Word: solarized
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Ranging far out into the solar system, unmanned spacecraft will feel at home in vacuum, be unbothered by radiation, take advantage of weightlessness, get their energy from sunlight as green plants do on Earth. They will perform elaborate maneuvers in response to orders built into their brains, like the instincts of insects, which lead thoroughly successful lives without a trace of reason. Sometimes they will listen with sensitive radio ears for whispers of command from millions or hundreds of millions of miles away. Some of them will send tough-skinned projectiles down into hostile atmosphere and record what they report...
When the spacecraft passes beyond Earth's atmosphere, its real life begins. The shroud around it falls away; there is no air now to do damage. Gravity has fallen to zero, and frail antennae and solar panels can swing outward, pushed by feeble springs. The spacecraft absorbs sunlight, as a baby breathes air, and electrical energy pulses through its metal circulatory system. It is now a denizen of space...
...spectroscope is designed to be part of the Orbiting Solar Observatory II, a satellite which will observe the sun from a position high above the earth's atmosphere...
...impossible for ultraviolet radiation to penetrate the atmosphere and therefore the satellite, to be launched this fall, may give astronomers a "picture" of solar radiation which they have never had before. When finally in the satellite, the observatory's instrument will scan the sun and the information it sends back to earth will help explain how the sun works, how it affects the earth, and how its intense radiation might endanger a future astronant...
...both cases his findings are stimulating, but unconvincing. He presents good evidence for the adaptive value of some racial differences; for instance, skin pigmentation decreases the amount of vitamin D produced in the body by sunlight, and this seems important for Negroid peoples living in areas of maximum solar radiation...