February 1983
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The Florida Historic Preservation Society charged that NASA had breached a 1974 agreement by arranging for demolition of the last Apollo launch tower at KSC and sale of the metal as scrap. NASA said that it had to award a contract for demolition by February 18 or risk further delay in Shuttle schedules: the tower had to be removed by October so that NASA could begin modifying the mobile launch pad for use by the Shuttle beginning in 1986.
NASA had postponed demolition for a week to let the society find a way to preserve the tower but said none of the suggestions was practical. The matter arose when two U.S. Air Force engineers at KSC said that the tower could be a major tourist attraction and started a move to save it. NASA said that it would cost up to $4 million to remove the tower and reassemble it for display. The agency had accepted a bid of $557,000 to remove the tower, and the demolition company would keep the steel, worth about $400,000, as scrap. A coalition of historic preservation groups said that the tower could be removed and rebuilt for $1 million (admittedly only an estimate). NASA had offered free storage and a site for reconstructing it if the coalition would pay a con-tractor to dismantle and move it. (NASA Release 83-25; W Post, Feb 17(83, A-17)
NASA said that its IRAS launched January 25 had revealed infrared sources in the Large Magellanic Cloud not visible to optical telescopes on Earth. The Large Magellanic Cloud was the galaxy closest to Earth, about 155,001) light years away. IRAS produced an image from the nebula, called 30 Doradus, of a cloud called Tarantula by astronomers, from its long separate filaments giving it a spider-like appearance. Astronomers suggested that the nebula (a giant H II region, consisting of hydrogen clouds ionized by the ultraviolet radiation from a very hot star) night contain a monster star thousands of times more massive than Earth's Sun. (NASA Release 83-21)
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