Jan 26 1980
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(New page: NASA Administrator Dr. Robert A. Frosch conducted a press briefing on the FY81 budget, assisted by Dr. Alan M. Lovelace, deputy administrator; C. Thomas Newman, deputy comptroller;...)
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NASA Administrator Dr. Robert A. Frosch conducted a press briefing on the FY81 budget, assisted by Dr. Alan M. Lovelace, deputy administrator; C. Thomas Newman, deputy comptroller; and Dr. Anthony J. Calio, associate administrator for space and terrestrial applications. Warning the reporters that the information was "embargoed" until President Carter formally gave his budget address to Congress January 28, Robert J. Shafer, NASA deputy director of public affairs, cited the releases on Frosch's recent trip to China as "not embargoed." Frosch said that, although NASA's budget was increasing at a slower rate (9.8% for research and development [R&D] and 11.5 % for space science), he considered it a "good start" for the decade, compared to last year when extra costs of the Space Shuttle had precluded new space science program starts. The figures included an extra $300 million requested as a 1980 supplement for Shuttle development expenses, which Frosch said were increased by delays last summer that threatened mission schedules.
NASA's 1981 request included new-start money for the National Oceanic Satellite System (NOSS), to be funded jointly with DOD and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as well as a gamma-ray observatory to explore the most energetic form of radiation known, exploiting the discoveries of the small astronomy satellite Sas 2, ESAs Cos B, and the first high-energy astronomy observatory HEAO 1. Frosch replied to a question that NOSS would be the first scientific satellite shared with DOD and said its cost would be split among DOD ($13.9 million) and. NOAA and NASA, which would pay about $6.4 million and $5.8 million, respectively.
NASAs total budget request was $5,736 billion, including $4,569.5 billion for R&D, $120 million for facilities construction, and $1,047 billion for program management. (Briefing text, Jan 26/80; NASA Releases 80-7, 80-11, 80-13; W Star, Jan 28/80, A7, B-2; Nature, Jan 31/80, 416)
NASA announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding January 24 in Beijing with the PRC Academy of Sciences covering China's participation in the Landsat program. Under a January 1979 understanding on cooperation in space technology, the People's Republic of China would buy from U.S. industry a Landsat ground station to be installed near Beijing.
The Landsat memorandum, the first formal agreement on space since normalization of U.S.-PRC relations, provided that the People's Republic of China, like other foreign ground-station operators, would make Landsat Data available to others according to distribution policies of NASA and other U.S. agencies. The PRC academy would pay an annual fee of $200,000, starting six months after its station began to receive data. Landsat stations already operating outside the United States were two in Canada and one each in Brazil, Italy, Sweden, and Japan; new stations now receiving data in Australia and India would be operational soon, and one was under construction in Argentina. (NASA Release 80-14)
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