Word: liftings
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...once again on the unusually frigid Florida temperatures, which had fallen to the mid-20s, accompanied by 35-m.p.h. gusts for hours before Challenger was launched, and on the right booster, which had clearly failed. Less than half a second after booster ignition, just as the shuttle began to lift, first a white and then a black puff of smoke gushed from a joint between two of the 149-ft. rocket's four segments. At 59.8 seconds, high in the sky, flame burst through the booster's steel casing, apparently at the same aft joint. In another 13 seconds...
...circumference, the large O rings rest in grooves at the three joints. Like the washers that prevent faucets from leaking, they are designed to keep the rocket's exhaust gases from escaping through any gaps in the joints. These are especially vulnerable under the immense forces generated at lift-off (the entire shuttle bends momentarily in what engineers call "the twang," and the nearly half-inch-thick steel casing of the boosters balloons slightly above and below each joint). In the Challenger disaster, the exhaust gases had apparently burned through a protective putty (signaled by the white smoke) and jetted...
...words arrayed themselves on a magic screen before him. Here was a miracle that imitated the very motions of his brain, that teleported paragraphs here and there--no, there!--as quickly as a mind flicking through alternatives. Prose with the speed of light, and lighter than air! Toad could lift 10 lbs. of verbiage, at a whim, from his first page and transport it to the last, and then (hmmm), back again...
...between the booster-rocket segments. Next, an article in Aviation Week & Space Technology spelled out in extraordinary detail how the starboard booster had caused Challenger's external liquid-fuel tank to explode. Then, NASA released pictures showing a mysterious puff of black smoke apparently emerging from the booster at lift- off. The 13-member panel, which includes former Secretary of State William Rogers, Nobel Laureate Physicist Richard Feynman and Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Sally Ride, seemed to have its hands full just keeping up with the new information...
...rings are supposed to seal shift under the enormous stresses of launch. If the rings are not resilient, ! they may not seat properly in their grooves, leaving gaps through which the hot gases can escape. Thus, Feynman asked, would the low temperature (38 degrees F) at Challenger's lift-off have increased the chance of failure...