Word: setting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1960
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week, in togas and sandals, the Junior Classical League delegates made New Mexico's neo-Pueblo campus look like a set from Ben-Hur. Gorged on deviled eggs in the Student Union, supine banqueters cheered a female snake dancer. Borne on a litter into the football stadium, purple-robed League President Ernest ("The Emperor'') Polansky, 18, gave his pagan blessing to Olympic games, complete with chariot races. In deadly earnest, white-robed candidates for top offices politicked in the ballroom. Taking no chances, they made their convention pitches in English...
...years before Russia launched Sputnik. He found no takers. Then, when he learned three years later that NASA was experimenting with large, inflatable satellites-but to test air resistance, not space communications-Pierce took his case in person to Washington. He persuaded Sputnik-shocked Government officials to set aside funds for a space project that, however practical, was noncompetitive with Russia. Pierce's proposal was pragmatic indeed; in 1927, U.S. overseas telephone calls totaled only 11,000; last year 3,000,000 intercontinental calls were placed from the U.S. Dr. Pierce reasoned that a string of reflecting satellites would...
...Mojave Desert. "This is fantastic," White cried. "This is really fantastic up here." At that moment, he was an estimated 131,000 ft. above the earth, nearly 25 miles. He was flying a rocket-powered X-15, North American's Black Dart, which only eight days before had set another record-traveling at the fastest speed in history, 2,196 m.p.h...
...which permitted no margin for error. Jets first swept the 1,800-lb. satellite's nose downward until it pointed to earth at a 60° angle. Pins kicked loose, freeing the 349-lb. instrument capsule for its descent to earth, and the newly installed gas jets immediately set it spinning at 60 r.p.m. The quick blast of a retrorocket slowed its speed of descent. As the Discoverer capsule knifed into earth's atmosphere, it stopped spinning, shed all useless encumbrances-its gas jet equipment, the retrorocket, and the remains of a protective nose cone-and pared itself...
...seemed to amuse itself by bouncing a ball down the stairs. Then the ball began to thud like a sack of potatoes. Empty rooms echoed with eerie cries for help. But what made it all intolerable was when the ghost sat down with the family before the television set and amused itself by brushing clammy hands across unsuspecting faces...