Apr 19 1989
From The Space Library
Scientists at NASA's solar system exploration division announced that the Earth had experienced a "close call" in March with a newly discovered half-mile-wide asteroid. The asteroid, named 1989FC, passed within 500,000 miles of Earth-about twice the distance to the Moon-on March 23. The asteroid was discovered by Henry Holt, an amateur astronomer working on a NASA asteroid hunting project. NASA scientists estimated that if the asteroid were ever to collide with the Earth, the collision would release energy equivalent to 20,000 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and would leave a crater 10 miles wide and up to a mile deep. (NASA Release 89-52, Apr 19/89; UPI, Apr 19/89; AP, Apr 20/89; NY Times, Apr 20/89; USA Today, Apr 20/89; LA Times, Apr 20/89; B Sun, Apr 20/89)
NASA rolled out a full-scale mockup of the proposed Shuttle-C, a new heavy lift launch vehicle based on Space Shuttle technology. The 115-foot mockup, constructed in a Hangar at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, was put on display in an effort to gain support for funding of the $1.5 billion Shuttle-C development program in the fiscal year 1991 Federal budget. The Shuttle-C would be an untended launch vehicle that would fly "piggyback" on the standard Shuttle SRM and external tank assembly and would have a greater payload capacity than the current Shuttles. Shuttle-C could substitute for the crew-tended Shuttles in the launching of components for Space Station Freedom. (AP Apr 18/89; LA Times, Apr 19;/89)
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