Friday, 16 July 1987 Washington, DC
1.
AND THEN THERE WERE NONE. THE LAST ATLAS-CENTAUR ROCKET
in
NASA's inventory was damaged irreparably in a launch pad accident
this week, leaving the US temporarily without the means to lift
anything into space. The earliest shuttle flight is still at
least a year away -- even if no problems appear in the current
series of booster tests. The Delta and Titan vehicles were
grounded last year following a series of failures, leaving only a
handful of venerable Atlas-Centaurs to keep us in satellites.
When lightning struck an Atlas-Centaur in March while it was
trying to place a Pentagon communications satellite in orbit,
NASA was left with only one. The last of its kind was on the pad
this week being readied to carry an identical satellite when its
pressurized hydrogen fuel tank was punctured in a parking-lot
accident. The growing queue of high-priority military launchings
leaves the space science program of the US in a state of
suspended animation.
2
. A STRATEGIC DEFENSE INITIATIVE "NATIONAL TEST FACILITY"
was
deleted by the House from an $8.3B military construction bill.
The Administration had requested $10B in new construction. The
$100M National Test Facility is a key element in the proposal to
begin deploying a ballistic missile defense based on kinetic
energy weapons in the mid 1990's. The space-based component of
the "Phase I" plan calls for 650 orbiting weapons platforms
(WN 1 May 87). Readers may
wish to make their own schedule
estimates based on item 1 above.
3. THE EXPORT OF OUR EXPORT CONTROL SYSTEM TO JAPAN
may offer
the US its best means to "level the playing field" in the
competition with Japan for high-technology markets. Following
the embarrassing disclosure of the sale of computer-controlled
milling machines to the Soviet Union by Toshiba, in violation of
export control agreements (WN 3 Jul 87),
Japan has agreed to
strengthen its enforcement policies. As part of the agreement,
the Japanese will send teams to the US to study the American
export administration system and then copy it in Japan. This is
the system that a panel of the National Academies described as
"costly, generally ineffective, an obstacle to foreign trade, and
often damaging to relations with our
allies" (WN 16 Jan 87).
4. "PRIVATIZATION" OF THE NATIONAL TECHNICAL INFORMATION SERVICE (NTIS)
got scant support at recent hearings on Federal
Information Policy Issues before the House Subcommittee on
Science, Research and Technology. NTIS collects and disseminates
unclassified reports on government-sponsored research. It is
self-supporting through user fees. Last fall OMB ordered the
Commerce Department to sell NTIS (WN 19 Dec 86), but that was
before the wave of competitiveness swept over Congress. Now NTIS
is held up as an example of what the Government can do to assist
industry. Commerce might, however, just contract it out.
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