Jan 29 1993
From The Space Library
The Senate confirmed John H. Gibbons as President Clinton's science and technology adviser. Gibbons was scheduled to direct the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), which advises the president on issues such as global warming, AIDS research, and support of science education in schools. A nuclear physicist, Gibbons, 64, headed the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) for 13 years. (W Post, Jan 29/93)
Executives from two major players in the aircraft industry, United Technologies Corporation and General Electric Company, said that job cuts and productivity improvement programs will not by themselves pull the industry out of its downturn. They were beginning to hint that they would like to team up with each other, perhaps through more joint research and development projects. Such hints might be merely a means of testing how far the Clinton administration would let them bend antitrust laws. However, even the suggestion of cooperation revealed the turmoil in the jet engine market, which was suffering because of slumping airline order and deep cuts in government spending on military aircraft. (WSJ, Jan 29/93)
NASA announced that Kennedy Space Center (KSC) contract award protests were settled. EG&G Florida, Inc; BAMSI, Inc.; and Westinghouse KSC Company, Inc. protested the awarding of the contract to Lockheed Space Operations Company, charging that there were deficiencies in the Agency's activities during the original proposal submission. As part of the settlement, NASA agreed to rescind its original selection and said that each of the four competitors would be able to submit a revised proposal. (NASA Release 93-18; WSJ, Feb 2/93; AP, February 2/93; 0 Sen Star, Jan 19/93; Fla Today, Jan 29/93)
In a report to Congress, the General Accounting Office (GAO) reported that NASA had underestimated the cost of its programs by billions of dollars. The report noted that original estimates for 25 of the 29 NASA programs GAO analyzed were too low. GAO found that more than a third cost more than double the early estimates, while only four cost less than those estimates. Most of the programs cost between 50 and 99 percent more than the early projections. One notable exception was Space Shuttle Endeavour; its $1.8 billion cost was $399 million less than the original estimate. NASA officials cited "overoptimism" 'as a reason why initial estimates were often significantly lower than current estimates. (NY Times, Jan 31/93; AP, Jan 30/93; Space News, Feb 8-14/94)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
