Dec 16 1992
From The Space Library
NASA scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope said they had discovered extended disks of dust around 15 newly-formed stars in the Orion Nebula starbirth region 1,500 light-years away. Such disks are a prerequisite for the formation of solar systems like the Sun's. Hubble's detailed images confirm more than a century of speculation, conjecture, and theory about the genesis of solar systems. Astronomers said the Hubble data was the strongest evidence yet that planets could exist beyond the solar system and may even be a common occurrence. "We have found a place where it is very possible that there will he planets within the next few million years," said Edward Weiler, program scientist for the space telescope, at a NASA briefing. (NASA Release 92-226; W Times, Dec 17/92; USA Today, Dec 17/92; W Post, Dec. 17/92; NY Times, Dec 17/92; LA Times, Dec 17/92; CSM Dec 17/92; The Sun, Dec 17/92; AP, Dec 17/92; UPI, Dec 17/92; APN, Dec 17/92; Newsweek, Dec 28/92)
In his annual speech to the Aerospace Industries Association, President Donald Fuqua predicted another year of declining production and more lay-offs. "The long-term outlook for the aerospace industry is for a continued decline in overall sales volume for the rest of the decade," Mr. Fuqua told industry officials in Washington, D.C. (The Sun, Dec 17/92; USA Today, Dec 17/92; W Post, Dec 17/92; AP, Dec 16/92)
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin said that the end of the Cold War had created a new era of space cooperation with Russia and Western Europe. Goldin spoke to a public meeting at the University of Washington in Seattle. NASA intended to study the possibility of using the Soyuz capsule as a "life raft" for Space Station Freedom and might begin using some Russian booster rockets in the future, he added. At the same time, NASA would have to balance these advantages against the risks associated with such cooperation. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dec 17/92)
NASA continued to prepare for what it called "the most aggressive" space-shuttle mission yet-its mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, tentatively set for December 7, 1993. As conceived, it would require four astronauts working in two-person shifts several days to make the repairs. They would need three or possibly four space walks to complete the work. The main task was to install a new camera and a set of corrective mirrors to compensate for spherical aberration in the main 2.4-meter mirror. These and other repairs would, NASA hoped, restore 90 to 95 percent of Hubble's design capabilities. (CSM, Dec 16/92)
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