Oct 26 1994
From The Space Library
An article criticized NASA for abandoning its big space plans and instead engaging in some rather abstruse scientific studies as a result of its Mission to Planet Earth. (W Post, Oct 26/94)
NASA announced that astronomers using its Hubble Space Telescope had taken an important step toward determining the age and size of the universe. They had been able to calculate with considerable precision the distance to a remote galaxy, M100, in the Virgo cluster of galaxies. This measurement established the distance to the cluster as 56 million light-years (with an uncertainty of +/- 6 million light-years). The research results, which were to be further refined, were being published in the October 27 issue of Nature. The overall conclusion was that the universe was only 8 to 12 billion years old. (NASA Release 94-180; Reuters, Oct 26/94; NY limes, Oct 27/94; W Post, Oct 27/94; USA Today, Oct 27/94; W Times, Oct 27/94; H Post, Oct 27/94; C Trib, Oct 27/94; Bakersfield Californian, Oct 27/94; CSM, Oct 28/94; W Times, Oct 29/94; Time, Nov 7/94; U.S. News and World Report, Nov 7/94)
Wilbur Trafton, NASA's Space Station program director, who was in Houston to attend the Space Exploration 94 conference sponsored by the NASA Alumni League, said several Chinese officials attending a gathering of aerospace professionals in Huntsville, Alabama, asked informally about joining the U.S.-led International Space Station program. They were urged to pursue their goal through diplomatic channels. (H Chron, Oct 27/94; H Post, Oct 27/94; W Times, Oct 27/94)
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin visited Huntsville and the Marshall Space Flight Center but declined to endorse Representative Bud Cramer, Democrat, saying it was not appropriate for him to get into partisan politics. Goldin did, however, give Cramer credit for his help in saving the Space Station and he announced that a new generation launch vehicle would he developed at Marshall. (Huntsville News, Oct 28/94)
Senator Howell Heflin, Democrat from Alabama, told a space conference at Auburn University that he owed his life to the space program. He referred to angioplasty, a pacemaker, and a steel artery expansion device, all of which were based on space-related research. NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin and several Auburn graduate astronauts also took part in the program. (Htsvl Tms, Oct 28/94)
In a speech to the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce, NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said that the Marshall Space Flight Center's top priority was safe Space Shuttle propulsion. The second priority was the Center's share in the Space Station program and the third priority was the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility, and X-ray telescope scheduled to be launched in the late 1990s. (Htsvl Tms, Oct 28/94)
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