October 1985
From The Space Library
Despite a recent surge of interest among undergraduate students, many university aerospace engineering departments were coping with faculty shortages, uncertain research support, and inadequate funding to operate and maintain their research facilities, the National Research Council's (NRC) NewsReport reported. A study prepared for NASA by an NRC committee chaired by Morris Steinberg, vice president for science at Lockheed Corp., said, “Faculty positions today are not especially attractive to ambitious young aerospace engineers.” The number of doctorates awarded annually in the field dropped by half in the decade ending with 1983, indicating students were choosing careers in industry rather than academe. The committee concluded that NASA, which depended on the nation's universities for ideas and expertise, should take several steps to help remedy the problem.
NASA should bolster its support of campus research efforts that addressed “long-term fundamental problems whose solutions are likely to have lasting impact,” the committee said. NASA also should institute a system of peer review of research proposals, establish Ph.D. fellowships in aerospace engineering, and coordinate its efforts to support university research and teaching in the field. (NRC NewsReport, Oct 85, 17)
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that its university programs, primarily involving undergraduate students, combined futuristic space concepts with realistic engineering design challenges. The first program, cosponsored by NASA Headquarters and Ames Research Center (ARC) and Johnson Space Center (JSC), required students to design a spacesuit glove that would allow astronauts maximum flexibility at eight lb.-per-sq-in., the pressure planned for future extravehicular activity. Ten universities responded to a request for proposals, and a team from Kansas State University won the design competition.
The second broader program, entering its second phase of a two-year pilot effort, required universities to adopt NASA advanced space design projects for senior design classes. Each university received a grant and was aligned with a NASA center that provided guidance, data, and lecturers during the academic year and 10-week summer work assignments for three students.
The initial group of centers, schools, and projects were: ARC/University of Wisconsin/manned Mars habitat; ARC/University of Colorado/geosynchronous space station; Langley Research Center; (LaRC) Virginia Polytechnic Institute/orbital servicing center; LaRC/Massachusetts Institute of Technology/ lunar base-manned Mars mission; Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)/ Georgia Institute of Technology/lunar site preparation; Lewis Research Center (LeRC)/University of Washington/space manufacturing facility; LeRC/University of Michigan/lunar Space Transportation System; and JSC/University of Texas and Texas A & M/manned Mars mission. (NASA Activities, Oct 85, 10)
The Space Shuttle Discovery on mission 51-G was not the first NASA orbiter to carry retroreflectors for laser ranging in space, the Goddard News reported. Apollo astronauts in the late 1960s placed reflectors on the moon, and NASA launched in 1976 Lageos, a retroreflector equipped satellite. Laser ranging had become routine in space and was available for a variety of measurement tasks.
At Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Crustal Dynamics Project (CDP) scientists analyzed data received from satellite laser ranging (SLR) to study the movement and deformation of crustal plates that determined earth's shape. The scientists also analyzed data received from lunar laser ranging (LLR) to study polar motion and earth rotation, which led to earth's wobble.
At GSFC there was an international system of cooperating laser networks. All systems, such as the Goddard Laser Tracking Network (GLTN), provided data to the CDP through conventional SLR and lunar laser ranging. The GLTN consisted of a series of transportable and fixed systems throughout the world and other international laser networks also supported the CDP.
Satellite laser ranging had attained major advances since the inception in 1965 of the GLTN. Tracking efficiency had improved from 65% in 1981 to 75% in 1985; instrument accuracy, from 10 cm to 1 cm.
The laser transmitter and sensitive photomultiplier receiver were the most essential equipment in any laser tracking system, because they provided and processed the signals from which the measurements were made. Current laser transmitters shot short-pulsed beams that lasted 200 trillionths of a second, the time it took light to travel about two inches.
Recently, the Federal Republic of Germany asked GSFC scientists to assist in preoperational tests of its new Modular Transportation Laser Ranging System (MTLRS) 1, because GSFC had the Mobile Laser Ranging System (MOBLAS) 7 for a calibration standard of comparison. During the daily tests, the two systems simultaneously tracked the same satellite, then scientists compared data obtained from MTLRS 1 to that from MOBLAS 7. The closer the measurements, the better the calibration; MTLRS 1 measured within 1 cm of the MOBLAS 7.
MTLRS 1 later would participate with other European and U.S. systems to perform satellite laser ranging in West Germany, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Israel, and Turkey. (Goddard News, Oct 85, 4)
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