Dec 9 1992
From The Space Library
NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin issued a call to restore America's leadership in aeronautics that is threatened by failure to invest adequately in research facilities and advanced technology. Goldin told the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics meeting in Arlington, Virginia, that additional spending had to be directed to high speed research, advanced subsonic and systems integration, critical research facilities, and hypersonic research. Top priority needed to be given to developing a hypersonic commercial plane that could carry 300 passengers at least 6,000 miles nonstop at two-and-one-half times the speed of sound by the year 2005. NASA's budget provided for $1.1 billion for aeronautics, or 7.9 percent, Goldin said, a funding level that had to increase. (NASA Release 92-219; The Sun, Dec 10/92; LA Times, Dec 10/92; H Post, Dec 10/92; Av Wk, Dec 14-21/92)
McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Company was awarded a three-year extension of its existing contract for payload ground operations services, valued at approximately $561.4 million, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA Release C92-21)
Space Shuttle Discovery landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California because of bad weather at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Astronauts had to wait more than two hours before debarking because of toxic fumes from a leaking thruster. The main mission, the deployment of a secret Pentagon satellite, occurred soon after launch in what was the last Shuttle mission for the U.S. military. The day before, the Shuttle had to swerve in orbit to avoid a four-inch piece of space junk, the third such incident in two years. (The Sun, Dec 10/92; AP, Dec 9/92, Dec 10/92; UPI, Dec 9/92, Dec 10/92; W Post, Dec 10/92; NY Times, Dec 10/92; WSJ, Dec 10/92; P Inq, Dec 10/92; LA Times, Dec 13/92; USA Today, Dec 10/92; W Times, Dec 11/92)
Two American scientists presented a new theory on the evolution of Earth's continents and on early mass extinctions of life. Michael Rampino of New York University and Verne Oberbeck, a geologist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, discussed evidence that suggests that a huge asteroid struck Earth 250 million years ago, helping break up a super land mass called Gondwanaland and contributing to Earth's worst mass extinction of life forms. The new theory, presented during the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting in San Francisco, was met by disbelief and skepticism, even by scientists who believe there is overwhelming evidence that another later asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs and other species by disrupting Earth's climate 65 million years ago. (P Inq, Dec 10/92; The Sun, Dec 10/92; W Post, Dec 10/92; AP, Dec 10/92; W Times, Dec 20/92)
Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that the ozone hole over the Antarctic that has formed annually since 1987 had closed up again after setting records for depleting Earth's protective ozone layer. After falling from October 12 to December 5, ozone levels rose above the levels considered to he a "hole" on December 6. The hole formed earlier and lasted longer this year than ever before, the scientists said. (UPI, Dec 10/92)
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