Mar 3 1985
From The Space Library
In his "National Security Launch Strategy" directive, President Reagan told NASA and the U.S. Air Force to begin a study leading to joint development of a bigger and more powerful Space Shuttle that could begin flying missions just before the year 2000, the Washington Post reported. In a major policy change, the Reagan Administration indicated that the Air Force should share with NASA the cost of designing and acquiring the second-generation Space Shuttle; NASA had borne the $10 billion cost of developing the current Space Shuttle, although the Air Force used it one third of the time.
The directive also covered an agreement by the Air Force to use NASA's Space Shuttle at least eight times a year for the 10 years after 1988 and approved an Air Force decision to buy an improved version of its Titan rocket to supplement the Space Shuttle for military launches starting in 1988 and ending in 1993 [see Feb. 27].
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger said in the directive that the Air Force had decided to buy 10 Titan 34D7 single-use rockets for $2.09 billion between then and September 1993 from Martin Marietta Corp. The directive did not resolve the dispute between NASA and the Air Force over Air Force plans to sell at bargain rates obsolete Titan II intercontinental ballistic missiles to launch three weather satellites for NOAA [see Feb 25].
NASA was disappointed in the Air Force decision to buy the Titans, as it had tried to persuade the Air Force to buy an upgraded version of the solid-fuel rocket booster that helped put the Space Shuttle into orbit. Present rocket power limited Space Shuttle cargo weight, flying height, and its cross-range (limiting landings to Kennedy Space Center, Edwards AFB, and the White Sands Missile Range).
The permanently manned space station planned for 1993 would require loads up to 75,000 lb. carried into polar orbit and at least 100,000-lb. loads into near-equatorial orbit at altitudes of at least 500 miles. (W Post, Mar 3/85, Al2)
The NY Times reported the death in Moscow of Josif S. Shklovsky, internationally known Soviet astrophysicist and early champion of the search for intelligent extraterrestrial life. Shklovsky was 68.
Dr. Herbert Friedman of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington said Shklovsky's contributions were diverse and, in some cases, basic. For example, in 1953 Shklovsky had proposed that the strange light from such features as the Crab Nebula, puzzling because it occurred at all wavelengths instead of being concentrated into spectral lines like ordinary light, was synchrotron radiation generated by electrons whirling in extremely strong magnetic fields. Researchers later discovered that the Crab Nebula and other remnants of great stellar explosions, or supernovas, emitted synchrotron radiation across the full width of the spectrum.
Shklovsky also proposed the widely held concept that periodic X-ray emissions from space came from superdense stars circling one another at close range.
In 1962 Shklovsky published a book arguing that intelligent creatures might exist in other worlds; it had gone through four Soviet editions and was translated by Carl Sagan. Later, Shklovsky began to doubt the existence of nearby civilizations, but had urged the creation of huge space colonies.
He received the Lenin Prize in 1960 and was made a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1966. (NYT, Mar 6/85, B10)
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