Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Foul play surrounded NASA's contract awards from the beginning. In 1970, North American Rockwell planted one of its top executives, Dale Myers, in a key post at the space agency. In his new job, Myers had authority over the award of a $500 million contract that Rockwell wanted. Rockwell received the contract, although the company was considered to be an underdog before Myers joined the space agency...
...study of the Challenger explosion, journalist Malcolm McConnell exposes the seamy side of NASA's space shuttle program. His research unearthed details about the disaster that didn't appear in newspapers or the official report of the Rogers Commission. After reading McConnell's tale of the compromises and duplicities that riddled NASA's attempt to develop a reusable space vehicle, you'll be astonished that the Challenger--or any other shuttle--flew a single successful mission...
Before the disaster, as McConnell tells it, NASA's public relations department was more astute than its management. Press releases boasting of a shiny, fail-safe shuttle fleet that would give the United States "routine access to space" flooded the media, which took NASA's word at face value...
...according to McConnell, those press releases were nothing but hype. For instance, only two of NASA's four shuttles were flight-worthy at any one time. A severe parts shortage, which NASA concealed, made it necessary for each shuttle to share parts with the others. One NASA official testified before the Rogers Commission that the agency "would have been brought to its knees" by the spare parts shortage had there been no Challenger disaster...
...STORY of the Challenger begins in the Nixon Administration, when the design of the shuttle, the most complex machine in history, was cemented. One major compromise followed another, as NASA felt the heat of budget constraints and political pressure. The space shuttle became, in McConnell's words, "a hybrid born of desperation...