Time - USA (2020-11-30)

24 Time November 30/December 7, 2020

DIED

Bahrain’s Prime
Minister Sheikh
Khalifa bin Salman
al-Khalifa, on Nov. 11
at 84. Al-Khalifa had
been in office since
the island nation
gained independence
in 1971.

Lucille Bridges,
mother of civil rights
icon Ruby Bridges,
who famously
desegregated her
formerly all-white
New Orleans school
in 1960, on Nov. 10
at 86.

ELECTED
Maia Sandu,
defeating a Vladimir
Putin–backed
incumbent to become
Moldova’s first female
President on Nov. 16.

FILED
More than 92,
sexual-abuse claims
against the Boy
Scouts of America,
ahead of a Nov. 
deadline. The group
said it is “moved by
the bravery” of those
coming forward.

WON
The 2020 Masters
Tournament,
by golfer Dustin
Johnson, on Nov. 15,
with a record-
breaking final score
of 20 under par over
72 holes.

APOLOGIZED
The Philadelphia
city council, in a
Nov. 12 statement,
for a 1985 incident in
which police dropped
a bomb on a house
containing members
of a militant Black
liberation group,
killing six adults and
five children.

DEBUTED
Musician Harry
Styles, on U.S.
Vogue’s December
cover, as the first
solo male cover star
in the magazine’s
128-year history.

LAUNCHED

SpaceX’s taxi to the ISS

A rocket's historic voyage

ON NOV. 15, SPACeX’S FALCON 9 ROCKeT LiFTeD OFF FROm

Cape Canaveral for its first fully operational mission—54 years, to

the day, after U.S. astronauts Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin splashed

down in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Turks and Caicos after a

nearly four-day, 59-orbit mission in their Gemini 12 spacecraft.

Their safe landing served as the perfect capstone to the Gemini

program, a series of 10 flights viewed as essential dress rehearsals

for getting astronauts to and from the moon.

But the success of the Gemini program was as much about

hardware as it was about exploration. Those 10 flights, under-

taken over the course of 20 months (or factored out to one crewed

mission every eight weeks), sent astronauts into space with a reg-

ularity unimaginable just a few years earlier.

SpaceX is aiming to achieve a similar gas-up-and-go capability—

and in some ways it already has, with more than 100 launches in

its various fleet of rockets since 2008. But only two so far have

been crewed: the current four-person mission, which successfully

docked at the International Space Station (ISS) a day later, and a

first, experimental one, which carried two astronauts to the ISS

back in May. Because space-station crews stay aloft for six months

at a time, there’s no need for the company to match Gemini’s pace.

But with crew members’ lives on the line, it is very much aiming for

the same reliability. —JeFFReY KLUGeR

Milestones

HIRED

Kim Ng

MLB’s first female

general manager

HAViNG beeN PASSeD OVeR

for so many jobs despite her

wealth of experience, Kim Ng

remembers feeling a weight

lift off one shoulder when

the Miami Marlins named

her the first female general

manager in a major North

American men’s pro sports

league on Nov. 13. (She’s also

baseball’s first East Asian–

American GM.) “Half an

hour later,” Ng added during

an introductory press con-

ference, “I realized it had

just been transferred to [the

other] shoulder.” Ng knows

her performance could de-

termine whether more doors

open for women working

in the clubby confines of

men’s sports. “You’re bearing

the torch for so many,” said

Ng, 52. “That is a big respon-

sibility. But I take it on.”

Ng became the young-

est assistant GM in baseball

when the New York Yankees

hired her, at 29, in 1998.

She won three World Series

with the team, then worked

as assistant GM for the L.A.

Dodgers from 2002 to 2011

before joining Major League

Baseball’s front office as a top

executive. “There’s an adage:

You can’t be it if you can’t see

it,” said Ng. “Now you can

see it.” —SeAN GReGORY

ROCKET: JOEL KOWSKY—NASA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; NG: JOSEPH GUZY—MIAMI MARLINS/AP

“One heck of a ride,”

said Commander Mike

Hopkins of reaching orbit

aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9

rocket on Nov. 15