Word: launching
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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With President Reagan weakened by Iranscam and Congress in Democratic hands, Wright is expected to seize the initiative and launch an ambitious legislative agenda. Unlike O'Neill, who was content to let his committee chairmen dictate their schedules, Wright will probably use his post to articulate and develop the party's legislative direction. He told TIME that he intends to seek quick re-enactment of the Clean Water Bill, which the President vetoed last month, push through a highway-spending bill and draft comprehensive trade legislation...
Then, on the eve of the doomed launch, 15 Morton-Thiokol engineers agreed--unanimously--that NASA shouldn't launch the Challenger. They were fearful that overnight sub-freezing temperatures at the Kennedy Space Center would prevent the O-rings from functioning properly. (Morton-Thiokol had never bothered to test the rings' performance at such low temperatures...
That's the end of the story for seven astronauts, but not for Morton-Thiokol. Its reaction to the disaster was to find new jobs for two of the engineers who had protested most vociferously against the doomed launch. William Rogers, chairman of the Presidential Commission which investigated the disaster, was correct when he said, "It would seem to me...they should be promoted, not demoted or pushed aside...
...again there were rumors of documents being destroyed (by North and Poindexter). Once again the White House was resisting demands for a special prosecutor (now called independent counsel) put forth by Congressmen who did not trust the Administration to investigate itself. Once again congressional hearings were getting ready to launch upon their unknown and potentially damaging course. Worst of all, there was a revival, before last Tuesday's press briefing was over, of the quietly poisonous question so well remembered from 1973: "What did the President know and when did he know...
...everyone knows better. Last week Boesky said, "If my mistakes launch a process of re-examination of the rules and practices of our financial marketplace, then perhaps some good will result." It was premature to say what further revelations and reforms might ensue. Nonetheless, asserted former Treasury Secretary Simon, "this is a landmark case. This is going to change the arbitrage business dramatically. People are going to behave with much more prudence." If not, they have a dramatic example of what can follow...