Word: launchful
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...agency retreated to the familiar backwaters of near Earth orbit. Aside from a few high notes like the Hubble-telescope repair mission and the horror of the Challenger explosion, human space travel became downright dull. And with the first components of the NASA-led International Space Station set to launch within months, things seemed likely to stay that way. For a public that had grown to expect great things from NASA, this was pale stuff indeed. If anything could rekindle the magic of the vigorous NASA that was--instead of the flickering NASA that is--it might be the return...
More nerve-racking than mastering what goes on inside the shuttle, though, is mastering what could go on outside. One of the most hair-raising parts of Glenn's training involves emergency escape procedures. Crew members on shuttles must be prepared to ride slide-wire baskets down from the launch pad if a fully fueled shuttle threatens to blow; shimmy down an escape pole and parachute away from the ship in the event of a postlaunch emergency below an altitude of 20,000 ft.; and rappel down ropes from the hatch if the spacecraft makes an emergency landing on tarmac...
...first time Glenn flew, the family stayed at home in Arlington, Va., watching the launch on TV, since the Glenns were reluctant to pull their son and daughter out of school for the trip to Cape Canaveral. This time wife, children and the Glenns' two grandsons will all be there for lift-off. Glenn takes a small, whimsical pleasure in pointing out that his grandsons, who will be 16 and 14 in the fall, are the same age his son and daughter--now 52 and 50--were the last time he flew...
...though there's no casino on board, it's also a floating crap game. The stakes are high: Disney will launch a second vessel, the Wonder, next June, and Eisner grandly hopes for a 10- or 12-ship fleet, sailing from Florida, California and the Mediterranean, within the next decade. He's betting that the cruise industry, which fills its cabins with discounted fares, can accommodate a competitor that charges 20% higher than the norm (starting at $860 for a three-day cruise, including airfare, compared with $648 on the Royal Caribbean line's Nordic Empress). The ship is heavily...
WHEN IN LOVE, TIME IS ONLY RELATIVE The marriage between producer Robert Evans and actress Catherine Oxenberg, whose launch was so optimistically trumpeted in these very pages only three weeks ago, broke up last week. Did the end come suddenly? We put the union's duration in perspective...