Oct 4 1999
From The Space Library
NASA announced its selection of three graduate students to receive Michelson fellowships offered by NASA's Origins Program and its Space Interferometry Mission. NASA awarded a fellowship to Philip M. Hinz of the University of Arizona for his work building a new type of nulling interferometer designed to null the glare from nearby stars, thereby enabling scientists to observe, in infrared wavelengths, dust and giant planets orbiting the stars. NASA chose Erin M. Sabatke, also of the University of Arizona, to work on creating models of large, stretched, flat, plastic membranes, for collecting light from several telescopes placed on separate spacecraft flying in formation. Sabatke planned to explore the use of this technique to photograph planets around other stars. NASA selected Benjamin F. Lane, a student at California Institute of Technology, for his work advancing the "technique of using two stars with a narrow angle separating them to measure relative motion of one with respect to the other, utilizing a ground-based interferometer." NASA had named the fellowship program for the first American to win a Nobel Prize in physics, Albert Michelson, known as the father of interferometry. Interferometry is a technique of combing and processing light from multiple telescopes to obtain a clear image of distant objects. The fellowship covered tuition, a student stipend, and a small budget for travel and other research expenses, for three years of graduate research at the student's host institution.
Vladimir Petrovsky, a member of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences, condemned the United States' 2 October testing of its proposed missile defense system, noting that testing could "aggravate relations not only between the United States and the Asian-Pacific region, but also between Japan a, U.S. ally in the development of the system and other countries." Russia had refused to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which would have permitted the United States to develop a full-fledged missile defense system. Preventing either country from developing missile defense systems, the Cold War-era treaty acted as a deterrent by keeping both the Soviet Union and the United States vulnerable to attack. Officials in Washington, DC, stated that DOD was testing a missile defense system intended to destroy lone missiles launched by rogue states or terrorists, not a system meant to protect against a multi-missile attack from a major nuclear power.
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