elt@astrovax.UUCP (Ed Turner) (03/19/86)
I have seen reports in the news (but not on the net surprisingly!) that NASA has announced plans to procure a new expendable launch vehicle (ELV) to temporarily replace and permanently complement the STS. This is hardly a surprising development; only pride and/or chaos inside NASA could have delayed such an obvious step for so long. A question though: Is anything known yet about this new ELV? When will it be available? How much will it cost? What will its LEO payload be? Etc. In a perhaps related issue, some of my well placed space scientist colleagues say that the quiet word from NASA is to expect something between 1 and 3 years to pass before the next shuttle launch and for operations to be resumed with a much longer turn around time (to allow for more thorough testing and refurbishment between flights?). The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) has announced (with written approval from NASA) a 5.5 month delay in the deadline for ST observing proposals and plans to allow revision of said proposals (to keep them scientifically up to date) up until approximately one year before ST launch. ST has been declared the highest priority shuttle scientific payload for launch after resumption of operations. Ed Turner astrovax!elt