henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (07/19/90)
Full-page color ad opposite the editorial page -- must have cost a bundle -- for Pegasus. The picture is Pegasus under B-52, and if I'm not mistaken it was taken about a quarter of a second *after* drop, as you can see a gap between Pegasus and its pylon. ESA complains to Quayle, when he visits them, that the US is encouraging unfair pricing by allowing use of Long March. ESA continues to press for a cartel, er excuse me a "fair-pricing accord". Small Business Administration rules that NASA acted improperly when it leased 24 commercial transponders on the TDRS system to Intelsat; the high bidder was Columbia Communications, but NASA rejected them because of "insufficient financial backing". SBA says this is none of NASA's business and the lease should go to the high bidder. NASA may appeal. Giotto's instruments appear to be functioning normally... except that the camera is kaput. :-( Its electronics and mechanics appear to be working, so the best guess is that the external light baffle got smashed late in the Halley pass and is blocking the view. ESA will decide May 29 whether to go ahead with sending Giotto to Grigg-Skjellerup [they decided to go for it]. Commerce Dept study warns that US space industry is threatened by the failure of both large aerospace companies and the financial community to invest boldly. The report, not yet public [AW&ST "obtained" a copy], also blames the government for constantly changing the rules. It says that successful ventures so far are mostly those backed by "strategic" investors, groups interested in future opportunities rather than near- term financial return. Foreign firms are prominent in this role. "Japanese corporations competed fiercely to be financial participants in the Spacehab venture." There are often limits on foreign involvement in companies with cooperative agreements with NASA, however, and such companies often feel trapped between those limits and the utter lack of interest from US aerospace investors. First picture from Hubble, somewhat better than Earthbound telescopes. [After hubris, nemesis... :-(] -- NFS: all the nice semantics of MSDOS, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology and its performance and security too. | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry