Word: launchful
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Just what that something was may be hard to pinpoint. Of the six launch fiascoes, three involved new, profit-driven rockets: the bulked-up Delta 3, with twice the lift-off muscle of its Delta 2 ancestor; and the Athena 2, a smaller rocket with less propulsive oomph but a bargain price tag. The most recent Titan flub appears to involve misfirings of the rocket's upper stage, a $1.23 billion mistake that may have been caused by badly loaded software. Other miscues have included everything from an electrical short, which caused another Titan to explode, to faulty guidance, which...
...maturity of its work force. If there's any consolation for both companies, it's that they probably have a little breathing room before things really start to close in. Satellite makers know that space flight is a tricky business, and they must factor in a 5% to 10% launch-failure rate. And hitching a ride into space aboard some other country's rocket is not easy. Russia knows the space game, but federal quotas limit the number of U.S. satellites that can ride Russian rockets. Europe's Ariane provides a far better alternative, but that rocket appears...
Despite this, customers are making it known that they won't put up with failure for long. Recently the U.S. Air Force informally approached NASA about launching national-security payloads aboard the shuttle. And last week the Administration apparently okayed the launch of a private satellite aboard a Chinese Long March rocket...
Unlucky or not, this is the worst losing streak for the launch industry in the past 13 years, since the Challenger explosion drove skittish customers away. And with each new pratfall the domestic fleet suffers, the U.S. share of the launch market looks shakier still. In the 1980s, the U.S. controlled 75% of the world's commercial-launch business; that figure is now about 45%, with new competitors on the horizon. "Until Lockheed and Boeing sort out the glitches," warns Marco Caceres, an analyst for the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va., "they are not going to compete...
...woman who portrayed her on film. Gregory Nava, director of the 1997 biopic Selena, cast Jennifer Lopez in the lead. The finished film used Selena's real voice for the musical sequences, but, Nava says, Lopez would sing through her scenes during the filming. The experience inspired Lopez to launch a singing career. "I did a demo in Spanish after Selena and submitted it to the Work label," says Lopez. "They said, 'We like it, but we want you to do it in English.'" So she did. Her album, On the 6, is due out June...