Dec 4 1985
From The Space Library
NASA Administrator James Beggs today took an indefinite leave of absence from the agency to fight fraud charges against him [see NASA/ Management and Personnel, Dec. 2], the Washington Post reported. With White House approval, associate administrator Philip Culbertson became general manager.
Although Beggs had refused to resign, White House spokesman Larry Speakes said that President Reagan, “while reluctantly acceding to his request for a leave of absence,” asked Beggs to assist in an “orderly transition of his responsibilities to his colleagues at NASA to facilitate continuity of management at this critically important agency. Mr. Beggs has agreed to do so.” Speakes added that the space program “has been revitalized” under Begg's leadership and “this important record must continue.” Putting Culbertson in charge of day-to-day operations put Begg's stamp on the transition, the Post said. Culbertson was a 20-year NASA veteran, well-known to the House and Senate committees that dealt with the agency, and responsible for planning the agency's next big project, construction of an $8 billion permanent space station.
William Graham, a former planning analyst at the Rand Corp. and chairman for the previous three years of the White House Advisory Commission on Arms Control and Disarmament, had been with NASA eight working days. Reagan appointed Graham acting administrator, so that Graham could create the job of general manager and name Culbertson to the post. “Whoever is running the space agency in 1986 has to know where the space station stands, what money it needs and who to talk to to keep it on track,” said a congressional aide who dealt with NASA. “That's why Phil Culbertson is getting the job of running the agency day-to-day. He knows the issues.” In his statement, Beggs reiterated that he is innocent of the fraud charges resulting from a Justice Department investigation. “I have concluded there was nothing I did then that I would not do again,” Begg's statement said. “I have not been involved in any criminal wrongdoing or, in fact, of wrongdoing of any kind. I am totally confident I will be exonerated.” (W Post, Dec 5/85, A3)
NASA announced that Voyager 2 began today its encounter with Uranus, which would continue through February 25, 1986. During the period, the spacecraft's 11 instruments would perform close-range studies of the planet, its five known satellites, and nine rings. Voyager 2 would also search for a planetary magnetic field, new satellites, and new rings.
The spacecraft would make its closest approach to Uranus, flying 81,500 km above the cloud tops of the seventh planet, at 1:00 p.m. EST January 24, 1986. Because Voyager 2 was the first spacecraft to reach the planet, the encounter would provide scientists with more information about Uranus and its satellites and rings than had been learned since William Herschel discovered the planet March 31, 1781.
In addition to two cameras, a photopolarimeter, and a spacecraft radio, Voyager 2 carried an infrared interferometer/spectrometer and radiometer, an ultraviolet spectrometer, a cosmic-ray detector, a plasma instrument, a low-energy charged-particle detector, magnetometers, a planetary radio astronomy receiver, and a plasma-wave instrument. Three radioisotope thermoelectric generators supplied the spacecraft's electric power, a system necessitated because solar cells could not receive sufficient solar energy at such a great distance from the sun.
NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) antenna complex at Canberra, Australia, would receive most key data obtained during the Uranus encounter and all of that during the closest approach. (NASA release Dec 85, NASA Voyager Bulletin, Dec 4/85)
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