Word: spacecrafts
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...vividly recalls the only previous tragedy in the U.S. space program. It occurred in 1967, when an Apollo capsule caught fire on the launch pad, and Astronauts Virgil ("Gus") Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee perished in the inferno. Only the day before, Morse had been shooting aboard their spacecraft, and his photos of the three men lying strapped in their seats were used by NASA to study the accident that killed them...
...Challenger. Starting some 30 miles off the cape and then spreading out to cover some 6,000 sq. mi., 13 aircraft and more than a dozen recovery vessels joined the search of the conveniently calm Atlantic waters for any evidence that might give clues as to why the spacecraft had exploded...
Despite the obvious devastation of the explosion, searchers began finding surprisingly large parts of the wreckage, the biggest being a 25-ft.- long section of the spacecraft's fuselage. Parts of the shuttle's wings, cabin and cargo-bay door were tentatively identified. Sonar detected a large metal object 140 ft. below the surface, and deep-diving submersibles went down to inspect it. There was speculation that the object might be Challenger's main cabin, although a more likely possibility was that it was one of Challenger's three main engines, which could have fallen in a cluster. But Coast...
...FIERY END of Challenger and her crew is history now, sealed forever into the most uncomfortable corner of our consciousness. Barely a week later, it is as though all of it happened long ago: the remarkably diverse crew walks to the NASA van, the spacecraft lifts majestically skyward, and disaster. A shower of smoke and debris and the booster rockets crazily flailing away, trailing a jagged streamer of cloudy exhaust and diverting us from staring at that ugly fireball. Seven people and man's most magnificent machine, gone in a second. From life to death to nothing. In a second...
...national decision is that the launch vehicle for all spacecraft will be the shuttle, therefore we are part of the manned program, we are dependent on the manned program," said JPL director Lew Allen...