Word: liquidly
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...space vehicle. Although NASA's acting administrator, William Graham, said the flame's location had not been pinpointed, it appeared to be about 36 ft. above the bottom of the rocket's nozzle, near an attachment ring where the lower part of the booster was connected to the external liquid-fuel tank. This ring, in turn, was just above one of the three special joints coupling the rocket's stacked solid-fuel segments. Externally, 177 high-strength steel pins held these joints together. Internally the joints were sealed with two large rubber O rings...
...outer steel casing and burn through it. Another possibility was that the flame-retarding material between the booster sections could have loosened under the wide variations in temperature, providing another route for a burnthrough. Most analysts assume that once the flame sliced through the rocket casing, it reached the liquid-fuel tank, burning through either the tank's wall or the connecting fuel lines, touching off the massive explosion...
...pulled away from Challenger. It could be repositioned within 15 seconds, but in an emergency that could be a fatal interval. The seven occupants were now wedded to their three combustible companions. One was the rust-colored external tank, 154 ft. high, which carried 143,351 gal. of liquid oxygen and 385,265 gal. of liquid hydrogen. Two lines connected the fuels to the orbiter, where they would be mixed at controlled levels to power the spacecraft's engines. The other two companions were the gleaming white boosters, each 149 ft. tall and packed with more than 1.1 million...
Other conclusions from Voyager's findings, according to Project Scientist Edward Stone: Uranus has a core consisting of rock and liquid, is covered by a deep ocean of water laced with dissolved ammonia, and is wrapped in a 5,000- mile-thick atmosphere consisting largely of hydrogen, with 10% to 16% helium and a scattering of methane and other gases...
There has been published speculation, based on unidentified sources, that the finger of flame either burned through the fuel tank wall and ignited its huge supply of liquid hydrogen, or that it set off the destruction mechanism by lighting a primer cord...