Word: nasa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...nine minutes and counting," intoned NASA Commentator Hugh Harris over the cape's public address system. His words were also broadcast widely by radio...
...seconds, Challenger's engines were throttled back to 65% of full power to pass through the zone of high turbulence. Nesbitt announced that the situation was "nominal," as NASA calls it: "Three engines running normally. Three good fuel cells. Three good APUs (auxilliary power units). Velocity 2,257 ft. per second (1,538 m.p.h.). Altitude 4.3 nautical miles. Downrange distance three nautical miles...
...NASA's long-range television cameras had been following Challenger's shiny * white rocket plume, recording the graceful roll that had awed the spectators. But then the cameras caught an ominously unfamiliar sight, imperceptible to those below. However different those photographs later looked to viewers of the endless taped replays, NASA analysts said that an orange glow had first flickered just past the center of the orbiter, between the shuttle's belly and the adjacent external tank. This was near the point where the tank is attached to Challenger. Milliseconds later, the fire had flared out and danced upward. Suddenly...
...Bush. National Security Adviser John Poindexter echoed what he had just heard on TV: "A major malfunction." Communications Director Pat Buchanan got to the point: "Sir, the shuttle has exploded." Reagan stood up. "How tragic," he said. Then he asked, "Is that the one the schoolteacher was on?" While NASA had proposed sending a private citizen into space, it was the President who had decided that a teacher should be first...
...space experts who had argued that the shuttle program should be devoted solely to research and that only experts who could contribute to that purpose should occupy the limited spots available on the hugely expensive flights. But after a highly successful series of missions in 1983, James Beggs, the NASA administrator, decided that the time was ripe to select a "citizen observer-participant." One clear aim: to build broader public support for the funding of the shuttles...