Word: snaps
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...SNAP III's heart is a pinpoint one-hundredth of an ounce of radioactive polonium 210 encased in a molybdenum capsule. The polonium's entrapped radiation heats the capsule to above 700° F. Arranged around it like the spokes of a wheel are 20 thermocouples made of lead telluride. When their ends are heated by the capsule, a flow of electrons is set up in the thermocouples, producing an electric current. At peak power, SNAP III can turn out five watts. Before most of its polonium (half life: 140 days) is exhausted, SNAP III will generate...
...President Eisenhower's desk stood a domed metal gadget about half the size of a derby hat. Current flowing from it spun a small propeller. Named SNAP III (for System for Nuclear Auxiliary Power), the little gadget is an atomic battery small and light enough to go into a satellite and keep its instruments and radio voice going at least ten times as long as any chemical battery that the Russians or the U.S. have yet employed...
...SNAP III was developed under a modest $15,000 AEC contract with the Martin Co. of Baltimore working in conjunction with the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. But the polonium, which is made by radiating bismuth in an atomic pile, costs about $10 per curie. SNAP's charge is the equivalent of 3,000 curies, bringing the price of fuel in the capsule to $30,000. An AEC official explained that some cheaper isotope might later be substituted for polonium. If cerium 144 can be used, the unit cost might be as low as $600 per battery...
...snap his son out of his despondency. Akira's father found him a bride. Though it was an arranged marriage, Akira seemed pleased with his pretty, 19-year-old Chieko, and she with him. They delayed their honeymoon because they did not have enough money. One day last week, Emoto announced gaily: "My uncle in Iwakuni wants us to go up there for our honeymoon, and he has sent me the tickets...
...Louisiana State hardly justified its No. 1 ranking, had trouble getting through and around Clemson's beefy line, blew repeated scoring chances, scratched out a 7-0 victory in the Sugar Bowl only after a botched fourth-down center snap gave L.S.U. an easy scoring chance from Clemson's 11-yd. line...