Word: contractor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Webb did testify that North American's share of the $23 billion Apollo project is being cut back. The California-based firm will continue as prime contractor, while Boeing has been selected to put together the spacecraft and the rocket boosters; a third firm will be chosen to make custom modifications on the 16 standardized capsules to be produced by North American under the original contract. "In this way," he added, "North American will be spending all its time on one standardized spacecraft without any outside distractions...
...Takamatsu's new gymnasium (see color). For the latter. Architect Tange called on his childhood memories of Japan's traditional, majestic wooden barges ("Takamatsu, after all, is a city by the sea"). Building it, with its cable-suspended roof and abutment-supported "bow" and "stern," proved a contractor's nightmare. Whenever the gripes seemed insurmountable, Kaneko cheerfully exhorted the workmen to "show us your patriotism, for this is a work Japan will be proud...
That kind of assurance was what North American needed after last month's review-board report on the troubled Apollo program found "many deficiencies in design and engineering, manufacture and quality control." For Apollo's prime contractor, an aerospace giant relying on Government contracts for some 95% of its $2 billion-a-year sales, nothing could have been more damaging than such an indictment...
...much of the blame for Apollo's shortcomings must be shared by NASA itself. Says an executive of Northrop Corp., which builds Apollo's earth-landing and intercommunications systems: "NASA inspects, reinspects and inspects again. NASA lives with us. You can't separate NASA from the contractor." Declining to ascribe blame at all, another aerospace official points out that in projects "on the forefront of technology, there just isn't any perfection." As if to prove that point, a General Electric Co. study made public last week itemized more than 1,300 flaws in an Apollo...
...board in a searing report that runs some 3,300 pages and weighs 19 Ibs. Although six of the eight board members work for NASA, they lodged a broad indictment against the conduct of the entire $23 billion Apollo program by the space agency and North American, the prime contractor. There were, said the report, "many deficiencies in design and engineering, manufacture and quality control...