FY92 compromise DoD appropriation funds SDI at the same $4.15G level as the earlier compromise authorization, and allocates $55M for USAF work on NLS, while expressing concern that DoD, SDI, and the intelligence community appear to have no requirement for NLS and possibly should not be funding it. [Of course, neither does NASA...] Both approp. and auth. provide $200M for NASP, but a report accompanying the auth. warns that Congress will not commit to NASP construction unless there is clear evidence that NASA and DoD will budget properly for it, and also that pending DoD cuts make it necessary that NASA carry a larger share of NASP in future, since there is no clear military requirement and DoD is not in the business of funding civilian spaceflight.
More Magellan images, this time full-surface maps using the first-cycle data (with gaps filled in from Pioneer Venus data).
ESA member nations give mixed signals, endorsing a proposed long-term plan but failing to give a full-scale go-ahead for Hermes, Columbus, and the Data Relay Satellite. H, C, and DRS have been funded for one year of initial development, with another ministerial meeting set for late 1992 to review the situation. Many people are quite unhappy about this; ESA formerly was noteworthy for giving multi-year go-aheads that avoided having approved projects subject to change or cancellation every year. The ministers also mumbled about "studying cooperation with nonmember countries" on the projects, which program participants see as likely to complicate projects and increase expenses, given that these projects are already pretty well parcelled out and ready to roll.
Outgoing NASA DepAdmin Thompson delivers a major reassessment of agency roles and responsibilities. Prominent are recommendations for:
Truly has officially praised the report, the first look at such things in a decade, but is likely to implement it selectively. For example, the shuttle shift to KSC is likely to happen, but the reduction in role for Reston is not. Thompson is leaving NASA to join Orbital Sciences.
SDI will try to get detailed UV images of orbiter rocket plumes from the LACE satellite during the Atlantis mission. This has been tried before, but LACE has to be pretty precisely pointed, and so far the attempts have missed seeing the orbiters.
The X Window system is not layered, and | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology it was not designed. -Shane P. McCarron | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry