Word: spacecrafts
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...smack of science fiction, but the planners are deadly serious. The race is being sponsored by the Christopher Columbus Quincentennial Jubilee Commission, which hopes to get the ships launched around Oct. 12, 1992, the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America. Among the spacecraft designers are former NASA and aerospace experts. And included on the committee that will choose the winning designs are Lieut. General James Abrahamson, former head of the Star Wars program, and former astronauts Frank Borman and John Glenn...
Increasing their velocity in Earth orbit, the spacecraft would spiral out from the planet, eventually swinging by the moon for a gravity assist that would hurl them into a trajectory toward Mars. Depending on their route and design, they could take as little as 500 days or more than 800 to reach the red planet...
Hubble never had an easy time. After the launch, engineers had to fiddle with stubborn antennas that refused to extend. When the antennas were fixed, the messages that came back to Earth indicated that the spacecraft was wobbling: when it swung from darkness to sunlight, the sun's rays striking Hubble's cold solar panels produced a minor vibration that caused the spacecraft to oscillate slowly. This motion confused instruments that were built to such precision that they could read a license plate 48 km (30 miles) away. NASA software designers are now writing programs to counteract the oscillations...
...country is now trying to free itself from dependence on foreign know-how by developing its own booster. The H-2, scheduled for its first test launch in 1993, will be able to put a two-ton spacecraft into high earth orbit. That is competitive with Europe's Ariane 4, the U.S. Titan and the Soviets' Proton booster, all of which are being marketed as commercial launchers...
...attorneys on the staff of his Washington- based Foundation on Economic Trends file about six lawsuits and threaten more. Among other causes, he has battled surrogate motherhood, animal patenting and agricultural experiments involving open-air use of genetically altered bacteria. He tried to delay the launch of the Galileo spacecraft by warning that a shuttle explosion could rain plutonium on Florida. In Wisconsin he has helped start a boycott of dairy products from cows that are being fed a genetically engineered growth hormone. Indeed, Rifkin's success at blocking research projects led one biotech newsletter to label him "the Abominable...