Word: launching
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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McConnell's book ends as it began, with an account of the launch which took place despite significant misgivings. Reading about the disaster for the second time, the reader feels a certain rage at the arrogance and idiocy that caused it, and cares enough about the astronauts--who had no inkling of the O-ring difficulty--to grieve for them. None but the most iron-hearted cynic could enjoy a space shuttle joke after reading this book...
...thundered into space last week, the tall, slender rocket looked like hundreds of satellite boosters launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Despite a drizzling rain, the blast-off put a marine observation satellite into orbit without a hitch. The launch pad, though, was not in California or Florida. It was on Tanegashima Island, and the rocket bore on its side, in prominent black letters, a single word: NIPPON...
...Britain and Indonesia. Many companies turned to Arianespace, the French-led European space consortium, which quickly booked all its flights through 1989. But the European concern could not take on all of NASA's customers, partly because it can handle only about ten lift- offs a year at its launch pads in the jungles of French Guiana...
Martin Marietta, which produces Titan-class rockets for the Air Force, was the first U.S. firm to sign up a client. It plans to launch an ExpressStar communications satellite for Federal Express in 1989. Says Richard Brackeen, a vice president in charge of launch systems for Martin Marietta Aerospace: "The private launching business could be the next widebody jet business...
...January, McDonnell Douglas hitched a ride into the space race when the Air Force awarded it a $734 million contract. The firm will build a fleet of up to 20 unmanned rockets by 1991 to launch military satellites. While that work is under way, it will be relatively cheap for McDonnell Douglas to build additional rockets to haul commercial payloads...