Dec 2 1996
From The Space Library
President William J. Clinton awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to astronaut Shannon W. Lucid, the first woman to receive the award. Praising Lucid as a "determined visionary," President Clinton presided over the Oval Office ceremony, as the fifty-three-year-old astronaut recounted her 188 days aboard the Mir space station. Lucid recalled fondly her time spent with the two Russian cosmonauts, a period characterized by "working together, laughing together, and having a good time together." Lucid's husband Michael attended the ceremony, along with U.S. Senators John H. Glenn Jr. (D-OH) and Conrad Burns (R-MT), NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, and Russian Ambassador Yuli Vorontsov. The U.S. Congress had created the Space Medal of Honor in 1969, awarding it to eight astronauts before Lucid. The award is distinct from the Medal of Honor, awarded for the highest acts of military service and extraordinary heroism on the field of combat.
Scientists announced the discovery of frozen water on the Moon, calling into question the long-held belief that the Moon lacked any form of hydration. The Clementine spacecraft had found the ice while using radar signals to examine the depths of the Moon's craters. The discovery was the by-product of a US$75 million mission, co-sponsored by NASA and the U.S. Department of Defense, to test the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's "Star Wars" sensors developed to detect and track missiles. The possible ice deposit, composed of the suspected ice crystals mixed with dirt and spread over a vast landscape, was termed a dirty lake. The scientists discovered the ice in a massive, extremely deep crater. One scientist described the crater as twice the size of Puerto Rico and deeper than the height of Mount Everest. Scientists discussing the significance of the discovery postulated that the presence of water on the Moon might be a boon to future space exploration, perhaps enabling the construction of a "filling station" on the Moon. Other scientists offered a more sober opinion of the findings, referring to reports that the presence of water on the Moon might someday allow for colonization as "hyperbole."
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