Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...seminars that ten years ago would have been given at the Goddard Space Flight Center are now given in Moscow." To the surprise of Americans, the Soviets' well-deserved reputation for a plodding, low-tech, assembly-line approach to space exploration has paid off. Says James Beggs, former NASA administrator: "There's been a habit in this country of thinking of the Soviets as stupid and that they steal all their technology. That's just...
...gadgetry, they have surged past the U.S. in almost all areas of space exploration. If unchallenged, Moscow is likely to become the world's dominant power in space by the 21st century. Says Heinz Hermann Koelle, a West German space-technology professor and former director of future projects at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center: "American pre-eminence in space simply no longer exists." Warns James Oberg, an expert on the Soviet space program: "If the Soviets can aggressively exploit this operational advantage, they can make us eat space dust for a long time to come...
Fire and smoke streamed across the desert outside Brigham City, Utah, last week as Morton Thiokol successfully fired its redesigned booster rocket for NASA's shuttle fleet. With the test, the crippled shuttle program cleared its first major technical hurdle in resuming flights, now set for next summer...
...examining for charring or erosionthe revamped joints that connect segments of the booster. Those signs indicate leakage of burning gases, the problem that led to the Challenger explosion 19 months ago. More stringent testing lies ahead. Still, officials of the space agency and Morton Thiokol were ecstatic. Said NASA Associate Administrator Richard Truly: "We waited a long time to see this...
Other critics complain that NASA has become obsessed with long-term planning. "I think getting the shuttle flying and getting a space station program under way are goals enough for now," says John Logsdon, director of George Washington University's science and public policy program. "We should get on with the program," says James French, who left his job as project director at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for a position in industry. "I got out because there were too many reports and not enough flying...