Word: space
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...space explorers measure distance in light-years, but their creator employs more conventional units for time. The sequel to Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 took place only nine years later, in 2010. The latest adventure of the still ( youthful Heywood Floyd and his cybernetic companion, HAL the computer, occurs 51 years further on. As astronomers know, 2061 is the year Halley's comet is next scheduled to enter the inner solar system, providing a sequel of its own. Despite a soft landing on that astral body, the reappearance of the celebrated black monoliths of superintelligence, and references to voicegrams, audiomail...
Hints of yet another space odyssey appear at the finale and should be ignored. 2061 occasionally offers a challenging sci-fi aphorism -- "Only Time is universal; Night and Day are merely quaint local customs found on planets that tidal forces have not yet robbed of their rotation" -- but by now the mix of imagination and anachronism is wearing as thin as the oxygen layer on Mars...
...Rabin is right, the military and judicial shows of force that brought an uneasy calm to the occupied territories last week will continue to keep the Palestinians in check. If Benvenisti and Bookbinder are right, the Israelis have only bought a little breathing space, and no amount of jail time and fines will keep the West Bank and the Gaza quiet for very long...
...contrast was stark. Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri V. Romanenko returned happily to earth last week after spending a record-setting 326 days in the space station Mir, a prototype of one from which the Soviets hope to send men to Mars before the end of the century. The same day, NASA announced that part of a newly designed booster rocket had failed during a test firing at a Morton Thiokol plant near Brigham City, Utah, causing an undetermined delay in the faltering effort to resume U.S. manned space missions. At the same plant, five workers were killed when nearly...
...twin failures at Morton Thiokol raised new congressional complaints about the troubled contractor. The comparative Soviet success in manned space flight worried other experts. Declared John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists: "The Soviet cosmonauts got a big boost on their way to Mars. They know where they're going...