The New York Times Crossword in Gothic: 05.17.15 — An Astronaut's Guide

Hadfield spacewalking during the STS-100 mission

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Sunday, May 17, 2015

ACROSTIC, Puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon

Edited by Will Shortz

This Sunday’s acrostic draws a quotation from the autobiography, An Astronauts Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield.

Chris Hadfield has spent decades training as an astronaut and has logged nearly 4000 hours in space. During this time he has broken into a Space Station with a Swiss army knife, disposed of a live snake while piloting a plane, and been temporarily blinded while clinging to the exterior of an orbiting spacecraft.

In his bestselling An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, Hadfield takes readers deep into his years of training and space exploration to show how to make the impossible possible. Through eye-opening, entertaining stories, his vivid and refreshing insights will teach you how to think like an astronaut, and will change, completely, the way you view life on Earth-especially your own. ~ Amazon

The quotation: IT’S ALMOST COMICAL THAT ASTRONAUTS ARE STEREOTYPED AS DAREDEVILS AND COWBOYS. AS A RULE, WE’RE HIGHLY METHODICAL AND DETAIL-ORIENTED. OUR PASSION ISN’T FOR THRILLS BUT FOR THE GRINDSTONE, AND PRESSING OUR NOSES TO IT.

The author’s name and the title of the work: CHRIS HADFIELD, “AN ASTRONAUTS GUIDE TO LIFE ON EARTH’

The defined words:

A. Cooks up; openings in NASA, HATCHES
B. “In the Mood” and “At the Hop,” metrically, ANAPEST
C. File of records about a subject, DOSSIER
D. Capricious, changing opinions, FLIGHTY
E. Unfit for public exposure, INDECENT
F. Exasperation in facial form (2 wds.), EYE ROLL
G. Where some long journeys start, LAUNCHPAD
H. What Eris is the goddess of, DISCORD
I. The land down under?, ATLANTIS
J. Conrad novel; name of the starship in “Alien”, NOSTROMO
K. Put to shame, ABASHED
L. Effects of solar eclipses on the earth, SHADOWS
M. Cheese named for a Prussian town, TILSIT
N. Lead-in to rocket or virus, RETRO
O. Victims of the Walrus and the Carpenter, in a Lewis Carroll poem, OYSTERS
P. Being neither sharp nor flat, NATURAL
Q. Flavoring used in sambuca, ANISE
R. Student of seemingly out-of-this-world stuff, UFOLOGIST
S. Native of the planet Earth, TERRAN
T. Land from above (2 wds.), SET DOWN
U. “Go jump in a lake!”, GET LOST
V.. Region whose capital is Perugia, UMBRIA
W. Stager of concerts, operas and other public entertainments, IMPRESARIO
X. Sidekick in some sci-fi tales, DROID
Y. Become balanced, stable or smooth (2 wds.), EVEN OUT

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