henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (10/14/87)
[I'm running out of periodicals to recommend. Next time I will start on
books, I think, but here's one last periodical. "Astronomy" is worth
getting. It is not highly technical; "Sky and Telescope" is where the
real telescope hackers hang out. "Astronomy" is aimed a bit more at a
general audience and at those who are more interested in the results than
the process. It runs frequent reports on planetary science and other
space news. This is the place to go for lots of glossy photos of everything
from planets to star clusters. Visually appealing and the words are (by
and large) well done too. Astronomy, 1027 North Seventh St., Milwaukee,
WI 53233 USA. New-subscriber rate $21 for 12 issues; outside US add $5.]
China has reservations or preliminary orders from over 10 customers in the
US and elsewhere for scientific piggyback payloads on Long March; many of
these were meant to fly as secondary payloads on the shuttle.
JPL is modifying the wide-field camera from the Hubble telescope to head
off trouble from water outgassing from a composite frame.
USAF will ask for $5-6G for 27 more Titan 4s and competitive development
of a new Atlas-Centaur-class expendable. Official reason is need for more
expendable capacity as a result of shuttle delays, weight limits, and the
constraints imposed by planetary-mission launch windows. Of course, there
is also the small matter that the expendables would be run entirely by the
USAF.
[Aha. The USAF has given Delta a nice new subsidy by buying it for Navstar
(despite it being too small, thus requiring developing a new version for
this "off-the-shelf" buy!). And the Titan is busy as the heavy launcher for
DoD. Which booster hasn't got a pork-barrel subsidy yet? Why, the Atlas-
Centaur! So, of course, we need a new Atlas-Centaur-class booster! Anyone
want to bet that an Atlas-Centaur derivative *won't* win this "competitive"
development?]
NASA formally apologizes to Congress for illegal lobbying activity. Some
NASA underlings asked contractors for lobbying help on the space station,
and were stupid enough to do so in writing. (This sort of thing happens
all the time, but it's usually done over the phone to avoid leaving a
formal record.) NASA is not supposed to use public funding for lobbying.
NASA finishes dismantling the last Atlas-Centaur, the one with the crumpled
hydrogen tank. There are no other usable tanks, and NASA doesn't want the
expense of keeping the facilities and crews operational for two years for
the sake of one last (USAF) payload. NASA will probably try to sell the
hardware back to General Dynamics and lease the facilities to them as well.
Space station facing uphill funding battle in Senate. Proxmire wants to
kill it. Some other former supporters are no longer considered reliable,
since the alternative may be killing things with larger constituencies.
Jake Garn will lead the pro-station forces, although his influence on
space matters has declined because of his shuttle junket. [Last I heard,
Proxmire appears to have lost this battle.]
Morton-Thiokol Castor 4A, the souped-up strap-on for the new Delta variant,
fails during test at Marshall. Case ruptured. First launch is supposed to
be about a year away, and there is hope that it may stay on schedule.
DoD says the Soviet Union may have flown its small spaceplane again last week.
Full-scale SRB test postponed two days due to minor equipment problems.
[Successful after delays.]
Hercules tests a filament-wound SRB casing to destruction, successfully, as
part of its filament-wound-SRB contract. [The future of the f-w SRB is most
uncertain, as it is considered riskier than the steel-cased ones and it
no longer has a USAF mission requirement pushing it.]
British Aerospace, Rolls-Royce, and the British government reach agreement
on interim funding of space projects to keep them alive until a major
government program review is complete.
Japan launches second H-1 booster from Tanegashima, carrying engineering
test satellite ETS-5 into transfer orbit. First use of new Nissan solid
third stage.
Rocketdyne and Pratt&Whitney win contracts to investigate air-breathing
engines for the spaceplane. (GE loses.)
The current Mir crew will stay up until the end of the year, giving Yuri
Romanenko a new duration record; he passes the current Salyut 7 record
on Oct 1.
[And that's it. A light news week -- staff on vacation?]
--
"Mir" means "peace", as in | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"the war is over; we've won". | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry