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Project Juno
Project Juno was a privately funded campaign which selected Helen Sharman to be the first Briton in space. As the United Kingdom did not, at that time, have a human spaceflight programme (until the UK joined the human spaceflight elements of ESA's exploration programme in December 2012, which led to Tim Peake's ESA mission in 2015), a private consortium was formed to raise money to pay the Soviet Union for a seat on a Soyuz mission to the Mir space station. The Soviet Union had recently flown Toyohiro Akiyama, a Japanese journalist, under a similar arrangement. Selection A call for applicants was publicized in the UK (one ad read "Astronaut wanted. No experience necessary"), leading to 13,000 applications. Juno selected four candidates to train in the Soviet Union: * Gordon Brooks (Royal Navy physician, then 33) * Major Timothy Mace ( Army Air Corps, 33) * Clive Smith (Kingston University lecturer, 27) * Helen Sharman (food technologist, 26) Eventually Mace and Sharman we ...
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Memorex
Memorex Corp. began as a computer tape producer and expanded to become both a consumer media supplier and a major IBM plug compatible peripheral supplier. It was broken up and ceased to exist after 1996 other than as a consumer electronics brand specializing in disk recordable media for CD and DVD drives, flash memory, computer accessories and other electronics. History and evolution Established in 1961 in Silicon Valley, Memorex started by selling computer tapes, then added other media such as disk packs. The company then expanded into disk drives and other peripheral equipment for IBM mainframes. During the 1970s and into the early 1980s, Memorex was worldwide one of the largest independent suppliers of disk drives and communications controllers to users of IBM-compatible mainframes, as well as media for computer uses and consumers. The company's name is a portmanteau of "memory excellence". Memorex entered the consumer media business in 1971 and started the ad cam ...
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British Astronauts
The British space programme is the British government's work to develop British space capabilities. The objectives of the current civil programme are to "win sustainable economic growth, secure new scientific knowledge and provide benefits to all citizens." The first official British space programme began in 1952. In 1959, the first satellite programme was started, with the Ariel series of British satellites, built in the United States and the UK and launched using American rockets. The first British satellite, Ariel 1, was launched in 1962. The British space programme has always emphasized uncrewed space research and commercial initiatives. It has never been government policy to create a British astronaut corps. The British government did not provide funding for the International Space Station until 2011. During the 1960s and 1970s, a number of efforts were made to develop a British satellite launch capability. A British rocket named Black Arrow did succeed in placing a singl ...
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British Space Programme
The British space programme is the British government's work to develop British space capabilities. The objectives of the current civil programme are to "win sustainable economic growth, secure new scientific knowledge and provide benefits to all citizens." The first official British space programme began in 1952. In 1959, the first satellite programme was started, with the Ariel series of British satellites, built in the United States and the UK and launched using American rockets. The first British satellite, Ariel 1, was launched in 1962. The British space programme has always emphasized uncrewed space research and commercial initiatives. It has never been government policy to create a British astronaut corps. The British government did not provide funding for the International Space Station until 2011. During the 1960s and 1970s, a number of efforts were made to develop a British satellite launch capability. A British rocket named Black Arrow did succeed in placing a sing ...
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British National Space Centre
The British National Space Centre (BNSC) was an agency of the Government of the United Kingdom, organised in 1985, that coordinated civil space activities for the United Kingdom. It was replaced on 1 April 2010 by the United Kingdom Space Agency (UKSA). Structure BNSC operated as a voluntary partnership of ten British government departments and agencies and Research Councils. The civil portion of the British space programme focused on space science, Earth observation, satellite telecommunications, and global navigation (for example GPS and Galileo). The latest version of the UK civil space strategy which defined the goals of BNSC was published in February 2008. Notably the BNSC had a policy against human spaceflight, and did not contribute to the International Space Station. Staffing arrangements Rather than being a full space agency as maintained by some other countries, BNSC HQ comprised about thirty civil servants on rotation from the partners. The Department for Busi ...
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Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (; ; 18 July 1918 – 5 December 2013) was a South African anti-apartheid activist who served as the first president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the country's first black head of state and the first elected in a fully representative democratic election. His government focused on dismantling the legacy of apartheid by fostering racial reconciliation. Ideologically an African nationalist and socialist, he served as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) party from 1991 to 1997. A Xhosa, Mandela was born into the Thembu royal family in Mvezo, Union of South Africa. He studied law at the University of Fort Hare and the University of Witwatersrand before working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There he became involved in anti-colonial and African nationalist politics, joining the ANC in 1943 and co-founding its Youth League in 1944. After the National Party's white-only government established apartheid, a syste ...
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President Of South Africa
The president of South Africa is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of South Africa. The president heads the executive branch of the Government of South Africa and is the commander-in-chief of the South African National Defence Force. Between 1961 and 1994, the office of head of state was the state presidency. The president is elected by the National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, and is usually the leader of the largest party, which has been the African National Congress since the first multiracial election was held on 27 April 1994. The Constitution limits the president's time in office to two five-year terms. The first president to be elected under the new constitution was Nelson Mandela. The incumbent is Cyril Ramaphosa, who was elected by the National Assembly on 15 February 2018 following the resignation of Jacob Zuma. Under the interim constitution (valid from 1994–96), there was a Government of National Unity, in which a mem ...
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Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft and many forms of STOL (Short TakeOff and Landing) or STOVL (Short TakeOff and Vertical Landing) aircraft cannot perform without a runway. In 1942, the Sikorsky R-4 became the first helicopter to reach full-scale production.Munson 1968.Hirschberg, Michael J. and David K. Dailey"Sikorsky". ''US and Russian Helicopter Development in the 20th Century'', American Helicopter Society, International. 7 July 2000. Although most earlier designs used more than one main rotor, the configuration of a single main rotor accompanied by a vertical anti-torque tail rotor (i.e. unicopter, not to be confused with the single-blade monocopter) has become the most comm ...
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Vitali Zholobov
Vitaly Mikhaylovich Zholobov (russian: link=no, Виталий Михайлович Жолобов; born 18 June 1937) is a retired Soviet cosmonaut who flew on Soyuz 21 space flight as the flight engineer. Career Zholobov joined the space programme from the Soviet Air Force where he held the rank of Colonel-engineer. His only trip to space involved a two-month stay on the Salyut 5 space station (Soyuz 21 mission). The flight was scheduled to last for 60 days but lasted for only 49. The reason for the cancellation was the detection of a noxious odor on board. Vitaly Zholobov reported to the Mission Control Center that the smell was similar to that of a propellant which was known to be toxic. The Control Center decided to abort the mission to avoid exposing the crew to further risk and because the research and technology programs were already successfully finished. He was in orbit from 6 June 1976 to 24 August 1976.
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Cosmonaut
An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the term is sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists, and tourists. "Astronaut" technically applies to all human space travelers regardless of nationality. However, astronauts fielded by Russia or the Soviet Union are typically known instead as cosmonauts (from the Russian "kosmos" (космос), meaning "space", also borrowed from Greek). Comparatively recent developments in crewed spaceflight made by China have led to the rise of the term taikonaut (from the Mandarin "tàikōng" (), meaning "space"), although its use is somewhat informal and its origin is unclear. In China, the People's Liberation Army Astronaut Corps astronauts and th ...
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Soyuz TM-11
Soyuz TM-11 was the eleventh expedition to the Russian Space Station Mir, using a Soyuz-TM crew transport vessel. The mission notably carried a Japanese television reporter from Tokyo Broadcasting System.The mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-tm11.htm Crew Mission highlights Soyuz TM-11 was the 11th expedition to Mir, which spent 175 days docked to the space station. Coincidentally it was launched on the same day as STS-35. As the mission carried Toyohiro Akiyama, a reporter for the Japanese television network Tokyo Broadcasting System, the spacecraft's launch shroud and its Soyuz booster were painted with the Japanese flag and advertisements for Sony, Unicharm is a Japanese company that manufactures disposable hygiene products, household cleaning products, specializing in the manufacture of diapers for both babies and adult incontinence, feminine hygiene products and pet care products. The company ..., and Otsuka Pharmac ...
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Soyuz TM-12
Soyuz TM-12 was the 12th expedition to Mir, and included the first Briton in space,The mission report is available here: http://www.spacefacts.de/mission/english/soyuz-tm12.htm Helen Sharman. Crew Mission highlights The Mir crew welcomed aboard Anatoli Artsebarski, Sergei Krikalev (on his second visit to the station), and British cosmonaut-researcher Helen Sharman, who was aboard as part of Project Juno, a cooperative venture partly sponsored by British private enterprise. Sharman's experimental program, which was designed by the Soviets, leaned heavily toward life sciences, her speciality being chemistry. A bag of 250,000 pansy seeds was placed in the Kvant-2 EVA airlock, a compartment not as protected from cosmic radiation as other Mir compartments. Sharman also contacted nine British schools by radio and conducted high-temperature superconductor experiments with the Elektropograph-7K device. Sharman commented that she had difficulty finding equipment on Mir as there was a ...
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