May 7 1992
From The Space Library
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia, selected the New Mexico State University, Physical Science Laboratory of Las Cruces, New Mexico, to negotiate a cost contract for the operation and maintenance of scientific balloon facilities and engineering support for the NASA Balloon Program. The total cost for the 5-year program was $65 million. (NASA Release C92-6)
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope revealed an unusual new optical jet in the nucleus of the elliptical galaxy NGC 3862. NGC 3862, also known as 3C264, is a bright radio source and x-ray source. It is the sixth brightest galaxy in a rich cluster of galaxies known as Abell 1367, located at a distance of about 260 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. (NASA Release 92-61)
In a mission called "La Chalupa 30," four men were to conduct investigations in an underwater habitat without any direct outside human contact for 30 days, giving the Behavior and Performance Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, the opportunity to study team performance as part of its continuing investigation to identify pertinent psychological issues for long duration space flight. "The mission will serve as an environment which is analogous to future extended space missions on the Shuttle or Space Station," said Dr. Al Holland, head of the Behavior and Performance Laboratory. (NASA Release 92-62)
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said he found employees worried that the space agency was letting outsiders set priorities, allowing buildings to decay and wasting its skills by using contractors. "There seems to be a concern we over promised in the beginning on technical issues and tend to underestimate costs...There is concern about future funding of new activities and the agency's ability to set priorities. They feel we must take charge of our destiny," Goldin said. (Fla Today, May 7/92)
The names of Michael Adams and Manley "Sonny" Carter, two astronauts who died in the line of duty, were scheduled to be added to the $6.2 million Space Mirror memorial at Kennedy Space Center. The 50 foot by 42 foot memorial was conceived as a way to pay tribute to the seven astronauts who died aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. But it became a memorial for all U.S. astronauts who had died in the line of duty. The names of Adams and Carter, who died in 1991 in a commuter plane crash on their way to a NASA speaking engagement, were added to the memorial when workers were repairing cracks that had developed around the astronauts' names, which are cut through black-granite panels. (0 Sent, May 7/92)
The Senate, defying veto threats by the White House, adopted an $6.3 billion savings package that demanded deep cuts in President Bush's military and space priorities, including the Strategic Defense Initiative. Approved 61-38, the measure would take $1.3 billion from prior appropriations for SDI and $1 billion from production funds for the B-2 bomber. The cuts from the space program, though much smaller, dealt a further blow to exploration of Mars, and they would kill an on-going project to design a high-speed aircraft capable of orbiting into space after launch from a conventional runway. (WSJ, May 7/92)
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