Jan 25 1993
From The Space Library
Researchers have turned their military projects to commercial and other uses, and experts say that the real winner would be the economy. At Georgia Tech, scientists converted a project that involved using a laser to help fighter pilots see the enemy through icy clouds to a project that uses lasers to help weather forecasters measure ozone. Agencies like NASA and the Energy Department now supply 20 percent of the $380 million budget at Lincoln Laboratories in Bedford, Massachusetts; the laboratory once worked only for the Defense Department. (AP, Jan 25/93)
Louis Williams, Director of High-Speed Research for NASA, lectured at NASA's Langley Research Center about an environmentally safe, economically sound supersonic transport (SST) that is within the Nation's technological reach. The plane, which would ferry 300 people across the Pacific Ocean in four hours, would go twice as fast as the Concord and carry three times as many people. Government research on the project began in 1990 and was scheduled to run another two years; early research focused on the project's environmental goals, which Williams maintained were being met. The Federal government gave $450 million to the project.
The aerospace industry appeared to be somewhat skeptical of the project because of its high costs and the number of technical breakthroughs needed to get the project off the ground. Some estimates placed the cost of developing the SST at around $15 billion, as opposed to the $4 billion cost associated with developing a conventional plane. (Newport News Daily Press, Jan 25/93)
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