From stray pens to birds, Mike Leinbach, retired launch director, explains why shuttle launches sometimes got scrubbed.

In U.S. human spaceflight program, the final launch decision rests with one person: the launch director. NASA's Mike Leinbach on making hardest call.

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Plans were well underway to launch the Space Shuttle at Vandenberg in the early 1980s. The shuttle was what a rocket could never ...

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Retired NASA launch director Mike Leinbach launched 37 space shuttle missions and more than 240 astronauts to space.

A detailed animated look at the process of getting the Space Shuttle into Earth orbit, with most operations shown at Kennedy ...

After an all-day meeting in which engineers debated technical issues that could affect the mission, managers decided to keep the shuttle’s October 23 launch date for a mission that will take a key ...

Plans were well underway to launch the Space Shuttle at Vandenberg in the early 1980s. The shuttle was what a rocket could never be: A flying aircraft with a human pilot. The insulting phrase for ...