Aug 17 1987
From The Space Library
NASA released a long awaited report of a task force, headed by Dr. Sally K. Ride, set up to assess NASA's future space policy in the we of the Challenger disaster. The 63-page report, delivered to NASA Administrator Dr. James C. Fletcher the preceding week, urged that the United States build a permanent outpost on the Moon as the first step toward the ultimate goal of "exploring, prospecting, and settling Mars." Ride emphasized, however, that while settling Mars should be "our eventual goal," it should not be "our next goal." She recommended a strategy of "natural progression which leads step by step, in orderly, unhurried way, inexorably toward Mars." (LA Times, Aug 18/87; NY Times, Aug 18/87; W Post, Aug 18/87; W Times, Aug 18/87)
Flight controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, reported that the untended spacecraft Voyager 2 was on course for a rendezvous in two years with the planet Neptune. Launched on August 20, 1977, Voyager 2, travelling at a speed of 41,600 miles-per-hour, was 642 mil-lion miles away from its target. It was expected to come within 3,000 miles of Neptune on August 24, 1989. (NY Times, Aug 18/87)
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