Jul 13 1978

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KSC announced that for the third consecutive yr it would host about 80 of the nation's leading atmospheric physicists and lightning researchers, representing 10 universities, 2 research laboratories, NOAA, and 3 other NASA centers, for a summer of combined study of the electrical properties of thunderstorms. The thunderstorm research international program (TRIP) would use the unique meteorological facilities built at KSC during the Apollo and Skylab programs, to assess thunderstorm hazards during launch operations and to monitor the high incidence of lightning-charged storms in the area during the summer. Participating investigators would bring their own instruments for many of the experiments; others would use KSC's instruments, like the field mill system built for the Apollo program to detect buildup of electrical charges in overhead thunderclouds; KSC's instrumented aircraft, NASA-6, used in previous lightning studies; and the lightning detection and ranging (LDAR) system that detected electrification in distant clouds. NOAA's geosynchronous operational environmental satellite Goes would provide satellite photographs for the scientists.

Experiments would include an evaluation of prototype lightning sensors as part of the scientific package to be flown in 1982 on the Jupiter orbiter probe designated Project Galileo, first planetary spacecraft to be carried aboard the Space Shuttle; a study of evolution of lightning activity; examination of the structure of waveforms radiated from lightning, for characteristics indicating storm type; obtaining from ground-based systems range and azimuth data on lightning strokes; monitoring of electric-field and corona (surface discharge of electricity) current over water; and study of the relationship of precipitation-formation development in thunderclouds to lightning occurrences. (KSC Release 66-78; Spaceport News, July 21/78, 1)

Langley Research Center announced it had selected Frank Godfrey, contract specialist, to participate in the Education for Public Management program of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Univ. As part of a federal government effort to develop promising mid-careerists' talents and abilities for management in the public sector, the program would train individuals identified by their agencies as having potential to assume increased responsibility for agency programs and policies. Godfrey, who had been at LaRC since 1974, had served as a loaned executive to the 1977 Peninsula United Fund Campaign and was on the adjunct faculty of St. Leo College. (LaRC Release 78-35)

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