Word: launchful
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...Britain and Indonesia. Many companies turned to Arianespace, the French-led European space consortium, which quickly booked all its flights through 1989. But the European concern could not take on all of NASA's customers, partly because it can handle only about ten lift- offs a year at its launch pads in the jungles of French Guiana...
Martin Marietta, which produces Titan-class rockets for the Air Force, was the first U.S. firm to sign up a client. It plans to launch an ExpressStar communications satellite for Federal Express in 1989. Says Richard Brackeen, a vice president in charge of launch systems for Martin Marietta Aerospace: "The private launching business could be the next widebody jet business...
...January, McDonnell Douglas hitched a ride into the space race when the Air Force awarded it a $734 million contract. The firm will build a fleet of up to 20 unmanned rockets by 1991 to launch military satellites. While that work is under way, it will be relatively cheap for McDonnell Douglas to build additional rockets to haul commercial payloads...
Much smaller U.S. operators are also reaching for the skies. Robert Truax, a former Navy engineer, built a rocket in his Saratoga, Calif., backyard four years ago, and hopes to be the first private businessman to launch commercial cargo into space, possibly from Cape Canaveral. Entrepreneur George Koopman's Menlo Park, Calif., firm, American Rocket, is conducting flight tests at Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. Like Truax, Koopman says the hardest part about starting a space-transport firm is raising enough money. Says he: "I'm still out there beating the bushes for funds...
Next year Great Wall plans to launch its first commercial payload, a Westar 6-S communications satellite for New York-based Terasat. It will transmit television programming and business data for Western Union and other users. The Chinese have also signed an agreement to launch a Swedish satellite, and are holding talks with 17 other nations. For customers who are concerned that China may copy the technology in satellites, Great Wall suggests that they package the payload in a sealed container and send along representatives to escort the cargo to the launch site...