Oct 24 1994
From The Space Library
NASA was pressuring the European Space Agency (ESA) to allow U.S. personnel greater access to European industry, laboratories, and reviews in order to provide additional assurance that the U.S./European Cassini mission to Saturn would succeed. The mission was of great importance to NASA and it felt that ESA's contribution to Cassini was not being coordinated fully with NASA. The pressure was creating sharp controversy among Europeans who did not want such extensive U.S. access although NASA proposals included greater European access to U.S. facilities. NASA managers raised the issue with their European counterparts behind the scenes at the International Astronautical Federation conference taking place in Jerusalem. NASA pressure resulted from NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin's instruction to NASA Cassini managers that they must assume responsibility for quality control not just for the orbiter but the whole mission, including the Martin Marietta Titan-4 booster and the ESA probe. (Av Wk, Oct 24/94)
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was pushing ahead with certification of predictive wind shear systems. Robert Passman, FAA associate program manager for airborne wind shear research, said he believed airborne predictive systems worked, based on observing one on a NASA aircraft in Orlando, Florida, in 1993. He noted that the alarms from such a system correlated well with ground-based Terminal Doppler Weather Radar detection of microbursts. (Av Wk, Oct 24/94)
NASA announced that its geologists were using radar images and photo-graphs taken during Endeavour's recent Space Shuttle mission to study possible new lava flows from Mount Klyuchevsky on Russia's Kamchatka peninsula. The daily Shuttle tracking of the eruption provided the most detailed documentation of such an eruption ever obtained from orbit. (NASA Release 94-179)
The U.S. Energy Department decided to stop funding work on plutonium powered Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTGs) after 1966. The decision caused concern among scientists and engineers at NASA and the Energy and Defense departments that America's space nuclear power programs might be ended, making it more difficult to conduct missions to the outer planets such as the planned Pluto Fast Flyby. To date the Energy Department and its contractors had designed, built, fueled, and tested every RTG earmarked for NASA and Defense Department spacecraft. RTGs, which converted heat from decaying plutonium into electricity, were considered essential for missions to the most distant planets in the solar system where solar panels were unable to produce enough power. (SP News, Oct 24-30/94)
The previous week NASA had released documents laying the ground rules for what was certain to be a heated competition among U.S. aerospace contractors. Final documents were scheduled to be released in mid-November. NASA's need was for a revolutionary rocket to replace the Space Shuttle, a Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). It was to be a cooperative project between NASA and industry, with industry participating in the funding of the RLV. The goal was an operational single-stage-to-orbit rocket that would replace the Space Shuttle in 2010 or 2012. (SP News, Oct 24-30/94)
Anser Inc., a public service research institute, announced the appointment of Richard Kohrs, formerly director of Space Station Freedom at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, as manager, aerospace business development. Kohrs served more than 30 years with NASA in various capacities. (PR Newswire, Oct 24/94)
NASA created or saved an estimated 5,300 direct and indirect jobs in the U.S. economy in the preceding 18 months because of technology transfer programs at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Of these, some 1,170 were in Alabama, according to Harry Craft Jr., manager of the MSFC Technology Transfer Office, 1,078 in Pennsylvania, and 430 in Tennessee. Most of the companies helped were small businesses. (Htsvl Tms, Oct 24/94)
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