henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/21/89)
Cover is the first Titan 4 launch. Apollo-11 editorial, more or less correctly predicting what Bush was going to say, and urging action rather than talk. "Undertakings of this scale are never going to get any cheaper. The time to start is now... History shows clearly that great nations move forward with bold decision, not a preoccupation with bean counting." Dick Truly has observed that manned exploration programs cannot bubble up from the bottom -- they must be started from the top. Truly says he recently reviewed Wernher von Braun's original post-Apollo plan, and that if NASA funding had remained stable instead of declining, the US would be operating a manned lunar base and a space station and would have crews en route to Mars. "Where are the US space visionaries of comparable stature today?" Panamsat and Intelsat, among others, plan to bid for lease of the C-band transponders on TDRS-3 and -4. The original intent was for Western Union to use them, but the commercial deal collapsed and TDRS's commercial relay capabilities have never been used. The team responsible for picking the British Mir astronaut is sorting through 11000+ applications, with more still arriving. Final selection of astronaut and backup will happen by October. Yet Another Major Review of the space station is underway, to give Truly and his new subordinates a fresh look. The Langley team doing the review is also identifying elements that could be delayed if funding is inadequate. Some officials reported to be annoyed that Quayle's top-secret assessment of a new space initiative has not involved the Space Council itself. The Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Office of Mismanagement and Beancounting are particularly miffed that they weren't allowed to mess it up. It is reported that the great lunar/Mars plan assumes not only the space station, but also Shuttle-C and two more shuttle orbiters. House budget proposal includes $1G+ cut to NASA funding, $400M from space station. International Astronautical Federation moves its 1989 annual congress, in October, from Beijing to Malaga (Spain), for obvious reasons. Last Ariane 3 successfully launches ESA's heavy comsat Olympus July 11. Pictures of the secret Soviet laser facility at Sary Shagan, taken by touring US scientists. The scientists say the facility does not appear to have operational antisatellite capabilities, the Pentagon's claims notwithstanding. Early Voyager pictures of Neptune from 57Mmi, with cloud features fairly prominent. Two more rats abandon ship, er excuse me, two more senior NASA officials resign due to worries about the impending federal law that makes trouble for retiring federal officials going to work for government contractors. This time it's the director of Ames and the associate admin for space operations. First Titan 4 launched June 14, about eight months behind schedule. [Ah, those reliable and timely expendables!] Titan managers say the complexity of getting the new booster off was underestimated, notably the problems of handling the extra-large SRBs and the 8900-lb payload fairing. Mods to the pad also took longer than expected. Other complications included a lineup for IUSes, masses of new paperwork, bad weather, and the lack of a "pathfinder" dummy vehicle to get bugs out of support facilities ahead of time. The USAF is now taking a fresh look at long-term improvements to Titan launch facilities, with weather protection at the pad high on the list. One of the two first-stage engines on the first Titan 4 malfunctioned partway up, gimballing hard over and staying there, but the other engine compensated automatically and the payload ended up precisely where it was supposed to be. (Payload was a missile-warning satellite on an IUS.) An internal fuel leak in the malfunctioning engine is suspected. Team led by France's Matra gets contract for Spain's Hispasat broadcast and communications satellite project, two birds plus support. This is the second contract that will be based on the Matra/BAe "Eurostar" bus, which has also been selected by the Locstar people [who are, I believe, Geostar's European cousins]. Hispasat will do TV broadcast to Spain and the Canaries, plus TV distribution links between Spain and Latin America and government communications in Spain. -- 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
dietz@cs.rochester.edu (Paul Dietz) (08/21/89)
In article <1989Aug21.022319.22222@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >Apollo-11 editorial, more or less correctly predicting what Bush was going >to say, and urging action rather than talk. "Undertakings of this scale >are never going to get any cheaper. The time to start is now... ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Isn't this obviously false? For example, wouldn't cheaper launch vehicles reduce the cost considerably? And does AW&ST view chemical propulsion as the ultimate for interplanetary travel? Paul F. Dietz dietz@cs.rochester.edu
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/21/89)
In article <1989Aug21.111229.17764@cs.rochester.edu> dietz@cs.rochester.edu.UUCP (Paul Dietz) writes: >>to say, and urging action rather than talk. "Undertakings of this scale >>are never going to get any cheaper. The time to start is now... > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >Isn't this obviously false? For example, wouldn't cheaper launch >vehicles reduce the cost considerably? Undoubtedly, but NASA and its counterparts elsewhere largely deny that such things are possible. Given that attitude, they can't possibly base serious future plans on them. > And does AW&ST view >chemical propulsion as the ultimate for interplanetary travel? Probably. Certainly NASA does. (In the sense that virtually no effort is going into developing anything better, and all current plans rely on chemical propulsion except for one or two long-term studies of things for which it's obviously impossible.) AW&ST is thinking of a standard NASA effort using standard NASA approaches. Given that assumption, it is undoubtedly true that it's never going to get any cheaper. -- 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
paulf@Jessica.stanford.edu (Paul Flaherty) (08/22/89)
In article <1989Aug21.022319.22222@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes: >Truly says he recently reviewed Wernher von Braun's >original post-Apollo plan, and that if NASA funding had remained stable >instead of declining, the US would be operating a manned lunar base and >a space station and would have crews en route to Mars. "Where are the >US space visionaries of comparable stature today?" Not at NASA. The kind of leadership needed is not political; it's technological, and we're not producing it here in the US anymore. Our science and tech education is worse off than it was before Sputnik. Engineering schools are wallowing in theory and not practice. Public school science and math courses are being taught by people who have little knowledge and little enthusiasm for the subject, resulting in students with little knowledge or enthusiasm. When was the last time you saw a high school shooting model rockets? Okay, so we've all heard it before. Then why isn't anything being done? -=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX | "I asked for a dissertation topic, and for my ->paulf@shasta.Stanford.EDU | sins, they gave me one."