al@ames-lm.UUCP (Al Globus) (06/26/84)
The June 18 Aviation Week has the following on page 16: "German efforts to gain commercial advantage from the remote- sensing capabilities of the U.S. space shuttle - using the German SPAS/ SPARX pallet - were blocked by U.S. legislators after the Germans had been led to believe they had a firm agreement to allow commercialization.... The SPARX imaging activity planned for the October shuttle flight has been removed from the payload." Who are these legislators? What is their reasoning? Can we get SPARX back on the shuttle manifest? Write your congressmen and ask these questions. I can't think of a single good reason to prevent this use of the shuttle. Incidentally, the SPAS satellite has a very nice low cost design completely dependent on the shuttle. The remote sensing scheme they were coming up with had lots of nice properties: low cost, return of instruments to Earth for refurbishment, etc., etc. Now somebody is pulling the rug out from under them. The U.S. bailed out of Solar Polar, shafted Europe on Spacelab use, pulls this stunt on SPAS, and expects Europe to come up with $2 Billion for the space station. If I was Europe, I'd tell us to shove it. Maybe we can prevent that fate by presuring Congress to let SPAS/SPARX go ahead as planned.