Webb@Cmu-20c@sri-unix (09/03/82)
From: Jon Webb <Webb at Cmu-20c> Here are some excerpts from the New Scientist of 26 August 1982. New Scientist is a British weekly science magazine. BRAZIL SET TO JOIN THE SPACE SUPERPOWERS Brazil plans to become by 1987 the eighth country to demonstrate it can life into space a satellite with its own rocket. The drive to join the select list of nations in this category comes partly as a result of military ambitions. The satellite of about 250 kg would be launched on a rocket under development at the Institute of Space Activities in San Jose near Sao Paulo. The institute, which military officers control, is working on the solid-propellant rocket primarily to carry warheads. But, according to Nelson de Jesus Parada, the director general of Brazil's civilian Institute for Space Research, the home-made launcher will take into space during the late 1980s a series of four satellites that have purely peaceful applications. ...Two of the craft will be for remote sensing, with resolution comparable to Landsat. ... The other two will be for telecomunications, handling streams of digital data from transponders around the country. ... The space program costs Brazil about 20 million pounds/year. They are also buying some satellites which they will place into orbit using Ariane. ... INDIA'S ROCKET COULD MEET MILITARY AMBITIONS Doubts are growing over whether India plans to keep its rocket programme solely for launching satellites rather than warheads. The solid propellant using in the country's SLV-3 launcher ... is ideally suited for missiles. Indian observers think that within six months of a political decision, engineers ... could convert the SLV-3 into a missile with a range of 2000 km. ... PRIVATE SHUTTLE FIRM AWAITS GOVERNMENT GO-AHEAD Space Transportion [sic], the company that wants to become the world's first private operator of a re-usable space craft, expect to know by the end of the year if the US government will let it go ahead with its plans. The company [called Spacetran]...wants to buy a space shuttle for $1000 million and operate it from 1987. [The president of Spacetran] says he expects the military to book 30 -- 40% of the flights. The government says NASA will need a little less than half. ... To take a full shuttle load of 30 tonnes into space will cost roughly $70 million... READY FOR THE SHUTTLE? Are you American and have you some skill at composing poetry or wielding a paint brush? If so, then you have a shance of making an early trip into space. A NASA committe is considering the criteria under which ordinary citizens can qualify for joining the crew of a space shuttle when the shuttle programme is operating in top gear in 1987. At this point, one of a fleet of space planes will journey into orbit every fortnight. James Beggs, the administrator of NASA, says that his government will not sell tickets for trips into space. Instead, it will judge which people are likely to gain the most from such a jaunt into the heavens. At the top of the list are journalists, painters, and photographers. Folk who, in the opinion of NASA, can share their experiences with the millions of others who will never have the oppourtunity to leave the Earth's atmosphere. If readers have any thoughts on who should be among the fortunates to make the shuttle crew, the had better write to NASA before it finishes its deliberations next year. [Note: from other sources (National Public Radio) I have heard that one of the tradition hindrances to going -- poor vision requiring eyeglasses -- will not apply to these passengers]. Jon