henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (05/19/89)
NASA seeks exemptions from the Freedom of Information Act, to restrict flow of data to foreign nations. Congress isn't enthusiastic. Production of ammonium perchlorate oxidizer at Pacific Engineering's new plant will be delayed until May due to minor funding delays. Goddard Spaceflight Center requests commercial launch services for three satellites, with options for twelve more. The three are Wind, Geotail, and Polar, part of the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics project. NASA approves expanded studies for a space-station rescue vehicle that would remain docked to the station. NASA may be hoping to use the studies to shorten the "advanced definition" stage, once a new administrator is in charge and can make decisions. Army initiative to educate field commanders about the uses of space capabilities is being hampered by excessive secrecy, says BG Robert L. Stewart (ex-astronaut, dep. cmdr. Army Strategic Defense Command): "The world of space reconnaissance is too closed... This is an area that doesn't need to be guarded that closely any more..." US military commanders express concern about lack of a US Asat system, and about the "less operationally oriented" US launch systems (compared to the Soviet ones). DoD considers severe budget cuts for the Aerospace Plane; it is unlikely that NASA could pick up the slack. SDI reconsidering Brilliant Pebbles cost estimates. SDI laser development, in particular, has been moving very slowly and is eating up a lot of the SDI budget, which dampens enthusiasm for costly new projects. NRC panel tells NASA that the Commercially Developed Space Facility is too expensive and not useful enough, and that most near-term microgravity work can be done with an extended-duration shuttle orbiter. It does say that the idea should be reconsidered if the space station is delayed more than a year or two. [Do they *really* expect that it *won't* be delayed at least that long???] Panel says that NASA could build the platform for only slightly more than it would cost to lease it. [Oh really?] CDSF would give more power and better microgravity, but neither is critical for near-term experimental work, says the panel. Finally, panel says that there is little chance of substantial commercial activity in microgravity work in the near future. Space Industries and others are not so sure. SI points out that the panel was solid basic-research people, and simply doesn't know what's going on in the commercial world. Max Faget [SI's founder] says stronger private- sector role must be provided if the US civil space program is to succeed: "The government has dominated, providing all the infrastructure to date. Every time [it does] a program, it takes longer than before..." Another industry official [unnamed] is strongly critical of the report, saying that of course the panel found no need for more power or better microgravity: all the experiments they looked at were designed to fly on the shuttle! The shuttle imposes major constraints on designers. "These guys recognized things, covered them up and then drew the most negative conclusions possible.. The conclusions are very conservative. They... reflect the stacking of the committee with fundamental scientists." He says the panel based its conclusions mostly on "expert opinion" from NASA. Others who briefed the panel agree. The Senate will conduct major commercial-space hearings in May, and will presumably reexamine this issue. Payload Systems' planned June 15-Oct 1 payload flight aboard Mir is now in doubt due to the Soviet decision to leave the station unattended for a while. PS says it has not yet been officially told of any delay. Soviet engineers have visited PS recently to start flight-approval procedures for the equipment, which is scheduled to go to the USSR in May. The PS experiment consists of three sealed modules which cannot be examined in detail by the cosmonauts. Each module contains a number of solution wells, with a wall between two compartments broken by an external thumbscrew to start the experiment. The cosmonauts will photograph the inside of each well through a window at the end, so that PS can determine whether broken crystals were intact before reentry. Speaking of Mir... Mir cosmonauts prepare Mir for "two to three months" of unmanned flight to give the USSR time to mount a repair mission to deal with electrical-power problems. Electrical failures have begun to severely limit available power, a worrisome issue because life support is the biggest power user. A Soyuz mission carrying a repair crew will be launched in the next 2-3 months. This is the second time the Soviets have had to do major repair work on a manned space station, the first being Salyut 7. The team that saved Salyut 7 has been put in charge of assembling the Mir repair mission. The Mir cosmonauts have been firing Mir's engines to raise its orbit, to give it a longer unattended lifetime. Management shakeup at IKI [the research institute; note this is an entirely different organization from Glavcosmos, which runs Mir, launchers, and the shuttle] is likely as a result of the Phobos failures. USSR is tentatively considering use of the Phobos ground spare to refly the Phobos mission, possibly in 1992. (This indicates a conservative approach in planning, since there is a Mars window in 1990.) Soviet scientists criticize secrecy and poor planning in Soviet space program, blaming disorganization and internal bickering for the lack of fully-approved planetary missions after Phobos 1/2. Soviets will probably bring their An-225 [their shuttle carrier] to the Paris air show, and may show a shuttle orbiter as well. Arianespace delays first flight of the Ariane 44L, the maximum-lift configuration of Ariane 4. There is concern about high vibration levels seen in the third stage at liftoff in the initial Ariane 4 flights. Arianespace says the delay will be "a few weeks"; the first Ariane 44L had been scheduled for April 28. Letter from David P. Gump: "...Twenty-eight years after the Wright Brothers, the general public could buy passenger tickets on a pan-European airline. Twenty-eight years after Yuri Gagarin, the general public is permitted to clap when five government employees take a short ride costing almost $500 million tax dollars. Only priviate initiative, aided by short-term government incentives, will ever open space to the rest of us..." -- Subversion, n: a superset | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology of a subset. --J.J. Horning | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu