Word: nasa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
WASHINGTON -- NASA says it's well on the way to fixing the things the Challenger accident commission found wrong and that it has set a new target--the first quarter of 1988--for flying the space shuttle again...
...Instead of saying we will fix things that the Rogers commission felt were wrong, we are in the position of saying we are fixing things the Rogers commission found wrong," NASA Administrator James C. Fletcher told reporters yesterday...
...NASA was quick to respond, noting that the Soviet shuttle has yet to fly in space and touting U.S. "capabilities in retrieval, repair and construction in space, which are well beyond anything they have done." Others point to the U.S. lead in satellite technology and the feats of America's Viking Mars landers and Voyager planetary probes. "We tend to move in leaps and bounds, and they move incrementally," says Nancy Lubin of the congressional Office of Technology Assessment. "The race hasn't ended...
...NASA boss is noncommittal on proposals that the agency stop lifting payloads for other countries and for private commercial purposes. While conceding that "somebody's got to take some of the backlog," Fletcher expressed doubts that "there is a good way" for private industry to step in quickly and develop its own expendable rockets. Still, plenty of private entrepreneurs seem willing...
...certainly ready, willing and able," declares Richard Brackeen, vice president for Martin Marietta's space launch systems division. His firm and its chief competitor, General Dynamics, have long experience in producing rockets for the Air Force and NASA and, with the unexpected new demand for such launchers, would like to reverse their role. They would rent Government launching facilities and use their own rockets to orbit commercial satellites. The potential benefit: providing competition that would force lower launch prices and, in turn, lure more private business...