Word: launching
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...once been viewed as being too gentle to compete in the rough-and-tumble world of Washington bureaucracy. But after chairing three days of public hearings last week on how NASA reached the decision to launch the space shuttle Challenger on its doomed mission, former Secretary of State William Rogers was visibly--and vocally--angry...
...external tank, which contains supercold liquid oxygen (-297 degrees ) and hydrogen (-423 degrees ) had not been abnormally cold, casting doubt on a theory that liquid fuel, leaking unnoticed from the tank, had chilled the nearby booster. He also discovered that the wind on the morning of the launch had been blowing across the cold surface of the tank toward the right booster. As one NASA engineer explained, "Even a slight breeze, wafting over the external tank full of those cryogens (supercold fluids) may have been enough to produce lower temperatures on the right-hand solid rocket booster than...
Incredible as it may seem, Shuttle Director Moore also had been one of the officials who were never told of the heated opposition to the launch by Thiokol engineers or the discovery of the booster's cold spots. Asked by the Senate subcommittee what he would have done if he had known about the cold spots, Moore replied, "I would have asked more questions about what the readings indicated." Said Tennessee's Senator Albert Gore Jr.: "The record calls into question the way alarm bells are rung and heard" at NASA...
...presidential commission continues its work, NASA's ambitious goal of launching 15 shuttle flights this year is bound to come under closer scrutiny. "There seems to have been a speedup policy at NASA," says Jerome Lederer, a former director of the space agency's office of manned flight safety, adding, "There are signs that complacency may have set in, and that is not good for safety." Insisted a NASA engineer: "We are being driven by a launch manifest, not hardware capability or concerns about anything else." NASA has in fact been pushing its contractors for faster delivery of shuttle components...
Rough as last week's revelations were on NASA, tougher times may lie ahead. The Rogers commission has scheduled for this week two days of public hearings at which key officials involved in the launch decision, as well as some of the experts who opposed the go-ahead, are expected to testify. Predicted one source close to the commission: "There will be a hanging." That assessment may be too harsh, but clearly the full story of why Challenger and its crew had been sent on a doomed mission remains to be told...