Jan 30 1980
From The Space Library
The Washington Post said the mystery explosion detected by a U.S. Vela satellite September 22, 1979, was still a mystery, although additional data had come to light since the State Department announced a suspected nuclear explosion.
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had told "a few select committees of the House and Senate" that the Union of South Africa was conducting a secret naval exercise in the area where Vela saw the explosion. A committee aide briefed by the CIA said the explosion might be "a rocket launched from one of those South African ships." On the same night, scientists using the world's largest radiotelescope had seen a ripple in the ionosphere over Puerto Rico a few hours after Vela saw a double flash 4,000 miles away; it had come "from the right direction and at the right velocity to have been caused by a nuclear explosion near South Africa." Ever since the State Department announcement, the Carter administration had tried to discount the possibility of a nuclear explosion, convening a panel of scientists who first said Vela saw a freak lightning strike that coincided with a meteor burnout, then suggested the sighting was either a malfunction or a mistake. However, the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory said that Vela had picked up the "unmistakable" signature of an atomic explosion, a "double flash" caused by a fireball blacked out momentarily by a shockwave surrounding the explosion, then showing 99 times more intense as the shockwave dissipated.
The Vela, it turned out, had carried not one but two optical detectors: one very sensitive instrument to spot fireballs from small nuclear explosions and a less sensitive one in case an atomic blast overloaded the first instrument. As both instruments saw the flash September 22, instrument mistake was unlikely. Also, the ripple arrived at the Arecibo observatory at the proper time to have been the shockwave of an explosion seen by Vela. No radioactive debris had appeared in southern-hemisphere rainwater to confirm an atomic explosion, but the United States had taken up to three weeks after last year's explosion to sample rainwater in the area. (W Post, Jan 30/80, A-1)
MSFC announced that NASA had signed a $183„960,000 contract with ESA for a second Spacelab to be delivered in 1984. Like the first, the new Spacelab would be built by ERNO of West Germany, prime ESA contractor, with at least 26 subcontractors in ESA nations as well as the United States to make components and subassemblies. MSFC was responsible for technical support; JSC would handle operations; Kennedy Space Center (KSC) would be responsible for integrating Spacelab with the Space Shuttle and for launch. (MSFC Release 80-11)
Presidential science adviser Dr. Frank Press addressed a conference of the Department of Agriculture science and education administration at Reston, Va., on expanding horizons for agriculture, which he said was of prize importance to the world's future. On the relationship of agriculture and space, Press cited climate and weather research by satellite as a useful guide in future policy; he also said a useful tool in immediate decisions would be the new AgRISTARS system (agricultural resources inventory surveys through aerospace remote sensing), used by five agencies-NASA, Commerce, Interior, and Agency for International Development (AID), plus the Department of Agriculture-to obtain early warnings and quantitative estimates of worldwide crop conditions. (Text, Jan 30/80)
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