Xref: utzoo sci.space:25980 sci.space.shuttle:6761
Newsgroups: sci.space,sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: space news from Oct 6 AW&ST
Message-ID: <1990Dec4.025945.15482@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Date: Tue, 4 Dec 90 02:59:45 GMT

Editorial urging NASA to decide what its priorities for the space station
are, rather than trying to keep everybody happy on a steadily shrinking
station... especially since the international "partners" are getting fed up.
The coincidence in timing with the Ulysses launch is noteworthy:  "The
12-year story of [Ulysses] is littered with broken US promises, including
eight changes in boosters, multiple launch postponements, and reneging on
a deal to build a companion US spacecraft.  Small wonder no one beyond its
borders seems to take US plans for a settlement on the Moon and trips to
Mars very seriously..."

*Another* engine fire in development work for the H-2 booster.

Investigation underway after 30kg work-platform support beam is left inside
Atlantis as the orbiter is moved to a vertical position Oct 3.  All the 
paperwork indicated the beam had been removed.  [Isn't it wonderful how
much reliability NASA gains by having everything checked three times?]

Senate committee recommends killing the Milstar strategic comsat, saying
it is overdesigned against a diminishing threat of nuclear war and largely
useless for tactical purposes.

GAO finds that a NASA effort to get private industry involved in financing
space hardware scored six failures out of seven, and predictably so, because
the projects were too far along or had no commercial market.  This will
contribute to hard times for NASA, because its FY90-94 budgeting was based
on the assumption that this effort would succeed.  The only success out of
seven was private funding for the orbiter long-mission cryogenic fuel pallet.
The ASRM plant, a free-fall training pool, space station docking and tele-
robotic systems, space-station payload processing facilities, and some
instrument development for unmanned probes were the failures.

Images from the Soviet Almaz radarsat show clear pictures of the ocean
bottom hundreds of feet down, confirming (at greater depths and with better
resolution) the experience with Seasat in 1978.  The radar itself is not
penetrating, but currents and tides flowing over the bottom apparently tend
to make surface features reflect bottom features.  The big question is
whether submerged submarines leave similar traces.  Nobody is talking;
even when Seasat data was being analyzed, discussion of antisubmarine
applications was taboo.  Almaz is a prototype civilian remote-sensing
craft rather than a military program.  The Soviets say they have also
been able to see buried pipelines in the radar images, indicating some
limited ability to penetrate earth (another technology with military
applications, too...).  Almaz is a heavily modified Salyut space-station
core with long radar arrays along its sides.  Space Commerce Corp. of
Houston is marketing Almaz data worldwide, with launch of the first
operational Almaz set for Nov 25-31.  Two relay satellites for passing
the data to the control center in Moscow are already up.

Configuration for the X-30 selected:  basically a lifting body with small
wings and twin vertical stabilizers.  The crew are located in a blister
just aft of the nose, and at the moment have side-looking windows.  The
scramjet propulsion system will be augmented by a 50-75klb rocket engine,
for the final push into orbit, orbital maneuvering, and emergency propulsion
in the event of scramjet failure during tests.

SDI notifies Congress of plans to drastically cut funding for the ground-
based free-electron laser project, citing budget constraints.  Congressional
reaction is expected to be hostile, given the feeling there that SDIO is
increasingly sacrificing promising long-range projects in favor of more
money for the politically-doomed effort at near-term deployment.  [This
may not sound space-relevant, but the FEL is possibly the single best
laser for a laser launcher.]

Picture of the Soviet payload-return capsule incorporated in the modified
Progress freighter, slated for first use in November.

The Molniya Scientific and Industrial Enterprise is looking for partners
to develop a reusable suborbital spaceplane, capable of carrying 50 or so
passengers in a suborbital flight with altitude reaching 160km.

Pictures of the next two Mir modules, Spektr ("Optical") and Piroda,
respectively optical remote sensing and environmental monitoring, both
under construction for launch around a year from now.

NASA orders hiring freeze at space-station contractors, probably in
anticipation of Yet Another Redesign -- largely inevitable given the
likely budget cuts.

Planetary Soviety invitation-only meeting to "critique" the current space
station concludes that the current design is not viable even if nothing
goes wrong with the shuttle, citing persistent reliance on unrealistic
shuttle launch rates, inflexibility due to trying to meet too many users'
needs, and inadequate consideration of alternatives.  (On the other hand,
some of the attendees commented that the deck was stacked:  the choice
of participants seemed to be deliberately aimed at such a conclusion.)

Marshall is looking at the possibility of dividing the two big US modules
into four, making it possible to launch them fully equipped.

Station EVA needs seem to be under control, but many are unhappy about the
increased reliance on relatively inflexible remote-controlled devices, and
say that a high-pressure spacesuit would be a better approach.
-- 
"The average pointer, statistically,    |Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
points somewhere in X." -Hugh Redelmeier| henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry


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