Word: rockets
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...begin this tale of Chinese spying, American bungling and diplomatic trembling, but let's take the day in 1955 when Shanghai-born Qian Xuesen goes home. He had fled the Japanese occupation of China and landed at M.I.T., then earned a Ph.D. at Caltech, where he joined a rocket-research group to pioneer supersonic aerodynamics and thin-shell-stability theory for ballistic missiles. At the university's prestigious Jet Propulsion Lab, he helped design Private A, the first U.S. solid-fuel missile that worked. Then he was invited into the U.S. Army as a colonel to fashion the Titan ICBM...
...launch of Loral's Intelsat 708 communications satellite in Sichuan province in February 1996 was a fiery disaster. The Chinese-made Long March rocket that was supposed to propel the American satellite into space crashed into a hillside 22 sec. after lift-off and exploded, raining flaming rocket fuel and red-hot shards of the 3-ton satellite on a nearby village. China initially said six villagers choked or burned to death, and later upped the number to 56, but U.S. estimates put the fatalities closer...
...experts, headed by a top Loral official, was tapped to investigate. It drew up a preliminary report on specific reasons the Long March may have failed--and faxed it over to the Chinese. This technical feedback, a federal investigation concluded, may have helped China improve the accuracy of its rocket and missile programs. The Defense Department found that Loral and Hughes, another satellite company on the committee, had engaged in a "serious export-control violation" by performing an unlicensed defense service. The State Department asked the Department of Justice to consider criminal prosecution...
...Bryen warned Loral President Robert Berry not to give China any technical help without first getting State Department permission. Berry had just announced the assignment of top company engineer Wah Lim to head a panel of Western scientists who would advise China on possible causes of three rocket failures, the most recent of which had destroyed a Loral satellite. Fixing glitches in China's rocket-guidance system was in Loral's interest, but, Bryen cautioned, it could also improve the reach and accuracy of the country's ballistic missiles, in violation of U.S. laws...
...Bryen warned Loral president Robert Berry not to give China any technical help without first getting State Department permission. Berry had just announced the assignment of top company engineer Wah Lim to head a panel of Western scientists who would advise China on possible causes of three rocket failures, the most recent of which had destroyed a Loral satellite. Fixing glitches in China's rocket-guidance system was in Loral's interest, but, Bryen cautioned, it could also improve the reach and accuracy of the country's ballistic missiles, in violation of U.S. laws...