Word: rocketeers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA officials, increasingly confident they can identify the cause of Challenger's disaster and fly again soon, believe a rupture in the right rocket booster may have triggered the explosion that destroyed the shuttle and killed its crew...
Search teams, fighting strong Atlantic currents, continued to bring in Challenger's spreading debris yesterday, including a five-ton rocket fragment. The search area was extended to more than 40,000 square miles...
...apparent rupture in the strong rocket casing--whether at a seam or elsewhere--had the effect of pointing a torch at the side of Challenger's fuel tank. The theory is that the flame either burnt through the tank or a "destruct package," causing the explosion, or raised the tank pressure to intolerable limits with the same result...
Photographs released by NASA show a tongue of flame apparently lashing upward from the exhaust of the right booster rocket into an area that films of previous launches showed to be clear of fire or flame. The flame appeared in the last 15 seconds of flight...
...Rocket Danger Downplayed...