Word: rocketeers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...something nagged in the back of the lawyer's mind. When he heard that the technicians had based their O.K. for the shuttle flight on the premise that "there were no conclusive data against it," Rogers understood that there was a management problem behind the accident. Evidence that a rocket will work properly, not the absence of evidence against it, should be the basis of a flight decision. "When I heard that, I knew there was more than a mechanical failure," Rogers said. It was then he spoke out publicly, saying "the process may be flawed," words meticulously chosen...
Within days the mechanical problem was located: a joint on one of Challenger's two solid rocket boosters had failed. But the root cause of the tragedy ran deeper. A presidential commission, headed by former Secretary of State William Rogers, discovered NASA itself was deeply flawed. Far from representing the best of American know-how, the twelve-member commission found, NASA had become a bureaucracy that had lost its way. Before the first shuttle was launched, the agency had known of the fatal seal problem but had buried it under a blizzard of paper while permitting schedule-conscious managers...
This time around, a referee stepped forward, wrestling the angry Rocket to the ground. Olajuwon was ejected from the game, leaving the Rockets down by four points, and without the services of their key player...
...which can put 27,500 lbs. into orbit, will be grounded for at least six months. The Delta, which had run up 43 successes since the last failure in 1977, has a 7,500-lb. lift capability that will be lost until August. The nation's other medium-lift rocket, the Atlas-Centaur (13,500 lbs.), was scheduled to loft a Navy satellite on May 22, but that launch has been postponed until the Delta problem is understood; the Atlas has an engine electrical system similar to Delta's. Said a top Pentagon official: "We are denied access to space...
Overreliance on the shuttle for launching satellites has left the U.S. short on unmanned expendable rockets. There are just six Titan 34Ds, 13 Atlases, three Atlas-Centaurs and three Deltas left in the national inventory. The Air Force, however, has ordered ten more advanced Titans and will modify 13 old Titan II rockets to take some pressure off the future shuttle demands. The expected cost: $2.4 billion. It also intends to design its critical payloads for either shuttle or expendable rocket launches. Says Kutyna: "We want never again to be as vulnerable as we are today...