henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (02/11/91)
[Yes, I'm behind again... However, I get a bit of a boost this time because AW&ST doesn't publish during the holidays, so this is the last 1990 issue. This is AW&ST's "Vista" issue, mostly an overview of the year, so news is thin.] The cover is a very nice, sharp, clear full-color photo of the space station. The operational one -- Mir, not Fred. OSC flies first Starbird rocket for SDI. Starbird is a multi-stage solid- fuel sounding rocket that flies a trajectory simulating a ballistic missile. Launch was tracked by ground facilities and the LACE satellite. US military weather satellite launched Dec 1 ended up in a different orbit than the one that was intended,, but the spacecraft is operational and is expected to be useful. The USAF is assessing the effects. More debris was observed around the satellite than usual, but it does not seem to have affected the bird. Battle brewing over the space station's paperwork empire in Reston. Lots of people have been unhappy about taking station management away from the field centers, and now the Augustine report urges managing multicenter projects from a headquarters at or near a "primary center". Lenoir says that if they had meant "kill Reston", they would have said so... but scuttlebutt has it that they did in fact plan to say so, until NASA brass begged them to hold off pending completion of redesign, and that Reston will die as a symbol of reform once that has been done. NASA steals Japan's Christmas: NASDA's Christmas cards featured the Japanese Spacelab mission set for 1991, which NASA has now postponed to late 1992. NASDA is, um, annoyed. Marginally space-related: article on "super-super-black" aircraft programs in the US includes nearly a full page which starts out "let's consider the following details as comprising a theoretical possibility of a hypersonic US-developed aircraft which could be cruising the skies tonight..." and goes on to describe, with illustrations, its appearance, performance, propulsion, weapons, and even how its surface tiles *smell*. Theoretical, they say... Article reviewing the space station's history comments that it is now being pulled in opposite directions, with Congress pushing materials and the Augustine panel (whose views are likely to prevail in the White House) putting priority on life sciences. So far, it looks like NASA will try to compromise by doing both... which may not succeed. The article suggests that reviving Space Industries' Industrial Space Facility for the materials people would make a lot more sense, and would take a lot of heat off NASA. Article urging more attention to Earth observation in shuttle missions, with astronauts given more chance to spend time observing and describing what they see, rather than just snapping the occasional photo. Also suggested is giving the public-affairs people in Mission Control more role in providing commentary: ground control often swivels the orbiter's cameras by remote control for Earth observation, but there is seldom any voice indication of what's being seen, and in fact the public-affairs console doesn't even have a good-quality atlas for reference. When Lenoir worked in ground support during Skylab, one of his jobs was to write a daily report on the astronauts' Earth observations, but now that he's the boss, he "...would have little to write about from most shuttle missions". Pictures of a smaller version of Energia now under development. It uses only two strap-ons and a thinner and shorter core using a single engine. Name is Energia-M. First flight perhaps 1993. Payload is 40 tons, rather less than Energia's 100 but double what Proton can do. -- "Read the OSI protocol specifications? | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology I can't even *lift* them!" | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry