Word: boosterous
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...exploration. The Soviets' Mir (Peace) space station, manned on March 13, is operational, while the U.S. is not yet fully committed to developing such a permanent space platform. The Soviets, long ahead of the U.S. in the lift capability of its superrockets, will soon have a new SL-W booster that can push 220,000 lbs. into orbit, about 3 1/2 times as much as the U.S. shuttle. The Soviets have, of course, one huge advantage: their authoritarian government provides long-term planning and consistently high funding for its priorities. "The Soviets worship only certain things," observes George Jeffs, president...
...plentiful that it masked rather than exposed the problems. The Rogers report is expected to detail the extraordinary tale of the now famous O rings, the synthetic-rubber circles, .28 in. thick and 37.5 ft. in circumference, designed to make certain that the superhot gases generated within each solid booster could not escape through the joints of the rocket's segments. When flames did penetrate a rocket joint on Challenger, they ignited the shuttle's external liquid-fuel tank, causing the explosion. The commission will cite the O-ring history not only as the cause of the catastrophe but also...
NASA was even warned by outside experts that its booster joints were a serious problem. On March 9, 1984, George Morefield, then chief engineer for United Space Boosters, wrote to Lawrence Mulloy, then the booster manager at Marshall, to explain that the Titan rockets produced by his company for the Air Force had a similar joint problem. Although a thousand of the Titan joints had flown without a failure, Morefield told Mulloy, on a shuttle flight "the potential for failure of the joint is higher...
What did NASA do about its problem? Not much, even though boosters recovered after several flights showed O-ring erosion, indicating that the hot gases were reaching them and threatening to burn through the seal. NASA did ask its booster contractor, Morton Thiokol, to seek a solution. Thiokol set up a seal task force at its plant in Utah. This work received more attention after a shuttle was launched on Jan. 24, 1985, following the coldest overnight cape temperature of any flight to date: in the 20s. This launch produced the most extensive ring damage. Morton Thiokol concluded...
...suspect in the April 18 Titan failure is also a booster rocket. But a burn-through caused by faulty insulation seems the likeliest explanation. As for the Delta failure, two unexplained surges of high current in the main engine's electrical circuits apparently lowered battery voltage, leading to the premature shutdown. This possibility had been detected in 1974. Some corrections were made then, but not to the circuit that failed...