Word: sites
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...that seemingly fatal plume developed on the booster's side? The panelists kept asking about the unusually cold weather at the launch site. The temperature had dropped to 24 degrees F early that morning and had risen to only 38 degrees at the 11:38 a.m. lift-off. Buffeted by overnight winds of up to 35 m.p.h., the shuttle had gone through what meteorologists call a "cold soak," conditions more severe than those at any of the previous 24 shuttle launches. NASA manuals say that the solid fuel in a booster should be ignited only when the rubber-like mixture...
...Saturday the sad sound of bugles blowing taps rolled across the site from which the astronauts had climbed so joyfully, but so briefly, into the air. Employees of the Kennedy Space Center held a memorial service near the stands where the schoolchildren had watched the lift-off. A helicopter then carried a wreath of white chrysanthemums and seven red carnations two miles out to sea and dropped them into the gray water...
...gusts up to 35 m.p.h. began sweeping across the Kennedy Space Center. Any malfunction immediately after lift-off would call for an "RTLS," return to launch site. Either Scobee or Smith could fire bolts that would release the orbiter from its external fuel tank and two booster rockets. Challenger could then loop swiftly back to Kennedy's landing strip. Nonetheless, the crosswinds were too strong for a sure landing. No such emergency had ever been encountered, but once again NASA took the prudent course: yet another delay...
News organizations had their own complaints. In what NASA said was an effort to gather evidence for its investi gation, authorities impounded all press film from remote-controlled still cameras that had been stationed around the launch site. Several news organizations have protested the action. In ad dition, some veteran reporters of the space program were rankled at the virtual news blackout imposed by NASA after the accident...
Indeed, a near burnthrough at a different site on a booster occurred on an earlier Challenger flight, during the summer of 1983. In that case, the insulating material on the interior of the nozzle's throat was scorched away to within half an inch of the nozzle's outer skin...