Jan 12 1994
From The Space Library
Dr. Carolyn Huntoon, the new Director of the Johnson Space Center (JSC), appointed George W.S. Abbey as Deputy Director of JSC. He succeeded Paul J. "P.J." Weitz, who was to serve as Acting Associate Director during transition of the new Center management team and who had been the Center's Deputy Director since 1987 and Acting Director since August 1993. (NASA Release 94-26; Def Daily, Jan 12/94)
A study by Loren Thompson, Deputy Director of Georgetown University's National Security Studies Program, was one of several major sources examining the U.S. space industry's growing challenge from competition and domination by foreign governments' expanding space programs and their successes with smaller but cheaper launch vehicles.
Richard DalBello led another study by the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), while Mark Albrecht of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) expressed the industry's concern. Further, the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) was to study launching U.S. military satellites on Ariane-5.
Norman R. Augustine, chairman of Martin Marietta, which had agreed to buy General Dynamics Corporation's rocket division for $208 million, stressed that the industry was on its way to "being destroyed" if the U.S. government didn't help. The company wanted a law saying federal agencies must launch payloads only on U.S.-built rockets. As competitors, Europe's Arianespace, Russia's Proton, and China's Long March offer increasingly reliable alternatives to the U.S. launch industry's former monopoly that extended through the 1970s. The foreign rockets offer substantial savings through remarkably lower production and servicing costs.
Building the Proton takes one-fifth the employee hours needed to make a U.S. rocket, and it spends only a few hours on the launch pad, with a launch crew of 50. Ariane-4 spends 10 days, with a launch crew of 100, whereas the U.S. Deltas and Atlases need three to eight weeks and crews of 300, and the Titan IV takes three months and a crew of 1,000. Finally, for payload launch, the Russians and Chinese launches cost $4,000 per pound and Ariane-5 cost $8,000 per pound, while U.S. rockets cost $12,000. A table compares six cost factors of the seven major rockets. (W Post, Jan 12/94; H Chron, Jan 23/94)
White House officials said President Clinton was scheduled to name a civilian panel of scientists to independently review human radiation test data in hundreds of thousands of documents uncovered by a government-wide search and to determine whether ethical standards had been violated. Energy Department spokesperson Michael Gauldin said the panel members would consist of health physicists, experts on radiology, and specialists in medical ethics. He also said that an interagency "working group" formed to coordinate the search of records in eight agencies and departments was trying to define more clearly what experiments should be included. He predicted it would take "months, perhaps years" to find all the records and analyze them. (W Post, Jan 12/94)
A dispute of possible long-term import with hundreds of millions of dollars at stake appeared to be brewing between NASA and the television industry over local multipoint distribution service (LMDS), pitting the satellite industry against proponents of this low-cost alternative to cable television. Further, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was approaching an auction of some air-waves for a new generation of wireless communications services. Charles Force, NASA Associate Administrator for Space Communications, stated that "It appears that there is a significant possibility for interference with LMDS from satellite uplinks; this was no secret to the FCC." He suggested a four-year delay in LMDS service to deal with interference in the disputed 27.5-to-30-gigahertz spectrum band. The FCC believed that LMDS can coexist with satellite use and was preparing to authorize nationwide deployment of LMDS. (LA Times, Jan 12/94)
Lieutenant General Malcolm O'Neill, director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO), proposed to Pentagon Acquisition Chief John Deutch cancellation of the purchase of four Russian Topaz II space nuclear reactors-believed to be the last in Russia's inventory-to be used in the DoD's Thermionic System Test Evaluation. Steven Aftergood, of the Federation of American Scientists, said that the Air Force might take over the ground test program. The Nuclear Electric Propulsion Space Test Program, with which they might have been used, was also dropped. These moves continued a trend in the cancellation of several NASA and Air Force efforts to develop space nuclear power. A White House Space Nuclear Power Interagency Working Group was scheduled to draft administration policy by July 1994 and a U.S. position for the February meeting of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) Science and Technology Subcommittee. (Def Daily, Jan 12/94)
NASA Chief Engineer Michael Griffin, Director of NASA's former Exploration Office, planned to resign to join Space Industries International, Inc., as senior vice president of program development. (Def Daily, Jan 12/94)
McDonnell Douglas awarded Computer Sciences Corp (CSC), with EER Systems and CTA, Inc., a five-year, $49 million subcontract to support NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The Systems Engineering, Integration and Management Support Services contract would support sever-al space observation missions. (Def Daily, 12 Jan/94)
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