Word: mccandless
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Dates: during 1984-1984
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...wailing on behalf of clients, lobbyists are rubbing their hands over the fees they will earn from upcoming campaigns. They only hope the war will be a long one. "It's going to be big, really big, and it may last for years," chortles Tax Lobbyist Robert McCandless. "This could be the lobbyists' full-employment...
There was one hitch: Stewart had trouble fitting his bulky boots into foot restraints temporarily attached to the remote-control arm. These are designed to give the astronauts leverage while they work in the weightless environment. At one point, the frustrated McCandless voiced an earthy expletive. On the ground, at the close of that busy series of activities, relieved Flight Director John Cox told reporters at the Johnson Space Center: "It was a super day. We did all the things we had planned...
...developed a machine's equivalent of arthritis. It could not adequately move its "wrist." The problem effectively scuttled the plan to lift SPAS out of the cargo bay and rotate it slowly in space at the end of the arm. While SPAS simulated Solar Max's spin, McCandless was supposed to attach himself to it with a specially designed pin. Unable to cure the arm's ailment, however, the astronauts could do no more than practice the maneuver on a nonrotating satellite. When McCandless gunned the jets on his MMU, the pin held firmly in place...
...other foul-ups ended more satisfactorily. Left untethered in the cargo bay, a foot restraint was accidentally jogged and began floating away in space. "We can go get it," McCandless volunteered. But Commander Brand, exercising caution, immediately replied: "No, no, no, no." Instead, he maneuvered the shuttle toward the fleeing bit of hardware until McCandless could reach out and snare it. The balletic catch brought applause from the Houston controllers. McCandless was pleased too. Improvising on a slogan of an earlier shuttle crew, he joked, "We deliver, but we pick up also...
Before the two space walkers could rejoin their buddies inside the cabin, all activities were stopped for what has become a shuttle tradition: a presidential telephone call. Speaking from his California ranch, Ronald Reagan praised the men for their courage and inspiration. McCandless, asked by the President to explain the significance of his and Stewart's activities, replied grandiloquently. Said he: "We're literally opening a new frontier in what man can do in space, and we'll be paving the way for many important operations on the coming space stations." Reagan had formally endorsed the idea...