Apr 15 1993
From The Space Library
NASA announced that NASA technology developed to keep astronauts cool on the lunar surface and a NASA patient-monitoring device, originally designed for astronaut heart rate transmittal, were scheduled to be inducted into the U.S. Space Foundation's Technology Hall of Fame on April 16. (NASA Release 93-069)
The Washington Post reported the White House was seeking to quell expectation about U.S. and Russian cooperation on Space Station Freedom. In an April 13 letter to NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, White House science advisor John H. Gibbons stated that the "White House has made no policy decision to focus our Space Station redesign effort around present or future Russian capabilities." He went on to say that "NASA should not limit its redesign options to those compatible with the orbit of the Russian Mir Space Station." (W Post, Apr 15/93; AP, Apr 15/93)
According to a report in the Baltimore Sun, Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off with a pair of pliers stuck on a rocket booster. Officials said the pliers posed no danger during liftoff, but the incident was getting much attention in management circles. A Kennedy Space Center spokesperson said that the pliers were noted missing in a daily tool inventory at Discovery's launch pad on April 2 but that a proper lost-and-found report, which would have prompted a search, was not filed. NASA was also investigating how a foot-long metal scrap that could have set off an explosion became lodged in one of four launch-pad posts that held up one of Shuttle Discovery's rocket boosters. (B Sun, Apr 15/93; AP, Apr 15/93)
Writing in the Los Angles Times, columnist Michael Schrage noted that "the Space Age is dead." An article in the Washington Post seemed to arrive at the same conclusion. A space analyst noted that "the technologies no longer define our times, and the public has grown weary of multibillion-dollar celestial investments that yield minimal psychic or economic rewards." Other commentators agreed that space as something special-as something that "embodies American values and self-image"-was dead. The emphasis was on programs that were fast, cheap, and cost-effective. (LA Times, Apr 15/93; W Post, Apr 19/93)
The Washington Post reported that ozone layer problem appeared to be on the way to a solution. Thanks to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty obligating signatory countries to phase our ozone-destroying chemicals, scientists expected the threat of ozone destruction to peak in 2000. In that year, according to the latest scientific projections, the ozone layer should start slowly getting thicker and better able to block the Sun's harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays. (W Post, Apr 15/93)
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