Word: rocketted
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...licensed pilot and irrepressible space buff, Hannifin has been covering NASA since it was NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, until 1958). Recalls Hannifin: "We used to talk about the 'new' turbojet engines, and, gee whiz! a supersonic airplane even seemed possible." Over the years, he met Rocket Wizard Wernher von Braun, covered blast-offs from Cape Kennedy...
...fact, Skylab's history of glitches demonstrated both the futility of taking technological shortcuts and the agility of men working in space to remedy unexpected ailments. When Skylab was launched by a Saturn 5 booster rocket on May 14, 1973, a large section of its meteoroid and heat shield ripped away, taking one of its prematurely extended solar-energy wings with it. A second wing jammed in a retracted position. The craft both overheated in orbit and was dangerously underpowered. But in the space age's first salvage mission, on May 25, 1973, Astronauts Charles ("Pete") Conrad Jr. and Joseph...
...effort had been started two years ago, a rescue might have been possible. Roald Sagdoyev, director of the Institute of Space Research of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, told TIME: "All the operations needed to give Skylab an additional impulse could have been made within the limits of existing rocket and space technology?either American or Soviet." The U.S., he said, could have helped modify the docking locks of Soyuz so it could link up with Skylab...
...NASA engineers studied a plan to send a McDonnell Douglas F-15, America's hottest jet fighter, into a computer-guided supersonic climb to about 80,000 feet and then blast Skylab out of the sky with a non-nuclear rocket. This idea was dropped when the scientists concluded that Skylab would merely be blown into more pieces scattered over a wider area, increasing rather than reducing the danger of damage on earth...
...temperatures (nearly 3,000° F) that the ship will encounter when it re-enters the atmosphere and glides to a landing at either the Kennedy Space Center or Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. A more serious difficulty: ironing the bugs out of the shuttle's main rocket engine, which has failed to perform up to specifications and blew up at least once during ground testing. NASA Administrator Robert Frosch has told Congress that this obstacle should soon be overcome. If so, the shuttle may fly by next July...