Word: launchful
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...President Ronald Reagan. "You demonstrated that we can work in space in ways that we never imagined were possible," he radioed the four-man, one-woman crew of Discovery. If the President has his way, nightly news viewers "ain't seen nothin' yet." Reagan wants to launch a permanent space station by 1992 (the 500th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of the New World) and have in place by the next century a Star Wars system of space-based missile defenses to protect the U.S. from nuclear attack. His national space strategy, announced last August, calls...
...launch date approached, the sense of exhilaration quickened. "It was put together in a hell of a hurry," said Pilot Walker with apparent delight. On the appointed day, turbulent winds of up to 80 m.p.h. at high altitude postponed the liftoff from Cape Canaveral. But nearly everything that NASA could control, it did. When the weather calmed down the next morning, the black-and-white bird threaded skyward only 70 milliseconds late. The one-day delay meant that the launch came on Gardner's birthday, and he promised "not to blow out the candle until 8½ minutes into...
...NASA's own proposed pricing schedule, which has not yet been approved by the Government, calls for a fee of $71 million for renting the shuttle's full payload for each flight up to 1988, and perhaps $100 million after that. NASA is mindful of competition from launch vehicles like the European Space Agency's Ariane series (see following story), which charges $25 million to $30 million to put satellites in orbit...
...voyage of Ariane V 11 was the third successful venture for Arianespace, the mainly French-based company that manages commercial operations for the ESA. The company's first moneymaking launch came in May, almost 2½ years after the ESA began with a series of noncommercial flights. Most of Arianespace's customers are firms and government agencies from within the European Community. Nonetheless, both Arianespace and NASA are competing for the proliferating satellite market outside Western Europe. So far, Arianespace has won contracts for six American, two Brazilian, one Arab, one Australian and several other international payloads. Altogether...
Price is another category in which the Europeans are closing in on NASA. Arianespace's total fee for a shared launch, in which two satellites can be carried for clients who split the cost, runs between $25 million and $30 million. NASA, which does not allow sharing, charges each customer a flat fee of about $10 million, though prices are scheduled to rise by 80% next October. Arianespace's fees are not expected to change until 1989. In addition, Arianespace has found ways to ease the burden of flying European. Among the firm's 51 shareholders...