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European Space Agency
European Space Agency (ESA), multinational agency dedicated to the promotion, for exclusively peaceful purposes, of cooperation among European states in space research and technology. Member states include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the ...
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space exploration
space exploration the investigation of physical conditions in space and on stars, planets, and other celestial bodies through the use of artificial satellites (spacecraft that orbit the earth), space probes (spacecraft that pass through the solar system and that may or may not orbit another cel...
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Mir
Mir a Soviet space station, launched in 1986 and designed to be permanently manned. The name is Russian, literally ‘peace’....
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icebreaker
icebreaker ship of special hull design and wide beam, with relatively flat bottom, designed to force its way through ice. When the icebreaker charges into the ice at full speed, its sharply inclined bow, meeting the edge of the ice, rises upon it, and the weight of the vessel causes the ice to coll...
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Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno
Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno , 1903-69, German philosopher, born as Theodor Adorno Wiesengrund. Forced into exile by the Nazis (1933), he spent 16 years in England and the United States before returning to Germany to take up a chair in philosophy at Frankfurt. A leading member of the Frankfurt School...
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Baikonur Cosmodrome
Baikonur Cosmodrome , formerly secret aerospace launch complex, Qyzylorda prov., S central Kazakhstan, near Leninsk (now Baikonur) but c.200 mi (320 km) SW of the mining town of Baikonur, whose name it was given to mislead the curious. The first facilities were built in the mid-1950s and served as t...
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Orbiting Astronomical Observatory
Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO), series of four orbiting observatories (see observatory, orbiting ) launched between 1966 and 1972 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to provide astronomical data in the ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths filtered out by the earth's a...
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Sputnik
Sputnik World's first artificial satellite, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. Weighing 83.5kg (184lb) and with a radio transmitter, Sputnik 1 circled the Earth for several months.http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/sputnik...
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Triad Society
Triad Society name given to a number of Chinese antidynastic secret societies by 19th-century Western observers. Most of these groups claimed descent from the Heaven and Earth Society (Taendi hui) or the Triad Society (Sanhe hui), two secret societies of the late 17th cent. that had originated in F...
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space station
space station or space platform, artificial earth satellite, usually manned, that is placed in a fixed orbit and can serve as a base for astronomical observations; zero-gravity materials processing; satellite assembly, refueling, and repair; or, possibly, as weapons platforms. The first space s...
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