Apr 9 1993
From The Space Library
NASA announced that the Clementine mission to orbit the Moon and to visit an asteroid would be headed by Dr. Eugene Shoemaker of the U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff, Arizona. Clementine, sponsored by the Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO), was scheduled to launch a small spacecraft in January 1994 to orbit the Moon for several months. The mission would test new, lightweight sensors in a space radiation environment and demonstrate autonomous navigation and spacecraft operation. (NASA Release 93-66)
NASA said that two ozone monitors aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery were having difficulty sending measurements to ground controllers. Two monitors--one German and the other American-had trouble sending measurements to the ground. The U.S. monitor, which was supposed to supply most of the atmospheric research data, was also in danger of losing information. Timothy Miller, mission scientist for NASA, said a backup recorder for the U.S. ozone instrument could hold just over half the amount of data sought. NASA ground controllers were attempting to solve the problem. (B Sun, Apr 9/93; NY Times, Apr 9/93; USA Today, Apr 9/93; W Post, Apr 9/93; UPI, Apr 9/93; AP, Apr 9/93)
Speaking at a news conference, NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said that NASA intended to close an office in charge of planning American voyages to the Moon and Mars and to shift research to airplanes. The Agency was also dropping work on a huge new launch vehicle and turning to simpler, less expensive communications satellites. Goldin said the Agency was merely "taking a pause" in its pursuit of earlier space exploration goals. (W Times, Apr 9/93; AP, Apr 4/93; C Trib, Apr 11/93; LA Times, Apr 9/93)
The White House provided more details on President Clinton's plans to shift spending from defense to domestic "investment" priorities. The 1994 NASA budget request moved the agency away from big space flight projects involving humans toward development of new technologies with potential for practical use on the ground. The agency's total budget would go to $15.27 billion, an increase of almost $1 billion. Most of the increase would be spent on aeronautics and other technologies, for example, development of a fleet of high speed planes for public transport and high speed computing. (W Post, Apr 9/93)
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