Jan 8 1991
From The Space Library
NASA announced that astronaut William F. Fisher, M.D., would resign effective January 31, 1991. He was to return to full-time medical practice in Texas. With NASA since 1980, Fisher took part in research and in the twentieth Space Shuttle mission in August 1985 when he engaged in the longest spacewalk in the history of spaceflight. (NASA release 91-4; UPI, Jan 8/91)
In a commentary on the Report of the Advisory Committee on the Future of the U.S. Space Program, released in December 1990, Alston Chase pointed out that the report stressed that among NASA's major problems were that it "has grown too large and is trying to accomplish very complex tasks in which there is little margin for error." As an example of NASA's growth, the report cited that Viking involved some 13,000 people, whereas Apollo involved 180,000. (W Times, Jan 8/91)
An article emphasized the problems of the Soviet space program arising from economic and political causes. The Space Shuttle, unveiled two years previously, had not yet carried astronauts into space. The 100-foot long Mir Space Station underwent repeated cuts and in 1988 the "permanent" Space Station was left empty for four months; recently, three-man crews were reduced to two. Military rocket launchings continue but space program funds were cut 10 percent two years in a row. As a result, the reusable Shuttle Buran, which was to rendezvous with Salyut 7 and bring it back to Earth, was unable to do so. Soviet efforts to fund the space program through foreign sales proved disappointing. (NY Times, Jan 8/91)
Resigning astronaut Dr. William F. Fisher warned that the planned $37 billion NASA Space Station could be canceled if its redesign is superficial. He stated that the Space Station needed total rethinking, adding that both Congress and a White House panel also indicated such a need. (NY Times, Jan 9/91)
Whereas NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York plans to announce that 1990 was the hottest year ever recorded, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, says 1990 was only the fourth hottest year since 1979. The difference is accounted for by the fact that Goddard uses ground-based thermometers to record local heat while Marshall uses satellites, which broadly measure atmospheric temperature worldwide. In addition to the global temperature analysis, the World Resources Institute released two related studies. One was by Richard Heim of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Global Climate Laboratory. (WSJ, Jan 8/91; W Post, Jan 10/91; UPI, Jan 10/91; LA Times, Jan 10/91; CSM, Jan 16/91; NY Times Magazine, Feb 3/91)
The Birmingham Post-Herald expressed the concern of some NASA staff over the number of flight waivers NASA had issued. NASA issues such waivers on certain critical items rather than change the Shuttle design, which would be very costly. Statistics indicate that the number of waivers approved since the Challenger accident more than tripled. According to Frank Pizzano, head of the reliability and maintainability engineering division at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the increase results from stricter standards for waivers but many weaknesses were eliminated in the Shuttle redesign after the Challenger accident. (Birmingham Post-Herald, Jan 8/91)
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