henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (12/19/89)
[Well, at least I'm into November, even though I will probably slip further again over the holidays.] [Latest Pegasus report is that the dress-rehearsal flight Friday went well but not perfectly. Not clear whether they will want to try another one before the launch.] Cover photo is the Cosmic Background Explorer being prepared for launch. Some feeling in Europe that Mission To Earth should have priority over Moon and Mars efforts. [Why can't we do both?] NASA considers testing the waters in the White House by adding more Moon/Mars study funding to its FY91 budget request. Pentagon still considering what to do about antisatellite weapons. DARPA has suggested that it might be possible to use existing laser-guided antitank missiles (!). [I assume this means "as upper stages".] Europe, Japan, and Congress are all angry about the latest round of changes in the space station. Management is turning over too often, they are not being kept informed properly, and NASA's goodwill is being stretched thin. The station has undergone *eleven* major program reviews in five years, and the top three management levels have changed roughly yearly. Europe is mostly annoyed about not being consulted. Japan comments "every year, we slip a year"; US observers in Japan report "if we diddle around with this thing once more, they're about to pick up their yen and go home". The latest slip in launch date for the Japanese module at least stayed within the same Japanese-government fiscal year, but the Japanese have just about had it. Japan is also concerned that some of NASA's economy moves will hit everybody in the form of higher operating costs. Congress is muttering about "bait and switch" tactics: "we could go to the Federal Trade Commission if an automobile dealer did that to us". Truly counters that "The appropriations process... is totally strangling the station so far" and urges stable funding. Ariane launches first Intelsat 6 Oct 27. First Commercial Titan rolls out to pad Oct 31. Discovery goes to pad Oct 27 for the military mission. AW&ST shows a rough drawing of the shape of the payload [no indication of how they got this, of course!], which is a bird about 10m long on top of an IUS. It's a Clarke-orbit eavesdropping satellite like the one that went up on 51C in Jan 1985. ESA begins prelaunch checkout of Ulysses. Launch is set for next Oct, with Jupiter flyby Feb 1992 and solar polar passes in 1994-5. [For those unaware, Ulysses is the remnant of the International Solar Polar Mission, a pair of spacecraft; the US one was unilaterally cancelled.] More trouble with the Christics is possible, since Ulysses uses RTGs. AIAA report says US needs to support its space industry the way it historically supported agriculture, railroads, aviation, and comsats. "The fickleness of government commitments" cited as major problem. DoD budget is down for the fifth time. NASP got full funding, over the objections of the Pentagon. A second Titan 4 pad at Vandenberg was funded as well. For the first time, SDI had a net budget cut "and is now clearly in long-term budget trouble". Millie Hughes-Fulford replaces Robert Phillips as one of the payload specialists for the Spacelab Life Sciences mission next August; Phillips is 60 and got grounded for medical reasons. Detailed story on COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer). COBE was set for shuttle launch originally, and had to be redesigned for expendable launch when a polar-orbit shuttle launch became impossible. A fixed cylindrical box design had to be replaced with a smaller cylinder with deploying solar arrays and sunshade. Weight also had to come down a lot to fit on a Delta, although Delta's ability to reach a higher orbit than the shuttle eliminated the need for a fairly weighty propulsion system. The Vandenberg Delta pad, unused for five years, also needed considerable refurbishing. COBE orbital lifetime will be about a year for two of the instruments -- they will die when COBE runs out of liquid helium to cool them -- but the third could last two years or more. Letter from Thomas J Frieling, commenting: "...almost six years after [space station] approval, not one piece of metal has been bent for flight hardware, and crucial issues like a crew rescue vehicle and approval of Shuttle-C are nowhere close to resolution. At this rate, by the time NASA is ready to launch the first station element, the last shuttle will be ready for retirement. I suggest that NASA then exhibit the station components next to the Saturn V at the Kennedy Space Center as two monuments to the lack of leadership that is killing our civilian space program." -- 1755 EST, Dec 14, 1972: human | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology exploration of space terminates| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu