Word: rocketing
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...family come from Kirkuk, the northern Iraqi city that was captured by Kurdish guerrillas in late March and retaken by Iraqi forces about a week later. Omar decided to flee Kirkuk after he saw the Iraqi Mi-24 helicopters hanging like avenging demons on the horizon, unleashing their terrifying rocket fire and evoking the threat of what he feared most: chemical weapons that make every breath a draft of fire. Not only was Omar sure that the Iraqis would kill many Kurds in Kirkuk in reprisal, but he also knew that he would be in more trouble than most...
...interested in Timberwind? The reasons date back to the early 1970s, when NASA, with the Pentagon's blessing, decided to put the bulk of its research funds into the reusable space shuttle. Further development of conventional rocket boosters stalled. Now both agencies find themselves bumping into the limited payload capacities of the remaining rockets; NASA for hoisting its space station into orbit and the Pentagon for lifting its big directed-beam Star Wars weapons. The proposed nuclear-powered rockets would more than triple the payload of the U.S.'s most powerful booster, the Titan 4, from 20 tons to more...
Ironically, one of the projects killed in 1972 to make way for the space shuttle was Project Rover, a 17-year, $1.4 billion effort to develop nuclear- powered rockets. More than a dozen prototype engines were built and tested. The same work in today's dollars would cost $25 billion. But Rover was always viewed as a second-stage rocket that would be fired only after it was safely out of the earth's atmosphere. Launching a nuclear rocket from the ground was deemed to pose unacceptable health risks...
...Scientists, project Timberwind is still at an early stage in its development. Fuel elements have been built and tested. Testing grounds have been selected in the Nevada desert. The Defense Science Board has given the project its seal of approval. And plans have been made to send a prototype rocket on a suborbital test flight over Antarctica and parts of New Zealand. All this was before the veil of secrecy had been lifted, however. Now that the word is out, and Congressmen have begun to stake out positions on either side of the issue, Timberwind is starting to look like...
...latest Star Wars scheme, the Pentagon is building an atomic-powered rocket...