Word: apollos
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...earthly scheme of things, success answers Questions. Failure - even of the triumphant kind - poses them. The peril of Apollo 13 accordingly has raised all the old backed-up doubts: Is the American space program worth the cost? Has it been capably and carefully administered? Has its emphasis on manned lunar landings been correct...
Just Nuts. Among space scientists themselves there is a frequent complaint that costs of the Apollo program have eliminated - or crucially postponed - more important space projects. Leading members of the scientific community in general have argued for years that the space effort was an indulgence that should be placed low on any list of scientific priorities...
...Warren Weaver, science consultant to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, has estimated that the billions earmarked for Apollo could be redistributed to provide "a 10% raise in salary, over a ten-year period, for every teacher in the United States, from kindergarten through universities (about $9.8 billion required); $10 million each to 200 of the better smaller colleges ($2 billion required); seven-year fellowships (freshman through Ph.D.) at $4,000 per person per year for 50,000 new scientists and engineers ($1.4 billion required); contributions of $200 million each toward the creation of ten new medical schools ($2 billion required...
...contrast, the U.S. space program was not faring so well. After almost two months of intensive investigation into the oxygen-tank explosion during the aborted Apollo 13 moon flight, NASA's high-level review board confirmed that the accident was probably caused by an arcing short that ignited Teflon insulation on wiring in the tank. The fire in turn damaged the seal at the top of the tank and generated heat that expanded the oxygen. The resulting pressure caused the weakened area to burst. The board also detailed an extraordinary sequence of bungling uncovered...
...back as 1965, the 1,113-page report said, Apollo's prime contractor, North American Rockwell, had ordered that specifications for two small electric switches used to cut off the oxygen tank's internal heater be increased to 65 volts. Inexplicably, the subcontractor for the tanks, Beech Aircraft, kept delivering switches with a top rating of only 28 volts. Despite elaborate checkout procedures that were repeated through six previous Apollo manned missions, neither NASA nor its suppliers ever detected the oversight. Indeed, the error might never have been discovered if it had not been seriously compounded by other...