Word: planets
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...most Iranians, there could be no turning back. Reported TIME Correspondent William McWhirter: "Tehran in many ways is as bleak and lifeless as a dead planet, but it is surprising how little four months of strikes and almost complete economic denial have affected the majority of the population. Paradoxically, the poorest seemed to be faring the best, perhaps because of their access to community food cooperatives and neighborhood organizations. When asked about the 'economic ruin' of his country, Tehran's Ayatullah Taleghani replied firmly: 'We do not mind at all that the economy is destroyed...
SPUTNIK. It was the earth's only other satellite except the moon, a polished metal sphere the size of a beach ball, hurtling around the planet at 18,000 m.p.h. An NBC radio announcer that October in 1957 bade his audience: "Listen now, for the sound which forever separates the old from the new." And over thousands of radios, from somewhere in space, came an eerie beep ... beep ... beep...
...alien vessel, hurtling toward Mars, blasted its remaining rocket engine and moved into an elliptical orbit. It was the first of twin Viking spacecraft, each with an orbiter and a lander, launched by NASA to help satisfy man's curiosity about the possibilities of life on the planet. The Viking I orbiter's immediate chore was to survey the Martian surface and transmit pictures of potential landing sites. Once the lander was safely down (on July 20, 1976), the orbiter began snapping away at its aerial photographic study...
...picture above shows the planet's great northern volcano, Olympus Mons, the largest known to man. Its multiringed crater measures some 50 miles across and towers 15 miles above a base that stretches for some 375 miles, roughly the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The volcano was observed from a height of 5,000 miles on a Martian morning in midsummer. The clouds rimming the volcano are seasonal, limited to spring and summer; scientists postulate that they may be formed when ice condenses from the atmosphere as it cools while moving up the crater's flanks...
...scientists will have to be satisfied with pictures of the mysterious Red Planet, rather than an eyewitness view; NASA's dream of sending man to Mars has been dashed by earthly budget cuts. At the 145th national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science last week in Houston, Edward C. Ezell, a space historian, argued that the manned-flight blueprints at least be kept for future generations. Some day, he said sadly, "the dreamer quality of science" will be restored...