space news from Mar 07, 1994 AW&ST

Henry Spencer summaries

AT&T confirms that the Olin Aerospace arcjet thrusters on Telstar 401 are roughly doubling stationkeeping fuel efficiency.

Discovery to be the second shuttle fitted with a Mir docking module.

Galileo data indicates that asteroid Ida has a moon.

Clementine begins lunar mapping! Everything is working fine.

Meanwhile, the White House is doing its best to ignore Clementine, eliminating funding for Clementine 2 and dragging its feet on even authorizing press conferences about the current mission. Apparently the Clinton administration considers Clementine tainted because of its SDIO origins. Clementine is being moved to the Naval Research Lab, but without any funding beyond what's needed to finish the primary mission.

NASA unhappy about electronics problems in Wind and Polar, solar- terrestrial-physics satellites whose launches have already slipped from spring to autumn this year. Workmanship at Martin Marietta (ex-RCA) Astro Space is a concern, as are some arguably-poor design decisions. Fixes are straightforward but lengthy.

NASA gives Martin Marietta $172.5M for development of the new lightweight aluminum-lithium external tank.

"Forum" piece by John Logsdon (George Washington U) and Alain Dupas (CNES), pointing out that ten years after Reagan said "do a space station within ten years", we're not much closer to having one. They note a comment by James Webb (NASA administrator for most of Apollo), comparing large programs to airplanes, which should not be cleared for takeoff unless they have the performance margins needed to reach cruising altitude and the destination. They comment that the space station, like ESA's defunct Hermes, lacks Webb's "working consensus" -- agreement among technical and political leaders that it is worth pursuing. "...in hindsight, neither the station program nor Europe's aspirations for autonomy were ready for takeoff a decade ago." They cite lessons of the last decade:

• A major program must have a clear goal that dominates the program and can show initial results within five years or so. If the technology is not ready for that timescale, fund the technology, not the program, even if funding programs is easier.
• A major program must be feasible without significantly higher budgets, and must keep its promises on schedule and spending.
• Manned spaceflight must be justified in terms of a long-term commitment to manned exploration of the solar system. Foreign-policy issues (the Cold War, aid to Russia) are short-term justifications only. "The station program was begun without a link to human exploration, and the attempt to add that link after the fact did not work."
• Major programs must be true partnerships, not dominated by a single nation; autonomy is unaffordable. Making the station a real multilateral partnership is the first step.

Editorial urging the administration to stifle its "not invented here" reaction to Clementine. Both Pentagon and NASA management have given it lukewarm support at best, and it deserves better. At the very least, Goldin should accept BMDO's offer to tour the Clementine operations center -- which is only a few minutes from his office -- to see how a bare-bones mission is done. Then JPL should be asked how it would staff a comparable mission.

 
"All I really want is a rich uncle."    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
                    - Wernher von Braun |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry