In the pioneering days of manned space flight, U.S. astronauts began affectionately bestowing names such as "Molly Brown" on their spacecraft. But NASA officials soon decided that nick names were undignified for craft involved in a historic national effort. Word went out to put an end to name-call ing. Even official labels had to be made more solemn. On the theory that Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) was too frivolous a name for the moon-landing craft, NASA gravely renamed it Lunar Mod ule, thus reducing the friendly LEM to the unpronounceable LM.
Now NASA's name ban is apparently being subverted. Without...
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