Mar 27 1984
From The Space Library
Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger today named Air Force Lt. Gen. James A. Abrahamson, NASA's associate director for space flight, to be manager of what the Reagan administration called the strategic defense initiative, a program to explore the feasibility of building a space-based defense against nuclear ballistic missiles. President Reagan had suggested the program the previous year.
Abrahamson's job would be to direct and coordinate several research pro-grams that had been under way for some time at DOD and in the Department of Energy (DOE). These included research on several kinds of laser and particle beam weapons, work on large mirrors needed for some lasers, advances in high-speed data processing, and methods of generating large amounts of electrical power in space.
Abrahamson had been at NASA since November 1981 and had directed not only the Space Shuttle operation but also commercial sales of Shuttle services and relations with Congress and the space industry. He would begin his new duties on April 15 after the nation's 11th Space Shuttle flight, scheduled for launch on April 6. (NY Times, Mar 28/84, A-19)
NASA announced that Jesse W. Moore would become acting associate administrator for spaceflight on April 15, succeeding Lt. Gen. James A. Abrahamson, who would become director of strategic defense at DOD. Moore, who had been Abrahamson's deputy, had come to NASA Head-quarters in 1978 as the deputy director of the Solar Terrestrial Division in the Office of Space Science. He was director of the Spacelab Flight Division until December 1981, when he assumed the position of director, Earth and Planetary Exploration Division in the Office of Space Science and Applications. In February 1983 he was appointed to the position of deputy associate administrator for spaceflight. (NASA Release 84-40)
U.S. Ambassador to Portugal Allen Holmes and Portuguese Foreign Minister Jaime Gama signed today in Lisbon an accord that would provide for a satellite tracking station in Portugal. Under the accord, the United States would provide Portugal with $60 million annually, of which $20 million would be for military aid and $40 million for economic aid. The United States would use the station to track flying military targets; U.S. plans called for five satellite tracking stations in the world, and stations in New Mexico, Hawaii, and South Korea were completed. (FBIS, Beijing Xinhua in English, Mar 28/84)
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