Aug 1 1996
From The Space Library
The Boeing Company announced that it had purchased most of the aerospace and defense holdings of its competitor Rockwell International Corporation. The US$3 billion deal restructured the two companies in drastically different ways, permitting Boeing to increase significantly its potential to win government aerospace contracts, while Rockwell International turned its attention to the lucrative commercial market in automation. Whereas Boeing solidified its established dominance in the commercial jetliner construction business, Rockwell left behind its signature industry the company had been nearly synonymous with NASA's piloted space program. However, in the face of dwindling government contracts, Rockwell had been concentrating for years on developing its commercial product lines. Although the merger was not a surprise, the sale of the company responsible for engineering the Apollo spacecraft and the B-1 bombers marked the end of an era in the aerospace industry. The Wall Street Journal estimated that Boeing's share of aerospace and defense revenues would increase to US$8-9 billion annually.
NASA scientist Jay R. Hermon published an article in Geophysical Research Letters, claiming that he had used NASA's Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer spacecraft to demonstrate the dramatic increase, between 1979 and 1992, of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation reaching the Earth's surface. The article, "UV-B Increases (1979-1992) from Decreases in Total Ozone," explained that the ozone necessary to protect the Earth from the Sun's harmful UV rays was declining. Herman found that annual UV-B exposure had increased 6.8 percent per decade at 55° north latitude and 9.9 percent per decade at 55° south latitude. Both latitudes had significant population centers that emitted harmful emissions destructive to the ozone layer.
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