henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (08/25/87)
[This one is rather long; there is a lot of news.]
A Japenese construction firm is studying an oceangoing launch platform.
Harvard Business School report on commercial space, not published yet,
says the single biggest obstacle to space commerce is repeated changes
in US government policy, with high costs and lack of access to space
tied for second.
Widespread discontent in NASA and aerospace industry with lack of leadership
in civilian space program; Fletcher and Presidential Science Advisor Graham
are particularly unpopular. "Numerous veteran NASA managers told AW&ST that
Fletcher is regarded as inarticulate and uninformed..."
House overwhelmingly approves $9.51G NASA authorization for FY88, after
defeating amendments to ban weapons testing on station and to require
NASA's top two positions to be held by civilians.
Sally Ride's study team, assessing major new space goals, will firmly
endorse a Moon base as the next step in manned space exploration. It
will also recommend an aggressive Earth-observation program as a major
priority for space science. The team's report will go to Fletcher early
in August. It proposes return to the Moon by year 2000, with the shuttle,
a heavylift launcher, and the space station as necessary tools. Mars is
endorsed as a desirable long-term goal, but a manned lunar base should
come first. Reviving planetary science will also be stressed, especially
with reference to the vigorous Soviet program; CRAF (comet rendezvous
asteroid flyby) and Mars sample return are identified as important, but
Earth observation -- multiple shuttle and station payloads, plus a number
of polar-orbit and Clarke-orbit platforms, some of them built by Europe
and Japan -- is given the #1 spot in planetary science. The Clarke-orbit
platforms would be assembled at the space station.
Michael Collins [Apollo 11], who chaired the NASA Advisory Council group
that recommended Mars, disagrees that it is necessary to go back to the
Moon before Mars. However, he notes that his group was divided on this
issue, and that its final recommendations left open the possibility that
the Moon would be a useful intermediate step.
Ride: "We do not really have a strategy for human exploration in NASA.
We have the shuttle and the station but they are not a strategy for human
exploration... the correct approach is to move slowly and responsibly
from low Earth orbit and to first explore the Moon. There are a lot of
good reasons to go back to the Moon... The US did not finish the job
we started during the Apollo project. There is still a lot of lunar
exploration, lunar science, and research on advanced technologies to be
done..." She says studies are underway on what effects this will have
on the space station design. "We need a much more robust space trans-
portation capability than a four-shuttle fleet." A shuttle-derived
heavylift launcher would suffice to get things started, although a bigger
one might be needed later. The "Pathfinder" technology effort should be
started at once to make the necessary new technologies ["Necessary" new
technologies? Nonsense. Try "useful". -- HS] available in time; this
may take a fight, because the Office of Mismanagement and Beancounting
is against major Pathfinder funding in FY89. "Starting Pathfinder is
something we can do now... It does not require billions of dollars.
Until we start Pathfinder and other key technologies we always are going
to be 10-20 years from completing these goals." Additional work on
closed-cycle life-support and human response to free-fall are particularly
important.
[HOORAY! For once, a NASA committee says something sensible! -- HS]
US and USSR will cooperate in September launch of Soviet Vostok biosat,
carrying rats and monkeys to study free-fall and radiation effects. NASA
team is in Moscow to straighten out details. US dosimeters will be on
board the satellite, and US investigators will participate in dissection
and analysis of results. The spacecraft is the same type that Yuri Gagarin
rode in 1961.
Indonesian delegation to visit Moscow to discuss launching future Indonesian
comsats on Soviet boosters.
NRC review team raises doubts about NASA's space-station cost estimates.
It says that the bill for the phase-one station will be $25G, not $14.5G,
including support and launch costs. NASA says this is silly, since other
NASA programs do not have support and launch costs charged against their
budgets, and that the station cost estimates stand. NRC says the full
phase-two station would total $33G; NASA notes that phase two has not been
approved and probably won't be. The NRC numbers are going to cause trouble
in Congress, though, with Proxmire already taking note. NRC notes several
serious uncertainties in costs: the stations's total dependency on the
shuttle, the policy of providing minimal backup hardware (there will be
spares for on-orbit maintenance, but no real coverage against loss of an
entire launch's payload), and complicated and messy management structures.
NASA asks Congress to approve use of $3M in station funds for a detailed
look at a crew-rescue vehicle, another thing that NRC noted the lack of.
Costs for such a vehicle are estimated at $1.5-2G.
[Micro-editorial: two billion for a crew-rescue vehicle is ridiculous.
What is needed is a couple of Apollo command modules -- the contingency
rescue plan for Skylab put five people in an Apollo -- and some minor bits
of extra hardware. This would involve some new development, since the
leftover Apollo hardware is undoubtedly no longer spaceworthy, but there
is no reason to start the design from scratch. -- HS]
Japan's Space Activities Commission issues report calling for major funding
for various projects, including the Hope spaceplane.
Japan's seven largest companies form Pacific Spaceport Group to look at
spaceport sites in the Pacific. The Australian state of Queensland is a
prime candidate, as is the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
Congress gives NASA and USAF $75M more for heavylift launcher work, with
a stipulation that it not be used for early SDI deployment in 1993-4.
NASA's responsibilities in the ALS project are ill-defined, but its role
has been boosted because it got $38M of the $75M. The early-90s interim
ALS idea was specifically not funded.
Eutelsat confirms order for a fourth Eutelsat 2 comsat from the European
consortium that is building the earlier ones.
Inmarsat is providing capacity on its Atlantic comsat free for a Canadian
experiment in providing reliable communications for air ambulances.
Canada approves [at last! -HS] development of the Radarsat remote-sensing
satellite, for launch in 1994. It's cut down a bit from the original idea,
but remains a synthetic-aperture radar with resolution of 10-100m depending
on operating mode. Radarsat has until the end of the year to reaffirm US
and British participation, both of which are a bit less than certain due to
the delays in starting the program. Britain would provide the spacecraft
bus and possibly a couple of experiments, but the muddled situation of the
British space plan and changes in British space leadership makes this no
longer a sure thing. The US would provide the launch, but NOAA no longer
wants to fly an instrument on Radarsat and the aftereffects of Challenger
make the US role uncertain too. German participation is a possibility.
The new Radarsat plan is for a non-refurbishable satellite (the old one was
to be shuttle-serviceable) with a lifetime of five years (was ten) and a
launch in 1994 (was 1991). Wide-beam coverage will be a swath of 500km at
100m resolution, narrow-beam will be 55km at 10m, medium-beam will be 100km
at 25m. Medium-beam can be pointed anywhere within Radarsat's 700km ground
track. The combination will give complete daily coverage of ice conditions
in the Canadian Arctic, an important application not possible with Landsat
or Spot (even ignoring clouds, which won't bother Radarsat).
AW&ST tours Chinese Xichang launch facility, noting new facilities under
construction. Three more Long March 3 launches are set for next year, two
with US commercial payloads if US government approval can be had. New
facilities are a big spacecraft-prep building with clean-room areas (for
foreigners, the Chinese don't bother keeping their satellites antiseptic),
data relay systems, a spacecraft propellant-loading building, a building
for storing and preparing satellite solid-rocket motors, a chilled-X-ray
facility for final checkout of solid motors, a clean room at satellite
level in the servicing tower on the pad, and other odds and ends. "The
scene in the last mile of road leading up to the pad was unlike anything
that would ever be viewed at the US, Soviet or European launch sites.
Villagers were leading donkeys, young girls strolled with sun umbrellas and
water buffalo waded in rice paddies, all within the immediate vicinity of
the booster service tower... Two PLA guards were stationed under a multi-
colored beach umbrella at the entrance to the pad... Chinese children were
swimming near the pad..." The locals *do* get evacuated before an actual
launch, and are taken to a nearby town for a movie or equivalent. Things
are kept as simple as possible. The water-flood system for the pad is by
gravity from a tank on a nearby mountain. The launch pad is set to the
proper azimuth using a laser measuring system and hand cranks!
[Is it any wonder their launches are half the price of anyone else's? --HS]
Germany and Italy are proposing Topas, a recoverable microgravity capsule
launched by Scout from the San Marco platform off Kenya, as a way of getting
microgravity experiments into space soon, aiming at first flight in 1989.
GE's off-the-shelf reentry capsules would be used. Flights would last
2-14 days and would be available every few months. Capacity is 100-120kg.
Cost-effectiveness would be secondary to schedule.
There is also a tentative agreement to fly European biological microgravity
payloads on the Soviet Biocosmos spacecraft, with negotiations underway on
materials science.
NASA is facing a choice for the FY89 new science start: CRAF or the
Advanced X-Ray Astronomy Facility. There is thought to be no hope of
getting both. Fletcher is generally pessimistic about major new funding
for anything in the near future.
Processing of Discovery for STS-26 will start in September and end in March.
SRBs will arrive in December and stack in January. Rollout will be in March
and the flight-readiness firing in April or May, for launch in June.
NASA safety office is starting projects to study microgravity fires, space
debris protection, and software error detection and prevention.
Miscellaneous quotes from the letters page: "It took 10 years to reach the
Moon; it should not take 20 years to return there." "...the Soviet Union
has won the space race as far as there has been any such." And the letter
of the week, responding to an AW&ST article expressing various reservations
about the mediasat idea:
"...The article expressed views I expect from Soviet and US
intelligence authorities protecting their information turf.
The interests of the common man are quite different...
"'Satellite images could... deprive US troops of... surprise.'
Also, anyone else's troops. Surprise benefits the aggressor...
"'News... organizations could... reveal sensitive information
about other countries, provoking an attack on the US...' Trans-
lated, it would be more difficult for foreign leaders to lie to
us. Good. As for the attacks, that's what we pay DOD $300 billion
a year to take care of.
"'Mediasat images could provide intelligence to countries that do
not own reconnaissance satellites.' Good. See the first point.
"'Images... could reveal facts about an unfolding crisis...'
Again, it's more difficult to lie. Good...
"'The news media may misinterpret satellite images in such a way
as to precipitate a crisis.' Granted. So could the intelligence
community..."
"Al Globus, California"
--
"There's a lot more to do in space | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
than sending people to Mars." --Bova | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry