Mar 18 1980
From The Space Library
NASA reported that it and NSF had found a promising new meteorite source in the Antarctic, two fields known as Recking Peak and Elephant moraines, three or four times as large as the Allen Hills area covered by meteorite hunters during the past four years-also "more promising... and more dangerous," said curator John Annexstad, one of the discoverers.
The finds had been handled like the lunar samples brought to Earth by Apollo astronauts; the unusual preservation aspects of the ice shelf kept the meteorites as they had been when entering Earth atmosphere hundreds of thousands of years ago, providing evidence of organic history predating their arrival on Earth. The search for meteorites on the ice shelf had begun with the Japanese, who found large amounts in the Yamato mountains of Queen Maud Land. Dr. William Cassady, University of Pittsburgh, theorized a transport system explaining the Antarctic icefield concentrations, and several seasons of hunting tended to confirm the theory. The total of Antarctic meteorites found topped 1,600, many of them rare or unique types. (NASA Release 80-28)
The Washington Post reported that Dr. Robert A. Frosch had approved a NASA regulation covering the situation "when a barroom brawl breaks out in space." The rule would permit a Shuttle commander to "use any reasonable and necessary means, including physical force," to maintain order on board. The police power would include authority to arrest a person in space and charge him or her with a crime punishable by a $5,000 fine, a year in prison, or both.
Eugene A. Cernan, veteran of two trips to the Moon and one in Earth orbit, commented that "I never felt the need for a written regulation or the need for brute force to get things done." NASAs lawyers said that times had changed: the Shuttle would carry seven people compared to the three on Apollo and two on Gemini; up to four could be civilians, not professional astronauts, and up to three of them could be foreigners unfamiliar with NASA procedures.
NASA General Counsel Neil Hosenball said NASA "had to establish a chain of command with all those people on board." Legal precedents were two assault cases where people were out of touch with the rest of the world: one occurred on a plane flying from Puerto Rico to New York, the other on an ice floe carrying civilian scientists in the Arctic. In 1956 two Puerto Ricans on their way to New York were toasting each other in rum while the plane was over the Atlantic; a fist fight ensued that drew most of the passengers to the rear of the plane to watch. The plane became tail-heavy the pilot interfered; and was bitten in the shoulder. A New York court released the accused, ruling that it was without jurisdiction over a plane in flight above the ocean. When one of a team of technicians doing research on an ice island off Alaska attacked three others before one of them killed him, a court of appeals in Alaska ruled that it had no jurisdiction in a crime committed on an island floating through the Arctic Ocean. (W Post, Mar 18/80, A-8; Nature, May 27/80, 296)
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