Word: liftoff
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...boss of the shuttle program, said that discovery of the defect was a tribute to the space agency's quest for safety. He might have added that it was also because of an odd bit of luck. In late January, only days before Challenger's originally scheduled liftoff, NASA inspectors discovered that hydrogen was leaking from the No. 1 engine...
Because this launch site is farther north than Cape Canaveral, spacecraft get less of a boost from the earth's rotation (whose velocity is highest at the equator) and thus need more power on liftoff...
...crack was welded, but it was not considered necessary to take the additional step of hardening the weld (cost: about $200,000). Now the space agency faces extra bills totaling about $4 million, to say nothing of irritated customers waiting impatiently on the sidelines for Challenger's liftoff...
When it comes to making big money quickly, thoughts of investing in bonds have not traditionally leaped to mind. Then came the summer of 1982, when declining interest rates gave the nation's $2.3 trillion bond market a spectacular liftoff, making born-again believers out of a generation of battered bondholders...
...this at a Government launch site." The site was, in fact, on a 19,000-acre ranch lent by Oil Mogul Toddie Lee Wynne, 85, one of SSI's main financial angels, who died a few hours before liftoff. With the, countdown under way, a launching-pad engineer wandered out to Conestoga I and, with a felt-tipped pen, scribbled on the rocket, GOD BLESS YOU, TODDIE LEE WYNNE. You can't do that at a Government launch site either...