Word: venusized
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...most striking new feature of the long-planned Galileo mission, first scheduled for 1982, is a looping itinerary that will provide momentum for the spacecraft by utilizing the gravitational fields of Venus and the earth. This "slingshot" routing became necessary when NASA officials decided that the rocket originally scheduled to boost the craft from a shuttle cargo bay could pose a hazard; it was replaced with a safer solid-fuel booster. Another change in plans involved putting extra gold sheeting on the Galileo spacecraft because of the scheduled pass close to the superhot atmosphere of Venus...
...portrait of the shaman as showman -- demanding everything of himself and his sidemen so he can give everything onstage. The autobiography shows him honing his lyrics, teasing the word "motoring" into "motorvating" for Maybellene, finding inspiration for a verse of Brown Eyed Handsome Man from Sacher-Masoch's novel Venus in Furs, fretting that while in prison he cannot gain access to a map that would help him chart Po' Boy's itinerary in Promised Land. And once he got it right, he always wanted it to be the same kind of right. In Taylor Hackford's Hail! Hail! Rock...
Sagdeyev's era might have been short-lived except for one thing: it produced results. Among the first breakthroughs were Venera 9 and 10, projects started by Sagdeyev's predecessor, Georgi Petrov. In 1975 the two probes transmitted the first photographs of Venus' hellish surface. Imagers on the next two probes failed, but Nos. 13 and 14 sent back color photos plus a wealth of information on atmospheric, surface and subsurface chemistry. Then in 1983 came a pair of missions that stunned Western space scientists. Venera 15 and 16, in Venus' orbit, transmitted high-resolution radar maps of the planet...
...gamble paid off spectacularly. On March 4, 1986, having swung by Venus to drop off scientific probes, Vega 1 trained its camera on the comet, then less than 9 million miles away, and relayed high-quality pictures to earth. Two days later, it came within 5,500 miles of the comet's heart. Although pelted by dust, Vega 1 revealed for the first time the dimensions and dynamics of the ten-mile-long nucleus...
...mission," says Cornell Planetary Scientist Carl Sagan, "is not just world class. It is novel, diverse and appropriate. The whole idea is very clever." Notes Gerhard Neukum, of the German Aerospace Research Establishment: "The Mars mission is fantastic. It carries a huge set of instruments. They did it with Venus. Now they have focused on Mars, and it is to be expected that they will be equally successful." In fact, each of the probes will carry 25 instruments -- an enormous number, considering that the U.S.'s complex, much delayed Galileo probe to Jupiter has only...