Word: tankfuls
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...NASA starts trying to pinpoint the cause of all this horror, investigators will have a lot of places to turn. The mission began with at least one anomaly when, at the moment of launch, a piece of foam broke from the insulation on the giant external fuel tank and struck the left wing of the ship. "We spent a goodly amount of time reviewing the film [of the launch] and analyzing what that might do," says shuttle program manager Ron Dittemore. "From our experience it was determined that the event did not represent a safety concern...
...lost pieces of foam on liftoff. Why has this happened again? Jeff Kluger: It will never be possible to entirely prevent foam from flaking off the shuttle during liftoff - NASA administrator Michael Griffin has been quite candid about that. There's simply too much surface area on a fuel tank 15 stories tall, carrying more than 535,000 gallons fuel. There's too much wind and vibration during liftoff to prevent at least some foam from breaking off. What NASA engineers have done over the past two years is work to improve the contours, and the application of the foam...
...large piece that fell off came from a 37-foot ridge that runs down the side of the tank protecting cables and fuel lines. All their testing had told them they had minimized this danger, but they hadn't - and the reason remains a mystery...
...about 1:30 in the morning on the 9th, we gathered at the Bockscar, and [Major Charles] Sweeney [the pilot] and the flight engineer ran through the preflight tests. The engineer discovered that the transfer pumps, which transfer gasoline from the reserve tank into the main tanks, weren't working. There was 600 gal. of gasoline there, but we wouldn't have access to it. But Tibbets told him, "You don't need that gas, so there's no reason to delay this...
...assurances unconvincing. "Regardless of how many disclaimers there are, the fact is that a general in the P.L.A. made a highly provocative threat about using nuclear weapons first in a conflict with the U.S.," says Evan Medeiros, an expert on the Chinese military at the Rand Corp., a think tank in Virginia. "This reinforces longstanding American concerns about China's willingness to use force over Taiwan and the potential for nuclear escalation." Near the end of his comments last week, Zhu added that he was confident the U.S. and China would not go to war "unless the politicians of these...