanned spacecraft toward the Red Planet. Dubbed Mars 4 and 5, the ships should reach the vicinity of the earth's nearest planetary neighbor, now some 42 million miles away, in about six months...
...first Skylab astronauts proved beyond a doubt that man could live and work in zero-G for as long as 28 days...
...second Skylab mission was originally scheduled for 56 days, but at week's end NASA officials decided to extend the flight by three days...
...initial Skylab team had to cope with the loss of part of the ship's shielding and with a major failure in its electrical system.* By contrast, the second team should find the lab in good working order. As the countdown began last week, the only potentially serious problem reported by mission controllers was a malfunction in an attitude-control gyroscope, the second to break down so far (seven of Skylab's complement of nine gyros in the triply-redundant system are still working). The astronauts will carry up a replacement gyro. Already on board is a twin...
...cordiality, there were signs of old tensions. The Russians were originally scheduled to spend six weeks in Houston, but they cut their visit to two weeks. Reason: had they stayed on, they would have been hard put to refuse an invitation to witness the launch of the second Skylab crew from Cape Kennedy, scheduled for July 28. The Russians have repeatedly shunned such invitations because protocol would have required them to invite American astronauts to one of their own lift-offs-something they have steadfastly declined...