Mar 25 1991
From The Space Library
An article about the 900 telephone area code cited the use of a 900 number by the National Space Institute in 1982, allowing callers to listen in on conversations between mission control and Space Shuttle crews. (AP, Mar 25/91)
An editorial in Space News emphasized the importance of a U.S. Space Station to continue improving U.S. competitiveness in the aerospace industry. However, it maintained that NASA and the administration must better justify the cost of the scaled-down version. (SP News, Mar 25-31/91)
Cort Durocher, executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Washington and a former combat pilot and space engineer, wrote in the Houston Chronicle that while working to minimize risks, space exploration involves occasional failures and possible loss of life. (H Chron, Mar 25/91)
William Paciesas, research professor of Physics at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, is co-investigator of an experiment on NASA's Gamma Ray Observatory to be carried by Space Shuttle Atlantis in April. The Burst and Transient Source Experiment was to study the origins of gamma ray bursts. Gamma rays are at the upper end of the energy spectrum, carrying more energy at higher frequency than visible light, ultraviolet light, or x-rays. (Hntsvl Tms, Mar 25/91)
A Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) Synthesis Group, led by former astronaut and Air Force general Thomas Stafford, was collecting ideas for NASA and the White House concerning exploration of the Moon and Mars. A number of Department of Defense programs relate to SEI, such as the Advanced Launch Development Program to improve propulsion technology; the National Aerospace Plane program to develop a hypersonic research aircraft; radiation-hardened avionics and sensors; advanced structural and thermal protection materials; improved orbital propulsion systems; and laser communications between spacecraft. (SP News, Mar 25-31/91)
A space policy analyst for a major aerospace company in California questioned the lack of activity concerning the Strategic Environmental Research Program (SERP). Senator Sam Nunn, Democrat from Georgia, sponsored the program in 1990 to bring vital data and skills from the Defense and Energy departments to bear on problems of environmental research and global warming. The proposal was to select some classified defense satellite data with potential usefulness in global change research, declassify them, and make them available to researchers in global warming. Congress authorized $200 million for SERP in the 1991 Defense Authorization Act, but nothing further was heard. (SP News, Mar 25/91)
The Test Technique Demonstrator program at Langley Research Center, Langley, Virginia, provided hypersonic data on airframe/engine integration applicable to the design of the National AeroSpace Plane (NASP). The program involves an industry consortium, which includes the North American Aviation division of Rockwell International, General Dynamics, and McDonnell Douglas for airframe design, and Pratt & Whitney and Rocketdyne for the propulsion system. C. Larry Edwards, manager, NASP Aerodynamics Technology Program, said the hypersonic testing phase should he completed by 1992. (Av Wk, Mar 25/91)
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