Word: launchful
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Recovery of the shuttle's right solid fuel rocket booster is particularly important because speculation about the cause of the explosion currently centers on it. Videotape and still photos taken after launch show a plume of fire shooting out from its side toward the external fuel tank, which blew up into a giant fireball...
Among the hundreds of journalists present at last week's ill-fated launch of the space shuttle Challenger were two veteran TIME space watchers: Correspondent Jerry Hannifin and Photographer Ralph Morse. Between them they have logged nearly six decades covering the U.S. space program. As Morse peered through his telephoto lens at the swiftly rising Challenger, he remarked that the lift-off appeared sluggish. "Don't kid yourself," said Morse. "They're in trouble up there...
Morse, who photographed the launching of the first U.S. satellite, Explorer I, from Cape Canaveral in 1958, and has been on hand for nearly every manned flight since, vividly recalls the only previous tragedy in the U.S. space program. It occurred in 1967, when an Apollo capsule caught fire on the launch pad, and Astronauts Virgil ("Gus") Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee perished in the inferno. Only the day before, Morse had been shooting aboard their spacecraft, and his photos of the three men lying strapped in their seats were used by NASA to study the accident that killed...
...shuttle, proposed that seven of the newly discovered moons of the planet Uranus each be named for one of Challenger's victims. Colorado Republican William Armstrong went a bit further, asking the Senate to name ten moons, adding the three Apollo astronauts who died in the 1967 launch-pad tragedy as well. Democratic Representative Mickey Leland of Texas urged that the "true heroes" all be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. At the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, a photo of Challenger's crew, draped in black ribbon, was placed beside a 12- ft.-high...
...gusts up to 35 m.p.h. began sweeping across the Kennedy Space Center. Any malfunction immediately after lift-off would call for an "RTLS," return to launch site. Either Scobee or Smith could fire bolts that would release the orbiter from its external fuel tank and two booster rockets. Challenger could then loop swiftly back to Kennedy's landing strip. Nonetheless, the crosswinds were too strong for a sure landing. No such emergency had ever been encountered, but once again NASA took the prudent course: yet another delay...