What if we told you the federal branch reaching out to the gearhead crowd wasn’t even the Department of Transportation, but actually NASA ... nascent shuttle design into the later space age.

After working to improve the booster design and creating new management practices to improve safety, NASA relaunched shuttle flights on Sept. 29, 1988, when Discovery lifted off from the space center.

The man who led a NASA facility that shouldered much of the blame for the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion has died William Ray Lucas, who led the NASA facility that shouldered much of the ...