1.   Everyone expects, he reasoned, to see large, gleaming spaceships orbiting planets.

2.   And President Clinton is expected to fly in to celebrate the comeback mission of the national hero who was the first American to orbit the planet.

3.   And last fall, Philip Nicholson of Cornell University used the Hale to discover two new moons orbiting the planet Uranus.

4.   Another craft, Mars Global Surveyor, is on its way to orbit the planet in September.

5.   Another, Mars Global Surveyor, is on its way to orbit the planet in September and conduct a two-year mapping reconnaissance.

6.   After all, this is the man who predicted satellites years before they orbited the planet.

7.   After years of controversy and delays, a Russian-built propulsion cylinder and an American connecting hub now orbit the planet in a permanent embrace.

8.   Called NOAA-L, it and a companion POES will orbit the planet in nearly north-south paths.

9.   First they must do an intensive study of images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor, which has been orbiting the planet for more than three years.

10.   GPS, which uses satellites orbiting the planet to determine precise locations of anyone with a GPS transmitter, determines where the plane is.