Word: launchful
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...that seemingly fatal plume developed on the booster's side? The panelists kept asking about the unusually cold weather at the launch site. The temperature had dropped to 24 degrees F early that morning and had risen to only 38 degrees at the 11:38 a.m. lift-off. Buffeted by overnight winds of up to 35 m.p.h., the shuttle had gone through what meteorologists call a "cold soak," conditions more severe than those at any of the previous 24 shuttle launches. NASA manuals say that the solid fuel in a booster should be ignited only when the rubber-like mixture...
NASA officials conferred by telephone with Thiokol experts on the day before the launch, said Judson Lovingood, deputy shuttle manager at Marshall Space Flight Center. Their concern, however, was not with the fuel, but with the cold affecting the O rings that seal the rocket joints. After these talks, Lovingood told the commission, "Thiokol recommended to proceed" with the flight. Privately, experts explained that gaps in the seals or cracks in the fuel mixture could allow the hot exhaust gases within the booster to reach the rocket's outer steel casing and burn through it. Another possibility was that...
...been working on the conceptual designs for a space plane. At the moment, says one industry consultant, "it's just a gleam in everyone's eye." But what a gleam: the plane would take off on a conventional runway and fly into orbit like a rocket. It could launch satellites, much as the space shuttle has done, or it could simply whisk U.S. passengers from coast to coast in twelve minutes. Such staggering speed would only be possible with a new kind of engine that could function both in the atmosphere and in space...
...naval maneuvers taking place off the Libyan coast. The delegates, who included Habash and Jabril, duly approved an eleven-point resolution proposing, among other things, the creation of suicide squads for commando attacks against American targets in the U.S. and elsewhere "if the U.S. should dare to launch an aggression against Libya or any other Arab country." Added the joint declaration: "He who sets a fire must be burned by his own fire...
Like a number of other astronauts, Smith had to wait a while for his turn in the launch rotation. As part of his preparation for last week's flight, Smith had brought along a replica of the Beaufort town flag for his fellow crew members to sign. He planned to present it during commencement exercises next June at his old school, now called Carteret High, where he was to be the featured speaker. Said Senator Jake Garn, who trained with Smith for a 1985 shuttle mission: "He was my mother hen. They assigned him to me." One thing...