Word: defective
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Allowing the Federal Government to enter the arena that decides when to let someone die [April 11] should be viewed with trepidation. Consider an infant born with an inoperable heart defect as well as a serious, but curable stomach blockage that renders feeding impossible. The infant would die if it underwent heart surgery. Yet without a strong heart it would almost certainly succumb if surgery were attempted on the stomach defect. With court-ordered surgery, physicians are now being forced into the role of executioner...
...made quietly for some of the 362,000 seriously ill infants born each year in the U.S. One recent case was far from quiet, however, and the result may change some pediatric practices. At his birth last April in Bloomington, Ind., "Infant Doe" had Down's syndrome, a defect associated with mental retardation, and a deformed esophagus that prevented him from eating and drinking normally. The parents, acting for their child, decided against repairing the esophagus. The effect would have been to starve the child to death, but the hospital sought a judicial order to allow the operation...
...perched proudly on its Florida pad, pointing skyward like an anxious eagle. Last week NASA officials gloomily conceded that their $1 billion bird may have to sit in its nest a while longer. The latest delay involves the most serious problem yet encountered with the troubled Challenger: a basic defect in design that requires overhauling all three of the main engines. Unless the flaw can be quickly corrected, the problem could create a horrendous backup of civilian and military satellites waiting to be carried aloft and add millions of dollars to the cost of the shuttle program...
Ironically, the defect stems, at least in part, from NASA'S own supercaution. To improve performance, Challenger's engines were built to operate at 9% greater thrust than those of the first orbiter, Columbia, when the throttle is fully opened. Realizing that this extra power would vibrate the spacecraft more violently, NASA engineers at the Marshall Space Flight Center made a design change. They ordered reinforcement of the metal piping that carries hot, gaseous hydrogen fuel into the small chamber where the engines are first fired up and begin revving to their full 480,000 lbs. of thrust...
...testimony before a congressional subcommittee on science and technology last week, Air Force Lieut. General James A. Abrahamson, NASA'S associate administrator and boss of the shuttle program, said that discovery of the defect was a tribute to the space agency's quest for safety. He might have added that it was also because of an odd bit of luck. In late January, only days before Challenger's originally scheduled liftoff, NASA inspectors discovered that hydrogen was leaking from the No. 1 engine...