Word: cargos
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...rush then began among fledgling launchers to help clear the world cargo backlog and carve out a piece of future business. In the U.S., aerospace giants Martin Marietta, McDonnell Douglas and General Dynamics, all longtime manufacturers of the rockets used by NASA and the U.S. Air Force, are determined to capture a share of the new market. Space agencies in the Soviet Union and China as well as Japan are also gearing up to provide launching services...
Much smaller U.S. operators are also reaching for the skies. Robert Truax, a former Navy engineer, built a rocket in his Saratoga, Calif., backyard four years ago, and hopes to be the first private businessman to launch commercial cargo into space, possibly from Cape Canaveral. Entrepreneur George Koopman's Menlo Park, Calif., firm, American Rocket, is conducting flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. Like Truax, Koopman says the hardest part about starting a space-transport firm is raising enough money. Says he: "I'm still out there beating the bushes for funds...
...also signed an agreement to launch a Swedish satellite, and are holding talks with 17 other nations. For customers who are concerned that China may copy the technology in satellites, Great Wall suggests that they package the payload in a sealed container and send along representatives to escort the cargo to the launch site...
...launching competitors, however, will not be totally dependent on the satellite market. NASA has proposed a space station, for example, that Boeing, Martin Marietta and McDonnell Douglas are bidding to build in the early 1990s. Once operational, the station will need to be supplied by as many as 16 cargo launches a year, and private firms may get some of that business. Commercial carriers could also win Defense Department contracts to carry hardware into space as testing of Strategic Defense Initiative technology picks...
...July she was again loaded with rifles in Poland and then ammunition in Portugal. Harbor documents showed she was headed for Yemen, but the ship's manifest said Guatemala was the final destination. She returned to Portugal and then departed for Cherbourg, where Hakim had her cargo transferred to another freighter, which later docked at two government depots in North Carolina. It is unclear whether the weapons ever reached the contras. The Erria was then used in an attempt to exchange rifles with Iran for two captured Soviet T-72 tanks sought by the U.S. for intelligence purposes -- a deal...