Word: spacecrafts
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...from its Cape Canaveral launch pad as planned, astronomers will let out a long-delayed cheer. At last the Galileo mission, which has languished for more than a decade because of technical debates and the Challenger explosion, will be getting under way. Astronauts on Atlantis will release the Galileo spacecraft, setting it on a six-year, 2.5 billion-mile journey to Jupiter. There the probe will take the first direct measurements of the planet's dense clouds and hurricane-like winds...
Opponents charge that a disaster during launch could spew large amounts of radioactive fallout throughout Florida and cause 2,000 cases of lung, bone and liver cancer. The danger, they say, does not end with a successful takeoff. To gather momentum, the Galileo spacecraft will first make a swing around Venus and two around the earth before hurtling off to Jupiter. Critics are concerned that the vehicle could collide with the earth during close flybys...
...when a satellite launched by the Air Force burned up over the Pacific, tripling the amount of radioactive plutonium 238 in the environment. It is not clear what health effects that might have had. The generators were then redesigned, and in two subsequent accidents in which spacecraft broke apart, no radioactivity is known to have escaped...
...light, too, heightens the audience's sense that M has been cast adrift. Jerome Sirlin's innovative set makes use of a multitude of opaque and translucent screens upon which are projected images as diverse as primeval forests, alien spacecraft and New York City brownstones. The shifting patterns of light chase M around and dance with her in a malevolent pas de deux, whimsically trapping her and letting her go as her mood shifts from hope to despair. The light and sound join forces to overwhelm M, sometimes leaving her a helpless lump on the floor...
...their nation's most highly touted space projects: Phobos 2, an unmanned craft launched last July to dispatch two landing probes onto the Martian moon Phobos. Repeated attempts to re-establish contact were fruitless. A companion vessel had been lost in space last August. The two spacecraft were part of the longtime Soviet push to explore Mars, an effort that Moscow has several times invited the U.S. to join. Although Phobos 2 had managed to send back information on the Martian atmosphere, magnetic field and environment, some U.S. analysts believe the mishaps in the $500 million project raise questions about...