Nov 11 1985
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European Space Agency (ESA), Japanese, and Canadian officials the previous week expressed concern about NASA's expectations of how the costs of operating the proposed space station should be shared, as fears increased that the U.S. Congress or the Office of Management and Budget might slip the planned 1993 operational date for the $10 to $13 billion facility, Aviation Week reported. The officials were meeting with NASA managers to lay the groundwork for critical space station decisions due by December that would determine what type of contribution they would make to the basic $8 billion U.S. investment.
The international space officials were unanimous in their view that the non-U.S. contribution to the station's operational costs should be largely amortized through open access and use of their respective portions of the station system-not through funding transferred to the U.S. As the discussions progressed, the possibility of a space station schedule delay to help cut the U.S. budget deficit in FY 87 became a growing factor.
Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), chairman of the Senate science subcommittee, and Rep. Don Fuqua (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Science and Technology Committee, both influential space supporters, were cautioning that congressional action on the FY 87 NASA budget could trim space station funding and delay the project's 1993 planned operational date by a year or more.
Fuqua told a meeting of the Washington Space Business Roundtable, a group formed to foster space commercialization, that a slip now, while undesirable and likely to drive up costs later, could be absorbed by the program more easily than one later when the hardware phase was underway. (Av Wk, Nov 11/85, 18)
European space program managers were urging the creation of a science astronaut classification to distinguish crew members with scientific backgrounds from other payload specialists who flew on the Space Shuttle, Aviation Week reported. European managers were using the science astronaut designation for Ernst Messerschmidt, Reinhard Furrer, and Wubbo Ockels, the European crew members who flew aboard Space Shuttle mission 61-A with West Germany's Spacelab D-1 [see Space Transportation System/ Missions, Oct. 30]; NASA used its regular payload specialist designation for the three.
"There has to be a difference between some senator or Arab prince and the qualified scientists who fly aboard the shuttle," said Ulf Merbold, crew interface coordinator for the D-1 mission. "We demand that the science astronaut concept be developed so that these proficient crew members can be designated for such a flight," said Hans-Ulrich Steimle, Spacelab D-1 mission manager at the German aerospace research establishment. "Instead, NASA now has become involved in running a travel office for visiting dignitaries, and this is counterproductive when you want to perform a serious science mission." German officials said they might raise the issue again when planning was finalized for a follow-on Spacelab D-2 mission targeted for 1988. (Av Wk, Nov 11/85, 24)
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The Circumnavigators Club in New York City would present Sally Ride, the first American woman astronaut, with its Order of Magellan, the Washington Post reported, which was presented to individuals who were dedicated to advancing peace and understanding in all parts of the world and who had circumnavigated the globe. Ride was only the 17th person to receive the award.
Other recipients were Gen. Douglas MacArthur, former President Hoover, Neil A. Armstrong, Sen. Barry Goldwater, Lowell Thomas, and Thor Heyerdahl. (W Post, Nov 11/85, C3)
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