STS-26 Preflight Press Briefing: Crew Escape/Crew Equipment

This NASA KSC video release presents part of a press conference held prior to Discovery flight STS-26, the first shuttle mission flown following the 51-L Challenger accident. The five member panel present individual viewgraph discussions followed by a question and answer period for the benefit of scientific journalists. William A. Chandler (Asst. to the Dir. of Engineering and the NSTS program) gives a brief overview of the crew escape system followed by Steven Nagel's (Astronaut) presentation on crew equipment. Robert Rice (Crew Escape System Manager) describes the flight test program and the innovative pyrotechnics system test program. Tim Pelischek (Pole Design Team) gives an assessment of the critical design review and Ricardo Machin reviews aerodynamic flight tests performed at Texas A&M and California. The second part of the video includes Robert Crippen's (Deputy Dir. of Operations, Kennedy Space Center) overview of NASA Management, the organizational changes and actions taken to meet the Roger's Commission recommendations.