Starliner

Starliner may refer to:

See also

Ford Starliner

The Ford Starliner was the fastback version of the flagship Galaxie line of full-size Fords in 1960 and 1961. .

In 1960, the Starliner hardtop, along with the Sunliner convertible, made up the Galaxie Special Series. It utilized the high-level Galaxie trim, however the Galaxie name on the trunklid was replaced by Starliner script. In 1961 the Starliner hardtop and Sunliner convertible were part of the Galaxie Series.

The Ford Starliner shares its name with the 1952-1954 Studebaker Starliner and the Lockheed L-1649A airplane.

Characterized by their thin roof pillars, fastback styling and slippery aerodynamics, they symbolized 1960s jet age design. While the '60 & '61 body styles share only their roof lines and chassis, they did share the same overall styling concept.

The base engine in 1960 & 1961 was the aging 292 CID Y-block V-8, with the optional 352 motor that was originally introduced in 1958. In 1961 Ford offered the new Thunderbird 390 cubic-inch motor in 3 versions with the top line offering in 375 horsepower. There was also a dealer option for a 6V-401 HP that came with a three-2 barrel manifold and carb setup in the trunk to be installed by the dealer or the buyer.

Space station

A space station, also known as an orbital station or an orbital space station, is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew, which is designed to remain in space (most commonly as an artificial satellite in low Earth orbit) for an extended period of time and for other spacecraft to dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by lack of major propulsion or landing systems. Instead, other vehicles transport people and cargo to and from the station. As of September 2014 two space stations are in orbit: the International Space Station, which is permanently manned, and China's Tiangong-1 (which successfully launched on September 29, 2011), which is unmanned most of the time. Previous stations include the Almaz and Salyut series, Skylab and most recently Mir.

Today's space stations are research platforms, used to study the effects of long-term space flight on the human body as well as to provide platforms for greater number and length of scientific studies than available on other space vehicles. Each crew member staying aboard the station for weeks or months, but rarely more than a year. Most of the time crew remain at station but its not necessary that crew should have to be stay at station. Since the ill-fated flight of Soyuz 11 to Salyut 1, all manned spaceflight duration records have been set aboard space stations. The duration record for a single spaceflight is 437.7 days, set by Valeriy Polyakov aboard Mir from 1994 to 1995. As of 2013, three astronauts have completed single missions of over a year, all aboard Mir.

CST-100 Starliner

The CST-100 Starliner (Crew Space Transportation) crew capsule is a spacecraft design under construction by Boeing in collaboration with Bigelow Aerospace as their entry for NASA's Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. Its primary mission is to transport crew to the International Space Station, and to private space stations such as the proposed Bigelow Aerospace Commercial Space Station.

It is similar to the Orion, a spacecraft being built for NASA by Lockheed Martin. The capsule has a diameter of 4.56 meters (15.0 ft), which is slightly larger than the Apollo command module and smaller than the Orion capsule. The Starliner is to support larger crews of up to seven people and is designed to be able to remain on-orbit for up to seven months with reusability of up to ten missions. It is to be compatible with multiple launch vehicles, including the Atlas V, Delta IV, and Falcon 9, as well as the planned Vulcan. The initial launch vehicle would be the Atlas V.

In the first phase of its CCDev program NASA awarded Boeing US$18 million for preliminary development of the spacecraft. In the second phase Boeing was awarded $93 million for further development. On August 3, 2012, NASA announced the award of $460 million to Boeing to continue work on the CST-100 under the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) Program. On September 16, 2014, NASA selected the CST-100, along with SpaceX's Dragon V2, for the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) program, with an award of $4.2 billion. The spacecraft is expected to fly to the International Space Station with an astronaut aboard by December 2017.

Hot rod

Hot rods are typically old, classic American cars with large engines modified for linear speed. The origin of the term "hot rod" is unclear. A possible origin includes replacement of the camshaft with a new ("hotter") version, sometimes known as a hot stick or hot rod. Roadsters were the cars of choice because they were light, easy to modify, and inexpensive. The term became commonplace in the 1930s or 1940s as the name of a car that had been "hopped up" by modifying the engine for higher performance. A term common in the early days was "gow job". This has fallen into disuse except with historians.

The term has broadened to apply to other items that are modified for a particular purpose, such as "hot-rodded amplifier".

History

Late 1930s–1950s

The term seems first to have appeared in the late 1930s in southern California, where people raced modified cars on dry lake beds northeast of Los Angeles under the rules of the Southern California Timing Association (SCTA), among other groups. The activity increased in popularity after World War II, particularly in California, because many returning soldiers received technical training in the service. Many cars were prepared by bootleggers in response to Prohibition to enable them to avoid revenue agents ("Revenooers"); some police vehicles were also modified in response.