Mar 18 1993
From The Space Library
The Washington Post reported that a subcommittee of the House Administration Committee had approved the extension of the National Air and Space Museum at Washington Dulles International Airport. The two bills were forwarded to the full committee. The legislation called for an appropriation of $8 million in fiscal year 1994 for the start-up of the air and space extension. (W Post, Mar 18/93)
A spokesman for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California said that a pressure buildup ripped apart an experimental supergun designed to fire objects into space. The accident delayed a demonstration scheduled for this spring. Scientists hoped to use the gun, which is like an enormous air rifle, to shoot payloads into space at a fraction of the cost of sending them into orbit via a Space Shuttle. (AP, Mar 18/93; USA Today, Mar 18/93)
NASA announced that 14 astronauts who orbited the Earth during Project Gemini were installed in the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. The new inductees were John W. Young, James A. McDivitt, the late Edward H. White II, Charles Conrad Jr., Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, Thomas P. Stafford, Neil A. Armstrong, David R. Scott, Eugene A. Cernan, Michael Collins, Richard F. Gordon Jr., and Buzz Aldrin. (UPI, Mar 18/93, March 22/93; Reuters, March 22/93; AP, Mar 22/93; P 1, Mar 21/93)
Astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia were to be injected with a saline solution and wired with catheters during next week's research mission in an attempt to help doctors understand the effects of weightlessness on the body. The two German astronauts on board would also have catheters in their veins during the launch in order to measure blood pressure.
Eighty-eight experiments involving 200 scientists from around the world were planned during the nine-day German-sponsored research flight. All the science would be managed from a control center in Germany. NASA was scheduled to handle everything else. (AP, Mar 18/93; Reuters, Mar 17/93)
NASA was scheduled to launch an unmanned Delta rocket with a military navigation satellite and NASA's tagalong tether experiment. The 12 1/2-mile tether, which is just three-hundredth of an inch thick-is wound around a spool. One end of the cord is tied to a 57-pound aluminum box. Everything is mounted on the rocket's second stage. NASA planned to pop the box off the spent booster an hour after the launch. As it shoots away, the box should cause the tether to unwind. Instruments on board would record the speed and tension of the tether and send the data to Earth. (AP, Mar 18/93)
NASA said that the Mars Observer spacecraft fired four of its 24 thrusters as a means of adjusting its course so it could begin orbiting Mars on August 24. This was the third correction maneuver since the spacecraft was launched September 25 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. (APN, Mar 18/93)
In its annual report, NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel said that the Space Station had "progressed considerably in the past year." The report went on to say that the effort "exhibits a degree of stability and continuity that has previously been absent." (APN, Mar 18/93)
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