Word: space
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Most mystifying of all in the era of flawless space shots is the fact that the military often seems unable to develop new weapons on schedule and in working order. Some projects turn out well, of course, such as the SR-71 reconnaissance plane (see SCIENCE). But the new tank program is a mess, with three separate projects years behind schedule and far in the red. The M-16 rifle now in use in Viet Nam is a sound weapon, but it went into full production inexcusably late. For a time the Communists, with their new Russian-designed...
Astronauts have never been known to send their compliments to the chef who dreams up the dehydrated and otherwise denaturalized chow that they take along in space. So it came as quite a surprise last Christmas Day when Apollo 8's Jim Lovell suddenly began radioing lavish thanks for his dinner. It was all a private joke, Command Pilot Frank Borman explained last week. What Lovell was giving thanks for were three 1-oz. bottles of brandy that had been smuggled aboard for the boys. Sad to say, Borman vetoed the libation, and it was locked...
...enough to heat the Blackbird's titanium skin to cherry-red incandescence. An intricate system of pumps and pipelines circulates fuel near enough to the skin to absorb heat and carry it to cooler parts of the plane where it is radiated away. Even so, if the space-suited two-man crew cannot take time to cool off the craft thoroughly before it descends, the SR-71 remains too hot to touch for an hour after landing...
...most fascinating reports at last week's New Orleans seminar of the American Cancer Society was made not by a doctor or biologist, but by an aeronautical engineer. Clarence Cone Jr., of NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia, was assigned by the space agency to study the effect on cell division of any radiation that astronauts might encounter. Cone knew that normal cells, grown in the laboratory, will not multiply and crowd one another beyond a certain point. But cancer cells lack this "contact inhibition," and are joined by intimate bonds or "bridges" of cellular material...
...looked up from his microphone and equipment and tried to see who these intruders were. He saw no one, just some areas of what looked like yellow-tinged solid space. He was scared. He picked up his tape recorder and ran into the snow...