[Roccus]

Four months later, after numerous launch vehicle explosions on the pad and in mid-flight,...

Thanks for posting that. Many Americans, and FReepers too, are unaware of the frustrations we endured watching or reading about failure after failure. It was bad enought that adolescents had a joke about it.

Q. How do they count backwards at Cape Canaveral?

A. 5...4...3...2...1...Oh...$#@!, back to the drawing boards.

[SlowBoat407]

Tom Wolfe covered this wonderfully in “The Right Stuff”.