Word: station
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...total dependence on manned launch vehicles to deploy spacecraft, the U.S. has been forced to play a catch-up game. Since January 1986, the Soviets have launched scores of satellites, sent two / scientific probes to Mars, and ferried a stream of cosmonauts between the earth and the space station Mir -- all with the aid of antiquated but tried- and-true expendable rockets. In the process, they have pushed far ahead of the U.S. in knowledge of the effects of extended space flight on humans...
...shuttle itself, is still ill defined and adrift. Unless a strong consensus emerges for clear national priorities in space, the situation is unlikely to change. With the completion of the Discovery mission, NASA will doubtless argue that the shuttle is of crucial importance in building the proposed space station scheduled for the mid-1990s. Just last week the U.S. signed an agreement with eleven Western nations to undertake jointly the construction of the manned | outpost, which would require 20 shuttle flights. Both presidential candidates support the ambitious plans for the station. But neither has yet explained how he would justify...
Others are just as vague. Should the station be a research and manufacturing facility for performing microgravity experiments and making substances not possible on earth? An assembly platform for the large craft needed to carry humans to Mars? A combination of both? In fact, a station is not needed for former astronaut Sally Ride's "Mission to Planet Earth," a proposal to study the earth's environment and atmosphere from satellites. And some argue that it may not even be needed for another major space project: a permanent manned base on the moon...
...truck stop. Most observers now agree that NASA's emphasis on the shuttle was a mistake. It tried to be all things to all people, cost $10 billion to develop and killed seven people. Nevertheless, NASA is pushing doggedly for an equally nebulous but even more expensive space station. What...
Impeccably restored, Washington' s Union Station will be a working depot again -- and perhaps the grandest public space...