But in interviews, arms and aerospace experts said that such setbacks were a normal part of rocket and warhead science.

But outside aerospace experts estimate a cost of $9 billion to $12 billion.

To many aerospace experts, launching a satellite with a known serious defect would be a galling admission of failure.

But estimates by aerospace experts put its price, including engines, are more than $2 billion.

Political pressures could delay the next space shuttle flight until after the 1988 Presidential election, a former astronaut, aerospace experts and some space agency officials say.

But aerospace experts say these rules have been repeatedly and consciously broken during the past decade, throwing the American space program into a tailspin.

Robert L. Kirk, an aerospace expert, will soon become a railroad man.

In fact, man's first voyage beyond the planet was nearly a disaster, Western aerospace experts have learned.

The nation's fledgling private rocket industry could fail in the next few years unless extraordinary steps are taken to insure its survival, aerospace experts say.

Some aerospace experts speculate that the debris, about the size of a briefcase, could have critically damaged the left wing.