Feb 3 1994
From The Space Library
Shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral carrying for the first time a Russian cosmonaut, Sergei Krikalev, who already had spent 15 months aboard Mir Station, and five American astronauts. Discovery's eight-day research flight was to include deployment and retrieval of the Wake Shield Facility, designed for growing experimental semiconductor materials, and various microgravity and life science experiments. (AP, Feb 3/94; UPI, Feb 3/94; Reuters, Feb 3/94; LA Times, Feb 4/94; P Inq, Feb 4/94; W Times, Feb 4/94; W Post, Feb 4/94; NY Times, Feb 4/94; USA Today, Feb 4/94; WSJ, Feb 4/94; C Trib, Feb 4/94; AP, Feb 4/94)
NASA announced the selection of astronauts Norman E. Thagard and Bonnie J. Dunbar as prime and backup crew members for a three-month flight on Russian Space Station Mir in March 1995. Both astronauts flew on previous U.S. Shuttle flights and conducted various scientific experiments. (NASA Release 94-16)
NASA announced the first government/industry Technology Reinvestment Program (TRP) with Hi-Shear Technology Corporation, Torrance, California.
The program was designed to create a new generation of portable emergency rescue equipment by using NASA-developed pyrotechnical technology to free accident victims from wrecks. (NASA Release 94-17)
The launch of the H-II (also seen as H-2) rocket created by the Japanese consortium Rocket Systems Corporation was scheduled for February 4. The rocket, large enough to lift a two-ton payload into geostationary orbit, cost $2.5 billion to develop and was two years behind schedule. (CSM, Feb 3/94; Reuters, Feb 4/94; UP, Feb 4/94; LA Times, Feb 7/94)
Air Force Colonel Sanford Mangold told members of the House of Representatives Government Operations Committee of his dismissal for recommending the cancellation of the $27 billion military satellite program Milstar. He considered Milstar, intended to provide worldwide military communications during a nuclear war, to have "fundamental, insurmountable problems," including "unacceptable" costs of $1.4 billion for each satellite. (NY Times, Feb 3/94)
Following a final flight ceremony at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility at Edwards Air Force Base, NASA retired its last F-104 fighter jet of the 1950s. NASA used the plane, known as the Starfighter, for biomedical research and to simulate the X-15 jet. The F-15 was to replace Lockheed's Starfighter. (Bakersfield Californian, Feb 4/94)
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