May 1984
From The Space Library
NASA and Deere & Company, Moline, Ill., signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on the design of metallurgical tests to be conducted aboard a future Space Shuttle flight. In 1981, Deere became the first private company to sign a Technical Exchange Agreement with NASA that permitted the company to perform cast iron solidification experiments on board conventional suborbital NASA aircraft, which simulated microgravity for 30 to 60 seconds.
Deere was already working on the design of additional metallurgical tests, where engineers used data from the low-gravity tests conducted earlier. Based on this work, Deere and NASA engineers concluded that further experimentation would be productive. The Space Shuttle tests would permit experiments in space for longer periods, which could yield new information to aid in the search for stronger irons. These tests could also provide new data about the process for forming iron molecules, leading to improved foundry efficiencies. (NASA Release 84-56)
NASA announced that astronaut Terry Hart, who had operated the Space Shuttle's mechanical arm to retrieve the Solar Maximum Satellite during the April 6-13, 1984, Space Shuttle flight, would leave NASA effective June 15 to work in an engineering management position for the newly formed Military and Government Systems Division of Bell Laboratories in Whippany, N.J.
The division would produce large digital communications networks for government applications. Hart was also a member of the astronaut support crews for Shuttle missions 1, 2, 3, and 7, serving as capsule communicators in mission control for those flights. (NASA Release 84-59)
Officials at the U.S. Department of State blocked an offer by the Soviet Union to use its rockets to launch Western satellites, the Christian Science Monitor reported. The Soviets had offered to "sell" their rockets to INMARSAT, the International Maritime Satellite Organization based in London, for launching a new generation of satellites in the 1980s. INMARSAT was running a network of communications satellites that routed telephone calls and data among some 2,300 ships and their shore bases. However, it had not decided on the companies that would supply the new satellites, which could number up to nine and cost up to $500 million. Under the Soviet Union plan, satellites would have to travel to the Soviet rocket site prior to launch into space, and the satellites would undoubtedly contain a large proportion of U.S. parts. Such a transfer would be prohibited under the technology control regulations that sought to stop the channeling to unfriendly countries of hardware that could be used in weaponry. The State Department said that "under no circumstances" would it permit the transfer to the Soviet Union of American-made satellite components. Only two organizations had submitted tenders to INMARSAT to build the satellites: a joint venture of Hughes Aircraft Corporation and British Aerospace and a consortium of Marconi of the United Kingdom, Aerospatiale of France, and Ford Aerospace of the United States.
The Soviet Union had said that it would make available its Proton rockets for a fee of about $23 million a launch. That was roughly half the comparable charge for a satellite launch by either the Space Shuttle or the Ariane rocket sold by Arianespace, a semipublic company dominated by French interests.
U.S. officials feared shipment to the Soviet Union's main launch site at Baykonur in Central Asia of hardware containing electronic components that could be useful to the Soviet's military buildup. (CSM, May 3/84, 1)
NASA announced that Dr. Hans M. Mark, deputy administrator of NASA since July 1981, would become chancellor of the University of Texas System, effective September 1, 1984. In announcing the appointment, Texas Board Chairman Jon Newton said of Mark: "With his Air Force and NASA background, he has demonstrated the management ability to administer effectively a complex organizational enterprise such as the U.T. System, which involves 119,000 students, 50,000 faculty and staff, and an operational budget for FY84-85 of $1.8 billion." Mark was born in Mannheim, Germany, and in February 1969, after receiving his doctorate in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1954, became director of NASA's ARC. He had also served as a consultant to government, industry, and business, including the Institute for Defense Analyses and the President's Advisory Group on Science and Technology. (NASA Release 84-65)
Martin A. Knutson was named director of Flight Operations and Ames Dryden Site manager for ARC. In this position, Knutson would be responsible for the operation of more than 40 highly specialized research and support air-craft at ARC and its Ames Dryden Flight Research Center. He also would be responsible for site management of the Mojave Desert facility that conducted NASA's high-speed flight research and served as one of the prime landing sites for Space Shuttle missions. Knutson joined NASA in 1971 as the ARC's manager of the Airborne Instrumentation Research Project. He was instrumental in creating the project and in acquiring its U-2 aircraft and was a pilot with over 6,000 hours of flight time. (ARC Release 84-11)
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