Feb 28 1992
From The Space Library
A status briefing marking the 20th anniversary of Pioneer 10's launch was scheduled for March 2 at Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California. The briefing was to examine new and past space accomplishments and a spacecraft signal was scheduled to be "piped in" to the briefing from five billion miles away. Also featured in the briefing would be a launch-identical, full-scale replica of Pioneer 10 shown for the first time. (NASA Note N92-16)
The Washington Post announced that Representative Howard Volpe of Michigan had accused NASA of teaching workers how to avoid disclosing controversial information, including rewriting documents and destroying them. The congressman said that congressional investigators looking into a program to develop the SP-100 nuclear space reactor had found a two-page set of instructions on how to deal with Freedom of Information Act requests. (NASA Release 92-041, Feb 28/92; Plain Dealer, Feb 28/92; AP, Feb 27/92)
Representative Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, and Senator Dale Bumpers, Arkansas Democrat, released a GAP analysis that said the Space Agency was committing itself to more projects than for which it could expect the country to pay. "In short, it is chasing too many programs for too few dollars." (W Times, Feb 28/92: AP, Feb 27/92)
Dr. Lynn Wiley, an obstetrician who had worked with NASA since the early 1980s, reported that because of plans for long-term missions in space, the question of sex and reproduction had become very important issues. Men and women could be teamed in lunar colonization efforts planned after the turn of the century and in trips to Mars, which could take two to three years for a round trip. Dr. Stewart Whitman of the Space Settlement Studies Program at Niagara University agreed that research was "essential if males and females are going to be on long-term missions together." But Barbara Schwartz, a spokes-woman for the Johnson Space Shuttle Center, said Shuttle sex is not feasible because there is no "privacy" and stressed that NASA plans no sexual experiments involving humans. (W Times, Feb 28/92; Huntsville Times, Feb 20/92; Birmingham News, Feb 20/92; NY Times, Feb 11/92)
Yuri N. Koptev, a top Russian space official, declared in Izvestiya, that the six-year-old Space Station Mir must be replaced by 1994 and suggested turning to the West for technical and financial assistance. "We do not exclude attracting foreign capital and forming a joint stock company for joint use of the Mir Station," he said. (AP, Feb 28/92)
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