Mar 3 1986
From The Space Library
NASA announced a comprehensive project to evaluate the implications of the Challenger accident on the space program. Because the Ulysses and Galileo missions had been postponed, NASA announced that the Shuttle Discovery would be modified so that it could launch spacecraft with a Centaur upper stage rocket. The Challenger accident left only the Shuttle Atlantis with the capability for carrying Centaur payloads.
These decisions were made by the Acting NASA Administrator, Dr. William R. Graham, on the recommendation of the Headquarters Replanning Task Force, headed by Dr. Raymond S. Colladay, set up to study program alternatives in the wake of the accident. Other matters considered by the task force included: (1) the requirements for all aspects for an orbiter to replace the Challenger as well as the lost Inertial Upper Stage (INERTIAL UPPER STAGE) launch vehicle and its support structure attached to a Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) lost with the Shuttle; (2) new launch schedules for the remaining three Shuttles; (3) an additional launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base; (4) the role of expendable launch vehicles for commercial use; (5) the retention of ground communications because only one TDRS, instead of two, was in orbit to link spacecraft to earth because of the accident; (6) and identification of monetary losses other than those from the destroyed equipment.
In the meantime, customers who had hoped to launch their satellites from the Space Shuttle were being forced to examine other alternatives. With launch schedules certain to fall far behind and military and scientific communities getting first priority, commercial interests would have to either put their projects on the back burner or use NASA's rival, the European Space Agency's Arianespace company, for more expensive launches. With NASA's announcement that its Shuffle program would be put on hold for 12-18 months, Shuttle-linked businesses were searching for other options as well. (NASA Release 86-22; C Trib, Mar 3/86; B Sun, Mar 4/86; USA Today, Mar 4/86)
A lightweight transmitter for sending messages to weather satellites was placed on polar bears and caribou in the spring of 1985, and had so far functioned very well, said biologist Steven Amstrup. Because of the satellite's ability to track these animals, biologists could determine whether the animals were walking, running, sleeping, or foraging for food. (B Sun, Mar 3/86)
A device conceived by Donald Young of NASA's Ames Research Center, Mountain View, California, for aiding scientists in treating bone loss resulting from extended space flights, spawned hope among the medical community. The vibrating analyzer is placed in the center of a limb and the ratio of force applied to the bone and the bone's displacement indicate the stiffness of the bone. The device, it was thought, would offer earlier detection of osteoporosis and take guess work out of cast removal. (WSJ, Mar 3/86)
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