Another reason is that American rocket makers hope to offer commercial launch services when they resume production in a few years.

The total investment by the rocket maker will be around $19 million, he said.

Two men in the van were also killed, including a man the Israelis consider an important rocket maker.

None of the four other rocket makers vying for the contract, they said, would be able to produce the boosters until the early 1990's.

Three major American rocket makers are preparing to start launching satellites into space next year for a variety of customers.

Korolev, however, embraced Kennedy's challenge as a justification for his own dream of manned space travel and rallied the rocket makers around him.

Delegations of rocket makers pleaded that it was still possible to trump the Americans, to build a lunar base, a way station to the planets.

The Justice Department has brought no charges against the rocket maker.

It is said that rocket maker spends months in cutting the pattern before gluing with the rocket.