henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (10/28/87)
[People who have been waiting patiently for months for some of my
persistently-promised editorials will have to be patient a while longer;
I simply do not have time to write them just now.]
Editorial from Theresa M. Foley, one of the AW&ST editors, blasting NASA
and the White House for the state of commercial spaceflight. "Overwhelmed
by the tasks of getting the space shuttle back into orbit and starting
work on a space station, senior NASA managers have chosen to dismantle
the commercial space program rather than expend the effort to constructively
solve commercialization problems. ... Based on the Reagan Administration
record since the Challenger accident... no rational businessman should
trust the government to live up to space commitments. ... NASA has no clear
policy regarding the availability or price for industrial use of the space
shuttle or station. Once a new policy is adopted, a guarantee -- perhaps
even written into law -- is needed to assure that the government will not
again capriciously change the rules after companies have invested millions
of dollars. ... White House and NASA officials should stop confusing
commercialization with privatization. Real commercial use of space is not
technology spinoffs, nor is it paying the private sector to perform services
once done by the government. ... If US manned space resources are too scarce
to be shared with the private sector, NASA should declare space commerciali-
zation dead and stop misleading investors and the public. ... If, on the
other hand, the premise that the private sector belongs in space holds true,
then NASA needs to find a better way to address the industry's problems than
simply deferring decisions and postponing action until another Administration
takes over."
Navy and NASA cooperating on linking a camera with a microcomputer to get
precise locations for objects being photographed from the shuttle.
NASA is studying combining CRAF and Cassini into one project for possible
cost savings. (Separate spacecraft, but pooled funding.)
[Hmm, might be an interesting way to get both going without having two
new starts in one year, too. Prediction: CRAF/Cassini will be the new
start next year, and AXAF will be it this year. NASA is asking for both
CRAF and AXAF this year, but will probably only get one.]
Development of the shuttle crew-escape system is already overrunning its
budget, with estimates rising from $55M to $70M, mostly for the blow-away
hatch. [Somebody has got to be ripping somebody off here!]
NRC report on space station to be released this week; it is expected to
be generally favorable, with reservations about cost estimates, the Phase
Two configuration, and the Shuttle-C unmanned heavylift launcher.
NASA will probably send a small delegation to the USSR's Space Future Forum
in October, but will not send Fletcher or other leaders.
Space Commerce Corp. has signed contracts with at least one US company that
wants to launch on Proton, and is trying to get State Dept. approval.
Disassembly of the full-scale SRB test shows that the redesigned joints work.
Residual heat from propellant slag (an artifact of horizontal testing plus
the failure of a water-flood system) cracked one segment, but this happened
well after burnout and is not considered a problem for real SRBs. There is
considerable debate about whether deliberate flaws should be introduced into
future tests. Something will probably be done, but there is doubt about how
representative a substantial (and hence easily-detected) flaw would be.
There is also some concern that an unrealistically large flaw might cause an
unrealistically severe failure and damage the costly and unique test stands.
Columbia has been towed to the [new, I think] Orbiter Modification and
Refurbishment Facility, which finally gives KSC the facilities to work on
three orbiters simultaneously.
Long March 2 launches another recoverable satellite, presumably a spysat.
Soviets launch a curious six-satellite cluster into near-polar orbit; they
have done this several times in recent years, and it's not clear what it's
all about.
Artist's drawings of the SDI neutral-particle-beam test in orbit. Looks like
something out of Star Wars (a complicated boxy satellite -- the accelerator)
shooting at a complicated tennis racquet (the target).
The folks at U of Leeds who are studying the Glonass (Soviet Navstar) signal
format confirm earlier AW&ST speculation that the absence of the expected
Soviet announcement of Glonass is because the system simply is not ready for
civil use. Only three Glonass satellites with characteristics suitable for
civil users are in orbit; the Proton that failed in April was trying to
orbit three more.
Letter from Bill Yenne (San Francisco): "The US is rapidly being outstripped
by the Soviet Union in manned space exploration because of our continued
insistence on developing all-new technology at every juncture, while aban-
doning proven technology from our past. Soyuz, Salyut, and Mir may be
deeply rooted in 1960s technology, but they work, and they have given the
USSR a near-continuous presence in space, while we have grounded our only
class of manned spacecraft. ...our space goals can be realized far sooner
and far more cheaply [than] if we keep trying to reinvent the wheel." [He
has some, alas, unrealistic ideas about how easy it would be to revive some
of the old systems, but the general point is well taken.]
--
PS/2: Yesterday's hardware today. | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
OS/2: Yesterday's software tomorrow. | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry