Word: spaceships
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...Clarke novel superior aliens arriving in the form of a black monolith, the Devil, or a spaceship as big as a planet, would resolve the stalemate, usually by initiating man into a higher consciousness. Overmind--mind without matter--is the highest product of evolution in Clarke's scheme. Such a mind can flit from star to star, experience eternity as a single instant, and generally paint the universe red. (so if you were wondering what that baby floating across the stars at the end of 2001 was all about, now you know...
...first time, NASA's new space shuttle OV (for Orbiter Vehicle) 101 cut loose from the 747 mother ship and maneuvered safely to earth on its own. As NASA officials-and much of the nation via television-watched with ringers crossed, the shuttle, christened Enterprise after the spaceship in Star Trek, swooped in graceful arcs down through the clear desert air over Edwards Air Force Base in California. Then, as if both ship and crew had been doing it forever, it touched down perfectly and rolled to a stop on the 11-km.-long (7 miles) bed of Rogers...
...film buffs and science fiction addicts-two groups united usually only by their enthusiasm. The first week in April, indeed, 6,000 color transparencies from the film were stolen from the production offices; they are now selling for more than $5 each to sci-fi freaks. Some of the spaceship models used for special effects were later stolen from a workshop, and they too are being advertised on the open market. "Star Wars is the costume epic of the future," says Ben Bova, editor of Analog, one of the leading science fiction magazines. "It's a galactic Gone With...
...Space Odyssey (1968). But even by that standard, Star Wars is tops. To work out the photographic special effects, Lucas hired John Dykstra, an expert in the field. For his space scenes, Kubrick had used what is called composite opticals: he would put one -part of a scene-a spaceship, say -on film and black out the background. Then he would cover over the spaceship, roll the film through the camera again and put in another part of the scene, such as the moon behind the spaceship. And so on. This process of multiple exposure was not only enormously expensive...
Should plans for the space sailer hit a snag, earthlings could still get their first closeup view of Halley's comet in 1986. Another group at J.P.L. is working on the design of a spaceship that would be propelled by an ion engine; a small, continuous amount of thrust would be provided by the engine's ejecting ions produced when a beam of electrons (generated by electric current from solar cells) is sent through vaporized mercury. Such a low-thrust ion engine could, like the sunjammer's sail, maneuver a ship to a rendezvous with the comet...