Word: spacecraft
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...great main fuel tank seeped puffs of steamy vapors, supercold droplets of liquid oxygen. Suddenly, just after dawn on Sunday, the ship's three main engines roared to life. Throttling quickly to 90% of their full 1.1 million lbs. of thrust, the engines caused the spacecraft and fuel tanks to tilt ever so slightly. Seconds later, they snapped back to vertical, and two solid-fuel rockets-fiery space-age Roman candles never before used on a manned flight-ignited, adding their full fury, 5.3 million lbs. more of thrust...
Dressed in space suits, the two men ride up the giant service tower, pause for a last briefing and with a chipper, thumbs-up wave climb into their spacecraft. The ship's three main engines roar to life, gulping supercold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen out of the huge silo-shaped fuel tank As the engines throttle to 90% of full power the spacecraft and tank bend ever so slightly. When they snap back, two solid-fuel rockets strapped to the silo's sides are ignited. Belching flame and smoke, the entire 18-story-high "stack "-spacecraft fuel...
...stack rises over the Florida coast in a great curving arc, with the delta-wing spacecraft slung under the tank and the astronauts riding upside down. At an altitude of 30 miles, the ship is rocked by explosive charges that separate the now exhausted rockets from the tank. Under billowing parachutes, the rockets swing down toward the Atlantic for recovery by ship and later reuse. Meanwhile, the spacecraft accelerates to 17,000 m.p.h. Eight and a half minutes after launch, its main engines shut down. Other explosive charges spin off the empty tank and scatter its fragments like meteorites into...
...sample menu: shrimp cocktail, beefsteak, butterscotch pudding and grape drink). On future missions, with as many as seven people aboard, Columbia will have a fully equipped galley as well as sleeping bunks. Young, who had to make do with the hoses and plastic bags aboard the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft, will probably be particularly fond of a zero-,? toilet with toeholds and a warm-air "flush" to carry off wastes...
...plagued by technical troubles during its development over the past decade and is two years behind schedule. Last week's tragedy was the first loss of life at the launch site of a manned space flight since three astronauts died in a capsule fire in the Apollo I spacecraft...