Retirement
The high cost of using hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide, along with the special care that was needed due to their toxicity, proved too much compared to the higher-performance liquid hydrogen or RP-1-fueled vehicles (kerosene), with a liquid oxygen oxidizer. Lockheed Martin decided to extend its Atlas family of rockets instead of its more expensive Titans—along with participating in joint-ventures to sell launches on the Russian Proton rocket and the new Boeing-built Delta IV class of medium and heavy-lift launch vehicles. The Titan IVB was the last Titan rocket to remain in service, making its penultimate launch from Cape Canaveral on 30 April 2005, followed by its final launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on 19 October 2005, carrying the USA-186 optical imaging satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).
A number of HGM-25A Titan I and LGM-25C Titan II missiles have been distributed as museum displays across the United States.
Read more about this topic: Titan (rocket Family)
Famous quotes containing the word retirement:
“Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)
“Adultery itself in its principle is many times nothing but a curious inquisition after, and envy of another man’s enclosed pleasures: and there have been many who refused fairer objects that they might ravish an enclosed woman from her retirement and single possessor.”
—Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667)
“The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)