Word: space
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...this for the U.S. space program: we may have spent the past 40 years mostly ignoring the moon, but when we go back, we go back with a bang. Later today - if weather conditions and hardware permit - NASA will launch its much anticipated and deeply imaginative Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), the first American spacecraft of any kind to make a lunar trip since 1999. Not only will the LRO help us study the moon in greater detail than ever before, it should also give us our first look at the six Apollo landing sites since we abandoned the historic campgrounds...
...Three countries with little spacefaring history - Japan, China and India - have all sent probes moonward since 2007, and China in particular has made it clear that it plans to return, first with more robot ships, then with astronauts. (See a photo-essay of the world's most competitive space programs...
...have astronauts back on the moon by 2020 and on Mars in the years after. There was surely some political motivation in Bush's election-year proposal, but it was followed up by hardheaded planning and real NASA action. With the shuttles scheduled to be mothballed by 2010, the space agency has committed itself to building and flying a lunar-capable manned ship by 2015, and though the Obama Administration is reconsidering the entire lunar program, so far it's still on track. The goal is to station astronauts on the moon for months, not days, to conduct lunar studies...
...expected to produce $17 million a year to be used for buyouts. But the city's plan to improve flood protection, redevelop the riverfront and rebuild public facilities remains a concern for some. It includes buying out flood-damaged homes in the flood plain to make way for green space, flood walls and levees. "The city didn't look after their people," says Frank King, a neighborhood leader. "They have used this flood for economic cleansing, to get rid of the substandard housing that used to be homes for many people...
...June 13, when protests started to escalate, and the Iranian government moved to suppress dissent both on- and off-line, the Twitterverse exploded with tweets from people who weren't having it, both in English and in Farsi. While the front pages of Iranian newspapers were full of blank space where censors had whited-out news stories, Twitter was delivering information from street level, in real time...