henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/22/89)
Bush sets forth his long-term space plan, minus budget and timetable, and calls for -- did you really expect anything else? -- more study. Congress likes the vision but doesn't care for the lack of budget planning. House Majority Leader Gephardt "noted that when President Kennedy issued the call to go to the Moon, he included the bill". DoD preparing RFP for a new antisatellite weapon. SDI's sounding-rocket particle-beam experiment successful on July 13. Next on the agenda is a larger experiment in orbit, "traceable to weapon performance levels", perhaps 1995. Amroc fires its first flight-weight motor in a full-duration test at the USAF Astronautics Lab [at Edwards]. The test, on July 11, was fully successful, including testing of Amroc's liquid-injection thrust vectoring. A second similar firing is planned before first flight in August. ====================================================================== George Koopman, president of Amroc, killed in automobile accident near Edwards July 19. Amroc will try to launch on schedule in August. ====================================================================== House blocks Rep. Charles Schumer's attempt to shift about half the space station's funding to domestic programs... despite only token support for the station from the White House. More modest cuts were made, however, and an independent analysis of station overhead costs -- i.e., the hefty fraction of the money that disappears into NASA and never turns into visible hardware -- has been ordered. NASA has also been ordered not to pass more than 50% of the cuts on to the contractors. House also defers development of the station crew rescue vehicle, maintaining minimum funding only. France reaches compromise with USSR on French Mir mission price tag. France would also like to expand space cooperation with the US, but says the relationship is difficult when there are constant program changes due to NASA's budget mess and the US's ridiculous attitude on technology transfer. The recent Soviet-French space agreement includes French access to Soviet wind tunnels and related test facilities for Hermes development, because France couldn't get the use of US ones. One French official says, "Dealing with the Soviet Union on cooperative space efforts is not easy, but we find the Americans are not simple to work with either." There are a couple of brighter notes, however. France has agreed to joint development with NASA on an infrared spectrometer for Cassini (although it will also fly on the Soviet 1994 Mars mission!). And the US decision to divert the solid-fuel mixer meant for Kourou has been reversed. Ariane launch planned for this week delayed, pending checks on one of its payloads (Germany's TVSat 2) after the building housing it took a direct lightning hit. New date is Aug 8. Hughes books two comsats on one Ariane for next summer. A launch slot opened up unexpectedly when Intelsat requested a postponement in launch of an Intelsat 6. Arianespace says that the maximum-lift Ariane 4 configuration has been deemed operational after its June launch. There was concern about noise levels when exhaust from the liquid-fuel strap-ons hits the launch platform, but a combination of pad modifications and minor engineering changes to Ariane dealt with the problem. The payload for STS-28 [the August mission] is a new imaging recon satellite, the SRS (Strategic Reconnaissance Satellite). There is a small secondary payload that may be an SDI experiment. -- V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology 1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu