Apr 16 1997
From The Space Library
NASA and the U.S. Air Force Space Command announced an agreement to collaborate on several projects of mutual interest. NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin explained that the agreement was part of NASA's ongoing mission to become a more efficient and cost-effective agency, and that sharing information would lead to "greater efficiencies in our respective missions." Goldin and U.S. Air Force Space Commander General Howell M. Estes III signed the pact, establishing seven teams to explore areas of potential cooperation. The areas of research included the feasibility of launching defense satellites from the Shuttle; the use of the Shuttle for U.S. Air Force technology payloads; and development of a plan to meet the dual space needs of NASA and the U.S. Air Force. The two agencies also planned to examine ways they might share their common infrastructure and facilities.
In the first study to observe directly a change in the growth cycles of a large swath of the Northern Hemisphere, scientists reported that spring was arriving a full week earlier in the Earth's coldest regions than only a decade earlier. The report contributed to growing concern over the prospect of global warming. Using images obtained from NOAA satellites, a team of five scientists from Boston University demonstrated that plants budding in early spring had used 10 percent more carbon than previously, indicating the spring's earlier onset. The scientific community reacted to the report with interest, although most scientists cautioned that understanding climate change would be a long and difficult process.
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