Dec 22 1977
From The Space Library
NASA and ESA announced that 6 U.S. and 4 European candidates were finalists in the competition for 2 payload specialist positions, 1 U.S. and 1 European, on the first flight of ESA's Spacelab scheduled to go on the Space Shuttle in 1980. For the U.S., Byron Lichtenberg of Natick, Mass., Ph.D. candidate at MIT, and MSFC's Ann Whitaker, M.S. at the Univ. of Ala., were the only non-Calif. finalists. The others were Craig L. Fischer, M.D., of Indian Wells; Michael L. Lampton, Ph.D., of Berkeley; and Robert T. Menzies and Richard J. Terrile, both Ph.D.s from CalTech (Terrile employed there and Menzies at JPL) and both from Pasadena. ESA's 4 were electronics engineer Franco Malerba of Italy; physicist Ulf Merbold of West Germany; and 2 from the Netherlands, astronomer Claude Nicollier and physicist Wubbo Ockels. (NASA Release 77-255; MSFC Release 77-229; ESA Release Dec 22/77)
FBIS reported a Tass claim that Soviet physicists at the USSR's joint institute for nuclear research at Dubna near Moscow had synthesized the 106th element with a mass number of 259, by bombarding a lead target with ions of chromium (accelerated heavy particles). Academician Georgy Flerov said his group had been working for yrs to synthesize trans-uranium elements (those with atomic nuclei heavier than uranium) and had already obtained the 102nd through 105th elements on the periodic table. The U.S. and the USSR (both countries having "sufficiently powerful heavy-ion accelerators") had begun work on the 106th element about the same time. After the group at Dubna reported success, the U.S. scientists said they had found another isotope of the 106th element, with mass number 263. (FBIS, Tass in English, Dec 22/77)
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