Word: launchers
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...European launcher's fastest-growing competitor is the China Great Wall Industry Corp. The People's Republic has aggressively marketed its Long March- 3 booster service, offering discount prices and giving tours of its space facilities for potential Western clients. Says Sun Jiadong, the Chinese Astronautics Vice Minister: "We are willing to offer our Long March system with the most meticulous service...
...forested ridgeline near Barikot, Commander Mahmad Alam carefully adjusts the range finder on his new green BM-13 rocket launcher. His men screw fuses into Chinese-made rockets and slide them into the barrels. Another guerrilla commander, the bearded and burly Sher Mohammed, scans the horizon with a brand-new pair of West German military binoculars. Mahmad Alam confers via walkie-talkie with his forward artillery observer. "God is Great!" the devout guerrillas shout, almost in prayer. "Long live Islam! Long live Afghanistan! Death to Communism...
...rocket screams from the launcher, then another and another. There is a brief period of waiting, and then the artillery observer radios in: three direct hits within the garrison's defensive perimeter. "Communist -- tika, tika, tika!" (good, good, good!), Sher Mohammed exclaims, striking his open palm with his fist...
...local farmers who left their fields and flocks to take up Kalashnikovs and carbines in the cause of liberating their homeland. Some of their weapons are stolen from the enemy, some are bought from arms merchants, and some are secretly supplied through the CIA. In the BM-13 rocket launcher, the guerrillas have a much more powerful long-distance weapon than the recoilless rifles and machine guns that constituted their "heavy artillery" a few years ago. On the ridges above the garrison, the rebels have a dozen or more Soviet- and Chinese-made heavy machine guns and several mortars...
...onetime NASA safety director: "There was social pressure: they had thousands of school kids watching for the first school lesson from space. There was media pressure: they feared that if they didn't launch, the press would unfavorably report more delays. And there was commercial pressure: the Ariane (European launcher) was putting objects in space at much lower cost. NASA was also trying to show the Air Force that they could operate on a schedule. The pressures were subtle, but they acted upon them...