Jan 22 1993
From The Space Library
Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology( MIT) and NASA reported that water that evaporates on the equator flows towards the Earth's poles in airborne "rivers" of vapor that can equal the volume in the Amazon. Reginald E. Newell of MIT said that researchers were trying to determine how and why these atmospheric rivers occurred and what role, if any, they played in cyclones and other phenomena. The rivers were discovered using data collected in 1984 and 1991 by NASA's Measurement of Atmospheric Pollution by Satellite program and analyzed by the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. (LA Times, Jan 22/93; B Sun, Jan 22/93; AP, Jan 22/93; W Post, Jan 25/93; NY Times, Jan 26/93)
NASA contracted with Stanford University to do additional work on the Gravity Probe-B experiment. The experiment tests predictions of the general theory of relativity. Gravity Probe-B determines how space and time are warped by the presence of the Earth and its rotation by measuring small changes in the spin of four gyroscopes in a satellite at 400 miles altitude in a Earth polar orbit. The first Shuttle test flight was scheduled for October 1995. (NASA Release C93-b)
Officials at the University of California, Berkeley, announced that a violent overnight wind storm had destroyed a multimillion-dollar radio telescope. The 85-foot diameter dish, which was built in 1962, was located at the Hat Creek Observatory in the Lassen National Forest 70 miles northeast of Redding. NASA used the dish as part of its Crustal Dynamics Program, which measures motion of plates that compose the Earth's crust. (UPI, Jan 22/93)
The government-backed computer chip consortium Sematech announced Thursday that it had produced chips with electrical devices just 0.35 microns wide using American production equipment. The announcement indicated that the American chip industry was coming back on track technically. The state-of-the-art in chip production was 0.6 microns; however, Japanese companies recently began demonstrating their ability to produce 0.35 chips. Achieving 0.35 micron capabilities by the end of 1992 was one of Sematech's goals at its founding in 1987. (LA Times, Jan 22/93)
The European Space Agency in the Netherlands invented new shoes for astronauts to use in orbit. The new shoes, which look like ordinary sneakers, have small suction cups on the bottom of each shoe. The suction cups grip floor, wall, and ceiling and allow the astronauts to walk around in the weight-less Shuttle. Up until now, in order to get around astronauts have had to stick their feet into loops placed around the Shuttle. (AP, Jan 22/93)
Outgoing Energy Secretary James D. Watkins conceded in a letter to the chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee that foreign governments probably would not pick up much of the cost of the $8.2 billion Superconducting Super Collider (SCC), which is under construction near Waxahachie, Texas. The project would consist of a 54-mile tunnel through which subatomic particles would be hurled against each other at nearly the speed of light in an attempt to discern the nature of matter. The SCC, which was supported by many of the Nation's scientists, was vulnerable because it had no immediately practical application. (AP, Jan 22/93)
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