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Date:         Thu, 9 Apr 1992 03:30:16 EDT
Reply-To:     S Kotsonis <ntepy@WPI.WPI.EDU>
From:         S Kotsonis <ntepy@WPI.WPI.EDU>
Subject:      NASA News
Comments: To: Hellenic Discussion List <hellas@brownvm.brown.edu>

Epeidh blepw oti o Spuros prospa0ei va avaba0mhsei to epipedo ths
Hellas me ar0ra to Karavtiv-vtiv as sumbalw kai egw se authv thv
avaba0mhsh stelvwvtas ta vea ths NASA.


This is NASA Headline News for Tuesday, April 7, 1992 . . .

Following yesterday's successful 22-second test firing of Endeavour's
three shuttle main engines, Kennedy Space Center technicians are
presently analyzing the engine performance data but note that the
initial results look good. Concurrently, launch pad technicians are
reconfiguring the pad from yesterday's test to the normal launch
configuration. The next event scheduled for the STS-49 Endeavour
vehicle is the flight crew - launch team terminal countdown
demonstration test presently set for April 17. The flight director and
payload manager pre-launch briefings for the ambitious STS-49 mission
took place this morning from Johnson Space Center. They were aired live
on NASA Select TV and will be repeated this afternoon beginning at 2:00
pm. Tomorrow, the flight crew briefing will be aired live at 9:00 am
EST and repeated later in the day.

Astrophysicists associated with the Hubble Space Telescope and the
Compton Gamma Ray Observatory will hold a press briefing tomorrow at
1:00 pm EST in the NASA Headquarters auditorium to discuss new
information obtained with data from both these spacecraft. Scientists
using Hubble data as well as ground-based optical telescope data will
discuss the discovery of a potentially massive black hole in our
galactic backyard a mere 2.3 million light years away. Compton
Observatory scientists will report on a new class of gamma ray quasars
which have been discovered. Both teams of scientists will also discuss
the significance of the new findings and place them into a cosmological
context. The briefing will be carried live on NASA Select TV, and will
also feature new images and a 4-minute video animation depicting the
collapse of a galactic core.

Noted science fiction author and futurist Isaac Asimov, 72, died
Monday, April 6, at New York University Hospital of heart and kidney
ailments. Asimov was the author of more than 320 books and non-fiction
articles published in journals and magazines. He is the human who
coined the term "robotics" and derived the notion that robots may not
injure a human. Asimov was born in the Russian village of Petrovichi,
about 250 miles southwest of Moscow, and immigrated to the U.S. in 1923
with his family. They settled in Brooklyn. He received a masters and
doctoral degree in chemistry from Columbia University and while
teaching at Boston University in 1950 penned his first science fiction
novel. Dr. Asimov was one of the humanists invited by JPL to
participate in and observe the 1976 landing of the two Viking
spacecraft on Mars.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory flight controllers report that Magellan
continues to perform nominally in its orbit about Venus. The spacecraft
continues to perform stereo mapping and has thus far covered 14 percent
of the planet in the stereo mode. This mapping mode matches images
being taken currently by Magellan with images obtained in the first
mapping cycle, 16 months ago.

Marshall Space Flight Center education specialists report their space
education data base -- Spacelink -- has reached a record level of users
with nearly 18,000 registered individuals logging in to the electronic
system. Twenty percent of the users are teachers and an additional
one-third of the total users are students. Marshall says there are over
6,600 files available on the system. During the STS-45 Atlas-1 mission,
the system was receiving over 1,000 callers a day.

Marshall and the Johnson Space Center education office both supported
the recently-completed Technology Conference in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico.
The two centers provided exhibits and education specialists for the
exhibition, which hosted an estimated student audience of 9,300.


Gia thv avtigrafh,
Stefanos Kotsonis
ntepy@wpi.wpi.edu
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Subject: (no subject given)