Sep 29 1992
From The Space Library
Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced plans to blast an 11-pound projectile from a 155-footlong cannon into a California hill. The test shot was intended to demonstrate that an ultra-high-velocity gun hitherto used only for laboratory research can be adapted to send payloads into space at only about one-fortieth of what it costs to orbit them by Space Shuttle. The gun was the product of a program called the Super High Altitude Research Project. (NY Times, Sept 29/92)
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin announced in a number of speeches the first major reforms resulting from the internal review of NASA programs he had ordered. The Earth Observing System would be streamlined again, and incentives to Space Station Freedom contractors might be pooled to assure that they worked as a team. The reforms were designed to make U.S. civil space programs better, faster, and cheaper. Money saved would be applied to new missions using small spacecraft. (Av Wk, Sept 28/92; Science, Oct 2/92)
General Motors and Ford automotive companies began experimenting with technology derived from the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) project. Both companies were testing automobiles equipped with titanium aluminide valves. Application of existing NASP materials technology to current automobile engines could reduce the weight of their moving parts by 50 percent, increasing fuel efficiency and durability, according to materials scientists. (Av Wk, Sept 28/92)
The Galileo space probe, on its way to study the planet Jupiter, recently passed within 5,300 kilometers (3,300 miles) of the asteroid 951 Gaspra, and scientists instructed it to take the first ever closeup photo of such an object. The irregular shape suggests that Gaspra was chipped from a larger body in a mammoth collision. (Time, Sept 28/92)
NASA selected Hughes Aircraft Company to build a data and information system for the Earth Orbiting System. The program, which would collect environmental data from satellites, was expected to cost NASA about $3 billion. (NASA Release C92-16; NY Times, Sept 30/92; WSJ, Sept 30/92; W Post, Sept 30/92; Av Wk, Oct 5/92)
NASA announced that satellite measurements showed that the ozone hole over Antarctica was now the largest on record, being almost three times as large as the area of the United States. Measurements by the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer instrument aboard the Nimbus-7 satellite last Wednesday showed that the south polar territory under the depleted ozone area extended to about 8.9 million square miles, about 15 percent larger than the ozone hole measured in 1991. (NASA Release 92-159; W Post, Sept 30/92; Time, Oct 5/92; AP, Sept 30/92; UPI, Sept 30/92)
The Pentagon said that the crash of an experimental V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft that claimed seven lives in July was caused by a combination of a flash fire, engine failure, and a failed drive shaft. The statement did not make clear whether the problems arose from a design flaw or some defect in a part or parts. (P Inq, Sept 30/92; NY Times, Sept 30/92)
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