Friday, 26 July 1991 Washington, DC
1. A DEBATE RAGES AT NSF OVER THE LENGTH OF RESEARCH
PROPOSALS.
The draft version of an "Important Notice" that
would set strict new limits on the length of research proposals
is not viewed as a blessing by everyone. It should speed up
proposal preparation and review and save a few trees, but some
people worry that it's not fair to beginning investigators who
feel they must demonstrate to reviewers who have never heard of
them that they've mastered the subject. Of course, if they have
no grant, they have the time.
2. GOES-LITE: YOU PAY TEN TIMES AS MUCH FOR THE SAME
CAPABILITY.
Our sole geostationary weather satellite, GOES-
7, could fail at any time. Even if it does not fail, it will
begin to drift from its position over the equator in about a year
and its performance will start to degrade a few months later. A
planned replacement, GOES-Next, is already 3 years behind
schedule, $500M over budget and is no longer expected to be
superior to GOES-7. GOES-Next is currently undergoing emergency
surgery to repair flaws and can't be in operation before GOES-7
begins to degrade. According to a General Accounting Office
report, released yesterday at a House Environment Subcommittee
hearing, the US should consider buying Japanese. Japan has
satellites in production that could replace GOES-7 for $160M--
including the launch. That is less than one-tenth the $1.7B
price of GOES-Next, which is on a cost-plus NA$A contract. How
can the Japanese sell them so cheaply? By having them built in
the US by the GOES-7 contractor NA$A dropped.
3. QUAYLE ANNOUNCES THAT NA$A HAS BOUGHT ITS LAST SPACE
SHUTTLE.
NA$A wanted money for a fifth orbiter; the four
existing shuttles will be tied up by space station construction--
if the station ever gets beyond redesign. But following
recommendations of the Augustine Report (WN 14 Dec 90), Vice President
Quayle said, "It makes no sense to risk shuttle astronauts unless
we absolutely have to." They should never have to; the shuttle
is piloted by robots. But safety is not the only concern;
according to recent NA$A testimony, each shuttle launch costs
about $500M. At that price, if you could transmute lead into
gold by taking it into orbit, it wouldn't pay. The shuttles will
be replaced gradually by a new launch system that will include
converted military rockets. Under the category of "They should
have known better": The Quayle announcement was timed to coincide
with the launch of Atlantis to make it seem upbeat. Bad choice.
It shared space with news that the launch was scrubbed due to
computer failure.
4. BUT WILL THE NEW LAUNCH SYSTEM CONTRIBUTE TO OZONE
DEPLETION?
Concern centers on the fact that solid-fuel
rockets, such as the shuttle boosters, eat ozone. NA$A says its
computer simulations show that the effect is small compared to
industrial pollutants. We assume this is not the same NA$A
computer program that missed finding the antarctic ozone hole in
satellite data because it was designed to "exclude data values
outside of the expected range."
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