Word: xenon
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Mojave Desert, as the space shuttle Challenger fired thruster rockets to steady its attitude. Then, after a wait of about three minutes, ground observers glimpsed the unlighted shuttle. Silently it glided into view just 200 ft. above the end of runway 22. In the glare of blue xenon searchlights, Navy Captain Richard Truly, the mission commander, flawlessly guided the orbiter, nose up, to its first nighttime landing. Challenger's arrival at Edwards Air Force Base last week, at 12:40 a.m. California time, ended a six-day flight that drew raves from NASA officials. Crowed the shuttle...
...different way. Like a huge ghost ship, the 100-ton Challenger will silently sweep in over the Mojave Desert with nary a beacon light blinking. It will not be visible until it is about 200 feet above the runway; then it will begin reflecting the illumination from batteries of xenon searchlights along the strip...
...Xenon, chic and slightly battered, is Cornelia's latter-day West Side joint. One of her six best friends, Howard Stein, 40, runs the place. The other five best pals: her mother, brother, one of her two agents-Cornelia hopes to model and endorse cosmetics-a movie producer, and Stein's wife, Tawn, 32. This afternoon Stein is explaining how to sing "these soulful songs with percussive interludes." Tonight is to be Cornelia's second public performance as a rock-'n'-roll singer. Last fall she stood up and sang a tune...
Onstage with her will be a handsome group of other young Xenon habitues...
...next couple of hours Cornelia sits up high on the back of the banquette that she and her friends always occupy at Xenon, scanning the crowd. She drinks champagne (Moet & Chandon) and flicks Marlboro ashes from her pretty taffeta dress (Fabrice). Some time after 3 a.m., she leaves with Roberto for another discotheque, Studio 54, and stays there until...