Word: liftoff
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...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...
...elbow" was providing clear pictures, including shots of the nose showing where tiles had been damaged or lost. While reviewing films of the launch, technicians discovered that still other tiles had fallen off the top surface of the shuttle's big body flap during liftoff. None of the missing tiles, however, seemed crucial to a safe re-entry into the atmosphere...
...misgivings about flying in a used spacecraft, Astronaut Joe Engle, 49, replied unhesitatingly. Of course not, said the veteran Air Force pilot, Columbia had been tested as thoroughly as any aircraft ever flown. Last week Engle had some cause to rue those words. Despite a flawless and spectacular liftoff, the orbiting spacecraft soon fell prey to more of the technical afflictions that have plagued the $10 billion shuttle program from its very beginning. Two hours after the shuttle rode its pillar of fire into the Florida skies, alarm lights flashed in the cockpit. It was the first hint of trouble...