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Asri-unix.196 net.columbia utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!menlo70!sri-unix!knutsen Thu Dec 10 01:57:38 1981 some shuttle news from the wires !a073 0646 09 Dec 81 PM-Shuttle Experiments,480 Scientist: Clay Minerals Can Be Identified From Space By HARRY F. ROSENTHAL Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - An experiment aboard the space shuttle Columbia showed that deposits of petroleum, copper, gold and silver may some day be detected from orbit, a scientist says. Dr. Alexander F.H. Goetz of the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said preliminary analyses show that clay minerals can be identified from space. Clays in sedimentary rocks are important to geologic mapping for petroleum and as surface clues for buried metal deposits. The experiment on last month's trouble-shortened flight of Columbia was designed to identify different types of rocks and soil and sampled 50,000 miles of Earth's surface. It takes advantage of the fact that each mineral has its own reflective ''signature'' that is read by an instrument called a Shuttle Multispectral Infrared Radiometer - SMIRR for short. The data gathered over Africa, Asia and the Middle East, Europe, Mexico and the United States will be processed into maps. Because of the delay in launching and the shortened flight, there was no data from the spacecraft as it passed over Australia, southern Africa and South America. NASA official Andy Stofan called the flight ''an outstanding success.'' He spoke at a press conference Tuesday at which the chief scientists of the seven experiments aboard the shuttle gave preliminary reports. Despite mostly satisfactory reports, one scientist found his experiment ruined, and another wished he had received more data. Dr. Allen Brown of the University of Pennsylvania, who designed an experiment to measure the growth of sunflower plants in weightless space, said ''unfortunately it (the flight) was too short to tell anything substantive.'' Dr. Bernard Vonnegut of State University of New York at Albany, describing himself as ''one of a few hundred people in the world who are still trying to find out how thunderstorms work,'' had hoped for more photographs of lightning from the spacecraft ''My disappointment is with the quantity of data that we were able to get,'' he said. ''I'm very pleased, as I told the astronauts, with what they got for us,'' he said. ''In terms of the abbreviated mission and the big extra load they had I think we were extremely lucky to have gotten what they did.'' Both experiments will be tried again on later flights. One scientific experiment produced a photograph covering 10,000 miles of earth, with details as small as half a football field. The film carried aboard the Columbia for the experiment was 3,600 feet long. The strip looks down on an area at least 30 miles wide and pictures Spain and western Europe, through the Mediterranean to India, Indonesia and Australia. It was taken over a 45-minute period as the shuttle passed 157 miles overhead. The radar can photograph areas as small as 130 feet long. It is not dependent on sunlight or other illumination sources to produce an image, nor is it restricted by weather or lighting conditions that would affect optical systems.

ap-ny-12-09 0945EST **********

!a008 2240 09 Dec 81 PM-Shuttle-Space Walk, Bjt,500 First Shuttle ''Walker'' To Retrieve Ailing Satellite By HOWARD BENEDICT Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The first astronaut to step outside an orbiting space shuttle will jet over to an ailing satellite, bring it into the ship's cargo bay for repair and then return it to orbit. A National Aeronautics and Space Administration official disclosed the plan Wednesday in discussing the future of the shuttle before the Senate subcommittee on science, technology and space. The space walk mission, scheduled for 1983, will be an early demonstration of the shuttle's in-orbit satellite servicing capabilities and will restore a payload of great value to solar scientists. Dr. Stanley Weiss, NASA's associate administrator for space transportation operations, identified the target as the Solar Maximum satellite, which was launched last year to make the most extensive survey ever undertaken of the sun. But the failure of three tiny fuses has prevented the satellite's control module from accurately pointing the scientific instruments at the sun, rendering them useless. Solar Max is the first satellite built with a grappling device that normally would permit it to be retrieved by the 50-foot mechanical arm tested successfully on the shuttle Columbia's second flight last month. Because of the loss of control, Solar Max is no longer stable enough to be grabbed by the robot arm as originally intended, but maintains enough stability for an astronaut to approach and steady it with a pole-like device. That's what the space walker intends to do, propelling himself from the shuttle to the satellite with a jet-powered back pack and holding the payload steady so the arm can latch on and draw it into the ship's 60-foot cargo bay. There, the astronaut is to replace the defective module before the arm returns the payload to its own orbit 300 miles up. In addition to the immediate benefit of saving the damaged, $75 million scientific satellite, successful demonstration of the human rescue technique would be important to both civil and military space planners who will require servicing of several other satellites in the future. The Defense Department, for example, plans to retrieve reconnaissance film from spy satellites and to extend the life of military payloads through in-orbit refurbishment. NASA says the capability of repairing satellites in space will eliminate the need to build expensive redundant systems into them. McDonnell Douglas Corp. and Johnson & Johnson, the pharmaceutical firm, are assessing the potential for manufacturing pure serums that can be processed only in the microgravity of space. The two companies are planning tests on an early space shuttle flight, and they hope eventually such serums could be produced in large quantities. A prototype unmanned processing plant is envisioned for launch as early as 1986, with the serum to be retrieved periodically by a shuttle crew, who also would carry up a new supply of raw materials.

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