Word: astronauts
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...astronomers can spot in the form of extra-bright splotches suddenly appearing on the sun, bursts of X rays and charged particles are hurled outward at high velocities. Because protons from a large flare can easily penetrate the walls of a spacecraft and fatally riddle the body of an astronaut in half an hour, planners envision an onboard shelter into which the crew could repair as soon as a solar-flare warning was sounded. One idea is to build the shelter with the heavy-walled oxygen and water tanks that must be brought along anyway. Soviet scientists are experimenting with...
...Medal of Science recipients, eight MacArthur Foundation Fellows and six Pulitzer prizewinners. Stanford students have won 59 Rhodes Scholarships and 27 Marshall Scholarships. Among the university's illustrious alumni are Supreme Court Justices William Rehnquist, Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor; Football Stars Jim Plunkett and John Elway; Astronaut Sally Ride; TV Commentator Ted Koppel and -- would you believe? -- Harvard President Derek...
...maybe not. The bailout devices consist of rockets that whip the astronauts clear of the shuttle one by one, and a pole that allows them to slide out until they are clear of the craft's wing. But both are designed to be used only when the shuttle is flying more or less level, at altitudes of up to 20,000 ft. -- well inside the earth's atmosphere. That might do some good in a mission aborted before going into orbit, or in the case of an anticipated crash landing. However, says ex-Shuttle Astronaut Donald Peterson, "it's like...
...they go, both new systems look adequate. Each is designed to get astronauts safely clear of the shuttle's fuselage and wings so they can parachute to earth. In a disaster -- say, the loss of an engine -- the crew will trigger explosives to jettison the escape-hatch cover, then exit one by one. If the rocket system is in place, each astronaut will be yanked from the ship with 2,000 lbs. of thrust. Otherwise, they will hook onto the telescoping pole, which will extend through the door, and let gravity and airflow pull them down and out of harm...
Morton Thiokol stopped its scheduled shipment of aft booster segments to Cape Canaveral, Fla., where an astronaut crew had hoped to resume flights on June 2. NASA estimated that the longest probable delay from the nozzle failure would be three months. But some of the agency's veterans speculated that the Administration will not want to risk a launch until after the November elections...