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News briefs: January 12-13
Posted: Mon, Jan 14, 2002, 8:00 AM ET (1300 GMT)
- NASA may cut funding for research into advanced propulsion programs. A note on the web site for NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics (BPP) program said that NASA will zero out funding for Space Transportation Research Investment Area, which supports BPP and the Advanced Propulsion Research Project, to support unfunded Congressional earmarks. BPP awards grants to researchers to investigate advanced physics concepts, from quantum vacuum energy to antigravity, that could revolutionize spaceflight.
- The US-French Jason-1 spacecraft has reached its final orbit around the Earth, project officials announced this weekend. The spacecraft was launched last month on a Delta 2, and has maneuvered into a circular orbit 1,337 km above the Earth. The spacecraft now begins a six-month calibration period before starting its ocean science mission.
- When the French space agency CNES celebrated its 40th anniversary last month, it did so in an unconventional manner, Space News reported in its January 7 issue. The Paris event included a public psychoanalysis of American astronaut Jeff Hoffman. The psychoanalyst tried to get Hoffman to link his space experiences to, among other things, his Jewish heritage, but Hoffman failed to accept those concepts. At least one ESA attendee walked out of the event, telling Space News that it was "embarrassing."
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