Challenger Proved Last Straw for 'Scary' Cryogenic Booster Plan

摘要

As 1985 faded into 1986, NASA was racing the clock to perfect a powerful hydrogen-fueled upper stage to propel the Ulysses and Galileo probes to Jupiter. Both nuclear-powered spacecraft were to be deployed from two space shuttles launched just five days apart in May 1986. The General Dynamics-built Centaur-G rockets, mounted in the cargo bays of Challenger and Atlantis, would be loaded with 20,000 kilograms of super-cold liquid-oxygen and volatile liquid-hydrogen propellant in tanks thin enough to dent with a gloved finger.