Apr 5 1991
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
NASA satellite observations indicated that Earth's protective ozone layer was thinning twice as fast as believed previously. The Environmental Protection Agency made the announcement. Richard S. Stolarski, a research scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center, found a four to five percent average decrease over the 11-year period he studied. During the winter, the depletion was eight to nine percent of the layer. Several scientists have stressed the importance of the public developing "good sun habits" in relation to the ozone depletion and reducing the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).(B Sun, Apr 5/91; NY Times, Apr 5/91; WSJ, Apr 5/91; W Post, Apr 5/91; USA Today, Apr 5/91; W Times, Apr 5/91; LA Times, Apr 5/91; UPI, Apr 5/91; NY Times, Apr 9/91; CSM, Apr 9/91)
Brief biographies of each Atlantis astronaut appeared. (UPI, Apr 5/91)
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, has selected Hughes/Santa Barbara Research Center, Goleta, California as its contractor for the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer-Nadir (MODIS-N) instrument for the Earth Observing System (EOS) program. EOS is central to NASA's Mission to Planet Earth Program. MODIS-N is the key research instrument to fly on a series of EOS unmanned polar spacecraft. Over a 15-year period, it would measure terrestrial, oceanographic, and atmospheric parameters to assess environmental changes. (NASA Release C91-1)
NASA Administrator Richard H. Truly announced that, based on a recent policy review, NASA's Space Flight Participant Program would be kept in abeyance until 1992. NASA previously had indicated that when the program resumed, first priority would be given to a teacher in space in fulfillment of space education plans. (NASA Release 91-50; UPI, Apr 5/91; LA Times, Apr 6/91)
Royce Mitchell, NASA's Advanced Motor Project Manager at Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, announced that NASA would begin a series of sub-scale test firings to evaluate materials intended for use in the new Space Shuttle Advanced Solid Rocket Motor. The first of five nozzle tests would occur on April 10, conducted by Aerojet Corporation, ASRM Division in Iuka, Mississippi. (NASA Release 91-51)
Astronaut Manley Lanier "Sonny" Carter, who flew on the Shuttle Discovery in 1989, was one of those killed in the crash of the commuter plane carrying former Senator John Tower. Biographic data were given. (UPI, Apr 5/91; AP, Apr 5/91; AP, Apr 6/91; NY Times, Apr 6/91; W Post, Apr 6/91)
Thousands of people watched Atlantis take off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The external fuel tank from Space Shuttle Atlantis broke off after takeoff and was seen over Hawaii streaking toward Earth. Some accounts gave biographic data of crew members. (AP, Apr 5/91; W Post, Apr 6/91; LA Times, Apr 6/91; NY Times, Apr 6/91; P Inq, Apr 6/91; B Sun, Apr 6/91; LA Times, Apr 7/91)
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