Word: abrahamson
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Clearly, NASA'S shuttle chief, Air Force Lieut. General James Abrahamson, badly wanted Challenger to land at Kennedy. By returning directly to its launch area, the shuttle might have cut at least a week off its turnaround time, the number of days it takes technicians to prepare the complex ship for another flight. Challenger now will have to be piggybacked by a NASA 747 to Florida, probably at the end of this week. According to Abrahamson, that will delay its next flight, originally scheduled for mid-August, by about eight days. Moreover, the space agency will probably...
...flaming bird itself but rather one of Challenger's crew, Sally Kristen Ride. As Challenger headed off on the seventh shuttle mission, a bare 59 milliseconds late, the jubilation was as much for Ride as for the machine. By finally launching what Air Force Lieut. General James Abrahamson, chief of the shuttle program, called with old-fashioned chivalry "the first U.S. lady astronaut in space," NASA gave the shuttle program as much of a popular boost as it could have got from the most powerful new rocket...
...Murray Abrahamson...
...technicians then investigated Challenger's other engines. On Feb. 25 they found a hydrogen leak in the No. 2 engine. A day or so later, the same kind of leak turned up in the No. 3 engine. Faced with this mounting crisis on the eve of a launch, Abrahamson rushed out to the pad, clambered up the launch tower and personally inspected the inner plumbing of the engines. It became clear that NASA's original fix had only exacerbated the problem: instead of preventing chafing during the vibrations at full power, the brazing and extra sleeves had made...
...play havoc with NASA's timetable, postponing the placing in orbit of as many as 30 other satellites. Rescheduling would also stall the launch of Spacelab, Western Europe's contribution to the shuttle program, now listed for a September flight on Challenger. Says one irreverent NASA official: "Abrahamson is praying, 'Engines, heal thyself...