Apr 11 1991
From The Space Library
NASA postponed the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis because of high winds at Edwards Air Force Base in California and bad weather at the alternate landing site of Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (P Inq, Apr 11/91; B Sun, Apr 11/91; W Post, Apr 11/91; W Times, Apr 11/91; NY Times, Apr 11/91; USA Today, Apr 11/91; AP, Apr 11/91; UPI, Apr 11/91)
A panel on global warming of the National Academy of Sciences urged the Bush administration to take various anti-pollution and energy efficiency steps to slow global warming. The study was initiated in 1988 when Congress asked the Environmental Protection Agency to commission the academy to study the subject and recommend actions. The panel's central concern was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially the "aggressive phase-out" of chlorofluorocarbons in accordance with the timetable in the 1990 London Protocol. It also recommended energy conservation measures and increased research into alternative energy supplies as well as new-generation nuclear reactors. (B Sun, Apr 11/91; P Inq, Apr 11/91; W Post, Apr 11/91; USA Today, Apr 11/91; NY Times, Apr 11/91; LA Times, Apr 11/91)
The Hubble Space Telescope proved more useful than expected despite the flaw in its mirror. The congressional appropriation of an additional $30 million in NASA's 1991 budget allowed some repairs to be made from the ground using computer processing and radio control. NASA plans additional repairs by astronauts in 1993, attaching new minors to the outside of the telescope. (W Times, Apr 11 /91)
NASA revised its Space Station plan to include a centrifuge. The absence of a centrifuge in the scaled-down plan was criticized by a number of scientists, who considered it essential for the study of the effects of weightlessness. (NY Times, Apr 11/91)
The Soviet Union used the name of Yuri A. Gagarin, the first human in space 30 years ago, to boost its emerging commercial space program. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev at an opening ceremony in Moscow said Soviet space science and technology were open to international cooperation and called for joint space research with the United States, European countries, China, India, Japan, and others. (AP, Apr 11/91)
Four Israeli high school students paid a two-week visit to the United States after winning an astrophysics contest in Israel. The competition was sponsored by the National Museum of Science, Planning, and Technology in Haifa to encourage Israeli youth to focus on technology and the sciences. The students visited Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and NASA's headquarters. (Washington Jewish Week, Apr 11/91)
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