May 16 1994
From The Space Library
The anticipated fight over the budget and, specifically, the likelihood that NASA's appropriation would be cut and that further efforts would be made to eliminate funding for the International Space Station was featured prominently in the media. (SP News, May 16-22/94; Fla Today, May 16/94; Defense Daily, May 16/94; H Chron, May 17/94)
In the absence of a National Space Council chaired by the Vice President, Vice President Al Gore's office became the focal point for space policy. Gore and the White House seemed confident that the administration had sufficient support to pass the Space Station. (SP News, May 16-22/94)
More than 1,200 NASA workers of the nearly 2,000 NASA staff who applied received an early retirement bonus. The early retirement program reduced NASA personnel from 24,000 at the beginning of 1994 to 22,500 as of the beginning of 1995. (SP News, May 16-22/94)
Sayed Z. Shariq, Director of the Office of Commercial Technology at NASA's Ames Research Center, said NASA had reshaped its technology transfer program so as to make it an integral part of NASA's business relationships with the private sector. In this regard, Shariq said that government should adapt to industry's practices and both NASA and industry should work together during the research and development, product planning, prototyping, and fabrication stages. In addition, Agency staff performance evaluations, incentives, and awards should be structured to foster commitment to the commercial program. One of the first signs of NASA's commercialization mission was the Aerospace Industry Technology Program, funded at $20 million for FY 1994. (Av Wk, May 16/94)
U.S. astronauts Norman Thagard and Bonnie Dunbar, who are training in Russia, returned to Johnson Space Center with the four Russian cosmonauts with whom they will fly in March 1995. The six were in Houston for three weeks to learn about U.S. science experiments planned for their flights. (H Post, May 17/94)
Astronaut Bill Shepherd, deputy manager of the Space Station program office in Houston, said that NASA had contingency plans for building the International Space Station without Russian assistance, if necessary. However, NASA fully expected Russian participation. (Fla Today, May 17/94; H Chron, May 17/94)
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