2012

Orbitsville by Bob Shaw (Italian edition)

1

The novel “Orbitsville” by Bob Shaw was published for the first time in the magazine “Galaxy Science Fiction” in installments between June and August 1974 and as a book in 1975. It’s the first novel of the Orbitsville trilogy.

The Space Shuttle Orbiter Endeavour atop Over Land Transporter (OLT) after exiting the Los Angeles International Airport (Photo NASA/Bill Ingalls)

0

About three weeks ago the Space Shuttle Orbiter Endeavour arrived in Los Angeles. Thursday evenings there was the start of the operations to transport it to the California Science Center to be exhibited at the Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion. Between the international airport it left from and its destination there are less than 20 km (about 12 miles) but the transport went on for almost three days.

The Soyuz ST-B rocket lift off with two Galileo IOV satellites (Photo ESA–S. Corvaja)

1

Two satellites of the Galileo project were launched into orbit yesterday when in Europe it was evening from French Guiana using a Soyuz ST-B rocket. The two satellites are part of the Galileo project, an alternative to GPS created by the European Union, of which they represent an important step because the first two satellites had been launched into orbit on October 21, 2011 and four is the minimum number to have a constellation and test the system.