The Nation : Private Launching Slated

Martin Marietta Corp. announced that Federal Express Corp. has signed a launch reservation agreement to orbit a communications satellite on a Titan 3 rocket in 1989, in what Administration officials immediately hailed as the birth of the nation’s commercial rocket industry. President Reagan gave U.S. rocket makers the go-ahead to start launching commercial satellites when he announced on Aug. 15 that most such launches would no longer be accepted for the space shuttle. “This is proof that the private sector is ready to take on the challenge of providing transportation to space on a commercial basis,” said Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole.