Howard.Gayle%CMU-CS-G@sri-unix.UUCP (12/21/83)
The following caption appears under a photograph on page 23 of the 12 December 1983 Aviation Week & Space Technology. The photograph, taken from a television monitor, shows Owen Garriott with his hands over his eyes, Robert Parker with his hands over his ears, and Brewster Shaw with his hands over his mouth. "White House Edict Annoys Shuttle Participants "Johnson Space Center---Shuttle managers, astronauts and many Europeans in the Spacelab program here were annoyed by instructions from the White House on how the live television discussion among President Reagan, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and the Spacelab 1 crew was to be conducted Dec. 5. The White House wrote a detailed script that was transmitted to Columbia to insure the crew would know what to say and when to say it. The White House edict drawing the strongest criticism was that only payload specialists Byron Lichtenberg, Ulf Merbold and mission commander John Young were to appear in the Spacelab on camera with the President. Banished crewmembers Owen Garriott, Robert Parker and USAF Maj. Brewster Shaw expressed their view on the matter by staging a monkey `hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' scene on the middeck during a television test before Reagan and Kohl appeared. Shuttle management appealed the language of the script and the decision to exclude half the crew. The appeal was rejected. Some Europeans expressed concern the language was weighted toward Germany's contribution to Spacelab at the expense of the other ESA states." No wonder they ran out of teleprinter paper.