Word: rocketeers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...spectators cheered, a 600-ft. tongue of bright orange flame scorched a Utah hillside last week. Jubilation was in order: the firing marked the first full- scale test of the space shuttle's revamped solid rocket booster since last year's Challenger explosion. After a government commission pinned the tragedy on faulty seals in the booster, manufactured by Morton Thiokol, the company returned to the drawing board. Last week's firing, the first of six, tested new electrical heaters and reinforcing bands on the booster's joints. "We've taken a real bashing by the press," said Morton Thiokol Engineer...
When the 170 million-horsepower Energia rocket thundered from its launching pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome near Tyuratam in Kazakhstan on May 15, the Soviet Union took another stride in its steady march toward pre-eminence in space. Streaking eastward, the massive heavy-lift rocket reached 6,000 m.p.h. and 30 miles in altitude before the first stage separated and dropped to earth as planned. At nearly 14,000 m.p.h. and 60 miles up, the second stage fell away and splashed into the Pacific Ocean "in strict conformity with the flight mission," as the official report put it. Then, unexpectedly...
...failure was nothing compared with the magnitude of the feat. For the first time, the Soviets successfully tested the brand-new Energia, a 220- ft. rocket capable of thrusting more than 100-ton payloads into orbit, at least four times that of the U.S. space shuttle's orbiter. A Soviet TV commentator declared in a post-launch videotape that the new rocket could lift into space "the blocks from which cities will be built." Even U.S. observers were impressed. "It's the most powerful rocket in the world -- ever," said James Oberg, a Houston-based expert on Soviet space ventures...
...successful orbital launches, while the Soviets have had 37. The U.S. space shuttle is grounded until at least the summer of 1988. In the meantime, the evidence grows that a scaled-down Soviet shuttle has already been tested. TASS, the Soviet news agency, last week disclosed that the new rocket will launch "reusable orbital spaceships." U.S. experts believe the first manned Soviet shuttle flight may come late this year or in early...
...powerful new rocket booster sparks fresh talk of a Soviet shuttle flight and highlights Moscow' s high- frontier technology...