Mar 21 1991
From The Space Library
NASA announced adjustments to the February 1991 Mixed Fleet Manifest as a result of the cracks discovered on Space Shuttle Discovery. Space Shuttle Atlantis was to fly in April; after repairs, Discovery (STS-39 mission) was to fly in May as was STS-40/Spacelab Life Sciences Mission aboard Columbia. The Tracking Data Relay Satellite Mission originally scheduled to fly on Discovery in July was to be on Atlantis in August. The Defense Support Program mission remained on Atlantis but was moved from August to December with the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite. The International Microgravity Laboratory mission planned for December 1991 would become the first flight in 1992. The mixed cargo flight of the Tethered Satellite System and the European Space Agency's European Retrievable Carrier, originally scheduled for February 1992 on Discovery, would move to August 1992 on Atlantis. Other mid-1992 flights would remain as scheduled earlier. (NASA release 91-44; AP, Mar 21/91; UPI, Mar 21/91)
NASA announced delivery of its "restructuring" report to Congress, redesigning Space Station Freedom. William B. Lenoir, Associate Administrator for Space Flight, stated that NASA cut costs (by $8.9 million through 1999), simplified the design, and reduced the complexity of the project in accordance with Congress's directions and the Augustine Commission's recommendations. Six Shuttle flights would be needed to achieve the human-tended phase when astronauts, brought by the Space Shuttle, work for two-week periods. A permanently manned configuration would be achieved in fiscal year 2000, consisting of the U.S. laboratory and habitat, and European and Japanese laboratories; the Canadian Mobile Servicing System; accommodations for a live-in crew of four; and three sets of solar arrays providing 65 kilo-watts of electric power. Before permanent occupancy, an Assured Crew Return Vehicle must be available to evacuate crew in emergency; this phase requires 17 Shuttle flights. Various changes in ground facilities were also planned, scaling back some plans and resulting in some layoffs by contractors and subcontractors. (NASA release 91-45; B Sun, Mar 21/91; W Post, Mar 21/91; WSJ, Mar 21/91; USA Today, Mar 21/91; AP, Mar 21/91; UPI, Mar 21/91; CSM, Mar 22/91; W Post, Mar 22/91; B Sun, Mar 22/91; NY Times, Mar 22/91; W Times, Mar 22/91; UPI, Mar 22/91; The Citizen, Mar 24/91)
Vice President Dan Quayle, head of the White House's National Space Council, told NASA and congressional leaders that the National Research Council's criticism of the redesigned NASA Space Station was "not entirely appropriate." He endorsed the project as advancing U.S. leadership in space. Quayle also alluded to the Mars mission saying "We will 'go-as-we-pay,' but we must go." The "pay as you go" terminology in connection with the Space Station project exasperated NASA Administrator Richard H. Truly. (NY Times, Mar 21/91; LA Times, Mar 21/91; Av Wk, Mar 25/91)
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, announced the selection of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the contract to design, develop, and operate a science support center for the space-based Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF). AXAF was scheduled to be launched in 1998 as the third of NASA's Earth-orbiting Great Observatories. The center is to serve the international scientific community with an observation program for the x-ray telescope and the data it collects. (NASA release 91-46)
A group advising the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that a 10-year delay in taking action to curb global warming would mean little further increase in the level of warming predicted by the end of the 21st century. Michael E. Schlesinger, a climatologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Xingjian Jiang authored a study indicating this. Meanwhile, William K. Reilly, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, echoed this stance by saying "It's better to get it right than to act too precipitously." Scientists disagreed on the subject, and Senator Al Gore strongly opposed the Bush Administration's position. (NY Times, Mar 21 /97 )
George Rhee, an astronomer at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, in an article in Nature, discussed the observed rate at which space is expanding in all directions, known as the Hubble constant. Rhee stated that new measurement had produced the relatively low value of 50 kilometers per second per megaparsec (3.26 million light-years) for the Hubble constant, agreeing with the estimate of Allan R. Sandage of the Carnegie Institution's observatories in Pasadena, California. (NY Times, Mar 21/97)
The Council on Competitiveness in its report found the United States leading the world or holding its own in 61 of 94 technologies considered crucial to future economic progress, including rocket engines, computer software, biotechnology, and advanced welding techniques. However, it deemed the United States trailing in 33 other fields including laser technology and semi-conductor chips. International competition and joint efforts to develop a supersonic plane with a new "hypersonic engine" are discussed. Gordon Adams, director of the Defense Budget Project, commented that although most such research would be global, many U.S. firms still did not see them-selves as part of a global industry. (W Post, Mar 21/97; P Inq, Mar 21/97)
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