Word: tailfirst
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...first time a spacecraft had ever come back to earth tailfirst, although similar landings have been made on Mars and the moon. "My jaw dropped," says Tom Williams, director of communications for McDonnell Douglas, the defense contractor that built the odd-looking rocket. "I'd never seen a space vehicle stop on a dime before. It was like something in a monster movie...
With their swept-back wings, forward-mounted canards, or stabilizers, and pusher propellers, they look a little as if they should be moving through the air tailfirst. But the two new designs -- Beech Aircraft's Starship and Rinaldo Piaggio's P. 180 Avanti -- are very much forward-looking pieces of machinery. Using advanced technology to deliver high performance and good fuel efficiency, they could dictate the shape of small transport aircraft in the coming years...
...staircases installed at 170-foot Bonneville Dam for the convenience of fish. Object of the system is to enable Columbia River salmon to pursue their four-year life cycle: hatch in gravel beds in the river's upper tributaries, grow several inches, drift down to the ocean tailfirst, get to weigh anywhere from 10-to 60 lb., swim back up the Columbia River to spawn and die exactly where they started. The system, consists of 1) two separate "stairways" (of one-foot waterfalls separated by pools 16 ft. wide) for fish who feel like climbing to the headwaters under...
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