[FPSPACE] A bilingual question

[Dmitry Payson]

Dear all:
 
I met one of the eternal questions of the Rus-Eng translations again, and
this time I have decide to ask the wider audience for the advice. What do
you consider a most adequate English for ИЗДЕЛИЕ (Izdelie), the Russian
'placeholder' word that had been widely used to designate any particular
piece of flying hardware, like ICBM, launch vehicle, spacecraft, etc? The
general literal meaning of the Russian word is 'item', 'article'; the most
adequate translation is probably 'vehicle' or 'flying vehicle', but these
two do not reflect a very specific 'time spirit' of the early space programs
when the used term should not give the clue to the actual nature of the
designated object - both 'vehicle' and especially 'flying' are a bit too
much explicit in such a context. Are there any ideas?
 
Thanks,
Dmitry Payson
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.friends-partners.org/pipermail/fpspace/attachments/20091204/cfcf1df1/attachment.html