Word: pads
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Waiting out this frustrating postponement at the cape, Ed Corrigan, Christa's father, said wryly, "I would have gotten the hacksaw sooner." Commented his wife Grace: "I would have gotten my nail file." One veteran consultant to NASA was less charitable, asking, "Can you imagine a pad leader permitting an s.o.b. to show up for work with a drill with a dead battery...
Like runners passing a baton, Harris handed off the public narration to Steve Nesbitt, the communicator at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. At the cape, his voice was lost amid the cheers of some 1,000 spectators watching on bleachers some four miles from Pad 39-B. Even at that distance, they could feel the power of the blast-off, which elicits an almost instinctive elation. A graceful sculpture arising from an awesome explosion: it was just as it was supposed to look. Among the relieved viewers were relatives of most of Challenger's crew, including Christa's parents...
...would happen to somebody else." Recalled Ohio Democrat John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth: "We used to speculate, the first group of seven, how many of us would be alive after the program." (One of them, Gus Grissom, died in a 1967 fire on a launch pad.) His voice thick, he added, "We always knew there would be a day like this. We're dealing with speeds and powers and complexities we've never dealt with before. This was a day we wish we could kick back forever...
Grissom, the second American in space, White, who made the first U.S. space walk, and Chaffee, a rookie astronaut, had been scheduled to run through a simulated Apollo launch. Suited up, they clambered into the gleaming steel cone 218 ft. above Pad 34 and hooked themselves up to life-support systems. Technicians sealed the airtight double hatch plates and pumped pure oxygen into the little chamber. The test countdown had proceeded for several hours when suddenly, over their radio link to the spacecraft, controllers heard the cry "Fire aboard the spacecraft!" followed by movements, more shouts and a sharp scream...
...months after the Apollo fire, a period of agonizing self-appraisal. Admitting that no one had realized the extent of the fire hazard in a capsule full of pure oxygen, NASA switched to cabin atmospheres that consisted of 60% oxygen and 40% nitrogen while the spacecraft was on the pad. The agency also developed a new type of hatch that could be opened in five seconds. As NASA workers last week searched for answers to the Challenger tragedy and pondered the future of manned space flight, they could find some solace in the fact that 2 1/2 years after Apollo...