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from Richard M. Jones, The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News
It has been two months since the Clinton administration sent its budget request to Congress for the fiscal year starting on 1 October. Appropriations subcommittees have held hearings, with more to come. The bills these subcommittees draft will be central in determining science and technology budgets.
In April the Senate passed on a nearly party line vote of 57–41 its FY99 budget resolution. As described by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici (R-NM), a budget resolution is "a fiscal blueprint, a guide, a road map." It serves as a rough outline for how much money will be available for the appropriations bills.
Domenici first laid out his spending plans in a document called a "Chairman's Mark." It "assumes an increase for the National Science Foundation above the BBA [Balanced Budget Agreement] for NSF Research and Related Activities. The Chairman's Mark continues strong funding for basic research programs and activities of the Federal government, especially those activities within NSF and the Department of Energy. For NASA activities within this function, the Chairman's Mark assumes the President's request for the international space station, while also assuming the President's requested reduction to NASA Human Spaceflight activities beginning in the year 2000." Domenici provided a small increase in total funding for this category over what is called the "freeze baseline."
The Democratic membership of the House Science Committee issued a press release critical of the budget resolution. Using figures provided by the Congressional Research Service for all civilian R&D, then adjusted for inflation, based on flat 1998 funding, the release reported that the Senate budget resolution "actually cut non-defense R&D by more than $3.5 billion from current levels between 1999 and 2003. Non-NIH civilian R&D fared even worse with a cumulative cut of $10.5 billion from current levels."
The release was even more critical of the resolution's civilian R&D spending projections when compared with the targets contained in S. 1305, the authorization bill calling for a doubling of federal research money over 10 years. The resolution, the release states, "provides $37 billion less than S. 1305's authorization level for civilian R&D and $32 billion less than S. 1305 for non-NIH civilian R&D."
During consideration of the budget resolution, the Senate by voice vote passed several "sense of the Senate" resolutions. One of them was cosponsored by Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Phil Gramm (R-TX), and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) indicating, "It is the sense of the Senate that the assumptions underlying the function totals in this budget resolution assume that expenditures for civilian science and technology programs in the federal budget will double over the period from FY98 to FY2008." Lieberman declared, "Robust federal support for R&D and the American research enterprise is one of the key elements in sustaining high levels of economic growth in the future. We cannot take America's current economic and technical leadership for granted. If we are to maintain our nation's leadership position, we must be prepared to make the requisite investments in our R&D system—the most productive in the world." This resolution is nonbinding.
The House Budget Committee, chaired by Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), will consider its version of the budget resolution toward the end of this month. Whether it and the Senate version can be reconciled in time for the appropriations committees is unknown. The appropriations bills that the House will be working on in May and June are the ones to watch.
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from Audrey T. Leath, The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science Policy News
In a hearing on 22 April, the House Science Subcommittee on Basic Research, the authorizing subcommittee for NSF, indicated its support for the foundation's requested 10.0% budget increase for FY99 and its skepticism about the source of those additional funds. NSF Director Neal Lane was pressed about alternative funding plans and also about how the foundation sets its priorities.
Wielding the gavel was Rep. Charles "Chip" Pickering (R-MS), who is serving as acting chairman after the death of Steven Schiff (R-NM). Referring to Lane's nomination to replace John Gibbons as science advisor to the president and head of OSTP, Pickering noted, "Today will be Dr. Lane's last appearance before our subcommittee as director of the National Science Foundation." But, he added, "this subcommittee has jurisdiction over OSTP, so we are not necessarily saying goodbye. . . . [Y]our promotion to an office that deals with much broader issues than those you dealt with at NSF means that next time you testify before us, you will be responsible for answering even more of our questions." Cognizant of the political difficulties inherent in Lane's future position, Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI) offered "my gratitude for what you've done [as NSF director] and my sympathy for what you're about to encounter."
President Clinton's FY99 request for NSF is $3773 million, an increase of $344 million, or 10%, above FY98 funding. According to Pickering, the full science committee "supported this request." Ehlers commented that the request "adequately handles the needs of NSF . . . for the first time" in his years in Congress.
However, the FY99 request places the budgets for NSF and other civilian R&D activities within the Research Fund for America. The proposed increase for programs within the fund, Pickering said, "depends primarily upon a tobacco settlement as the key source of additional monies for research and development. A very important question that comes to my mind is," he continued, "what is the administration's alternative plan for increasing R&D if a tobacco settlement does not materialize?" Lane avoided answering directly, instead saying that if R&D did not receive the proposed increases, it would result in less investment in the future and "less payoff down the road." Prodded for further details, Lane professed he was "scratching my head." He thought it made sense "to associate the revenues [from a tobacco deal] with research." Although the immediate connection to health research was obvious, he said, advancements in medical fields require a knowledge base in many disciplines. "If the revenues are not there," he asserted, "they will come from someplace else in the budget." Lane promised that if confirmed as OSTP director, he would work hard with Congress on this issue.
Subcommittee members also inquired about NSF's process for setting funding priorities. The approach is "pretty well established," Lane reported; each year he questions the foundation's assistant directors about their highest priorities. "Then I look for themes that run across many fields of science and engineering . . . where a little extra investment can pay off in many areas." This, he explained, is how NSF arrived at its current cross-cutting themes: knowledge and distributed intelligence, life and earth's environment, and educating for the future. Lane acknowledged that this way, "I don't have to answer the question . . . is chemistry more important than biology." Within each discipline, priorities are set by the peer review process. Pickering said he was "pleasantly surprised" over how small a role politics played in NSF priority setting.
Additional discussion touched on NSF efforts in K–12 and undergraduate education, and research infrastructure. Asked about the foundation's funding history, Lane said that although the 10% increase would roughly make up for the amount NSF lost ground to inflation over the past few years, there is debate about whether the rate of inflation is an appropriate measure for research activities and instrumentation. The decaying research infrastructure at universities, he said, represents a serious problem that is "going to need to be addressed."
It was reported that an NSF authorization bill might soon reach the Senate floor. The Senate bill (S. 1046) would authorize $3636 million for NSF. The House passed its own multiyear NSF authorization bill last year (H.R. 1273), which approved $3614 million for NSF in FY99. Both authorization amounts are lower than the budget request of $3773 million. Pickering did not indicate whether the subcommittee plans to draft a new bill with increased funding, or whether the House and Senate plan to meet in conference on the current versions. He made it clear, though, that there was "great support on the committee for the 10% increase." "I assure you," he declared, "we will do our best to make certain you have adequate funds," regardless of the outcome of a tobacco agreement.
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A team of government and university scientists in mobile meteorological stations and with truck-mounted radars will attempt to intercept severe storms in the Great Plains through mid-June to get very close-up observations of a developing tornado, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.
The radar data and other information collected could give researchers a three-dimensional view of the complete life cycle of a tornado and ultimately help improve NOAA forecasts and warnings of severe weather.
Based at NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory and the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma, the researchers will use the latest meteorological information to target a large thunderstorm with a rotating updraft, called a "supercell," that could produce tornadoes within a day's drive. When a likely storm system is forecast, the scientists will set out to intercept the supercell with three truck-mounted Doppler radars and in six sedans equipped with meteorological sensors, cameras, and communications gear to stay in contact with other team members and reports of general weather conditions.
The team will intercept the supercell and position their two 8-foot-diameter truck-mounted radar dishes, called "Doppler on Wheels" or DOWs, about a mile outside the storm to scan the entire area of rotating air every 30–90 seconds. Other team members will use a third, shorter wavelength truck-mounted radar to make finer-scale measurements. The team will then attempt to send one or more of the three instrumented "probe" vehicles "inside the hook," the rotating center of the supercell that looks like an inverted question mark in radar images and often signals that a tornado is about to form. Still other team members will attempt to photograph and measure the rear flank downdraft of winds in the storm, since the scientists believe this is the region of a storm that often triggers a tornado.
The research is a follow-up to the VORTEX project in 1994 and 1995, in which scientists from NOAA, the University of Oklahoma, and other universities intercepted and studied 10 tornadoes from as close as three miles away, and last year's SubVORTEX, in which for the first time the team intercepted a tornado with the dual DOWs.
"We are calling one of our experiments this spring 'SubVORTEX-RFD,' short for 'rear flank downdraft,' because we want to document the origin and evolution of a supercell's rear flank downdraft by measuring variations in these winds just before and just after a tornado forms. To do this, we will have to carefully position some of the probe vehicles beneath the most strongly rotating part of the storm, an area storm chasers call 'the bear's cage.' This is something that has never been done before, at least not on purpose," said principal investigator Erik Rasmussen of the NOAA–University of Oklahoma Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorology Studies in Boulder, Colorado.
According to Rasmussen, "Early in a tornadic thunderstorm, the pressure falls due to increasing rotation. This causes the inflowing wind near the ground to accelerate as it rises toward the updraft. This is what our fictional counterparts in [the movie] Twister called the tornado's 'suck zone.' A few thousand feet above the ground, this inflowing updraft of air collides with air overtaking the storm from the rear in a region where evaporating raindrops are cooling the air, causing a strong downdraft to form.
"We think it is possible that when this outwardly flowing downdraft, which is typically produced by thunderstorms, reaches ground level, it can sometimes wrap around this circulating, inflowing updraft, thus focusing the updraft's rotation into a tightly confined area, increasing momentum and speed just as a figure skater does when she pulls in her arms to increase the speed of her spin. For a tornado to form, it appears that this process must occur at ground level, where friction with the earth's surface creates the actual tornado itself. This is the process we plan to document."
The team includes scientists and meteorology students from the University of Oklahoma operating the DOWs, developed jointly by the University of Oklahoma, NOAA, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and a higher-frequency truck-mounted radar developed by the University of Massachusetts. In addition to Rasmussen, the project's other principal investigators are Robert Davies-Jones of the National Severe Storms Laboratory and Joshua Wurman, Howard Bluestein, and Jerry Straka of the University of Oklahoma.
"In another experiment in our joint project, which we are calling 'ROTATE,' short for 'Radar Observations of Tornadoes and Thunderstorms Experiment,' we will study the whole tornadogenesis process, tornado maintenance, tornado death, and tornado structure using the dual-DOW network," said Wurman.
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National Science Foundation (NSF)–funded climatologists at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), Amherst, have reconstructed global temperature over the past 600 years and determined that 1997, 1995, and 1990 were the warmest years since at least 1400 A.D. The study, conducted by Michael Mann and Raymond Bradley of UMass, along with The University of Arizona colleague Malcolm Hughes, is detailed in the current issue of the journal Nature.
"This study adds solid information to the growing base of data which points to the warming of our planet by human-related activities," says Herman Zimmerman, program director in NSF's division of atmospheric sciences, which funded the research. "The balance of evidence now firmly supports an important human influence on the global climate system. This is a serious problem for people everywhere, and it needs to be addressed at all levels of government."
The researchers were able to estimate temperatures over more than half the surface of the globe, pinpointing Northern Hemisphere yearly temperatures to a fraction of a degree back to 1400 A.D. The study places in a new context the long-standing controversy over the relative roles of human and natural changes in the climate of past centuries. Scientists were particularly interested in natural "forcings," that is, factors that can affect climate significantly, but that are not part of the climate system itself. Based on statistical comparisons of reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperatures, the best estimates indicate that natural changes in the brightness of the sun and volcanic emissions both played an important role in governing climate variations over the period studied.
However, over the past few decades, greenhouse gases produced by human activities appear to have had an increasing influence on temperatures. "The anomalous warmth of several recent years appears likely to be related to human influences on climate," said Mann.
The study bears out concerns voiced by scientists in recent years regarding global warming, Bradley said. It is known that industrialization during the past century has increased levels of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere by more than 25% over its preindustrial level. If the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were to continue to increase at its current rate, it could rise to double its preindustrial level during the next century, leading to a magnification of the already observed warming. For example, melting ice caps could raise sea levels, threatening coastal regions with more frequent flooding. The planet as a whole might expect to see frequent extreme weather events, Mann said. "Heat waves and droughts could become more common, and more intense."
Climatologists are also concerned about the degrees of uncertainty surrounding increased or accelerated global warming. "We have a sense of what might happen to the planet as a whole, but the fact is, we don't really know what the regional impacts might be," said Mann.
Researchers' studies of certain individual years were particularly intriguing. For example, historical documents from 1791 suggested conditions consistent with a strong El Niño event that year; the reconstructed temperature pattern bore out these suspicions. The weather was much cooler than usual over most of the globe in 1816 following the eruption of the Indonesian volcano, Tambora, the year before. Warming observed in certain regions, however, was consistent with changes in atmospheric circulation also expected to result from a strong volcanic eruption.
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A new satellite that will improve weather forecasting and monitor environmental events around the world will be launched on 13 May, the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA announced.
NOAA-K, a joint project of NOAA and NASA, is scheduled for launch on 13 May, at 8:52 A.M. PDT, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The satellite will be launched into a near-polar orbit 516 miles above the earth on a U.S. Air Force Titan II rocket. It will circle the earth every 102 minutes, passing over the North and South Poles on each orbit.
NOAA-K is the first in a series of five satellites with improved imaging and sounding capabilities that will operate over the next 12 years. Like other NOAA satellites, NOAA-K will collect meteorological data and transmit the information to users around the world to enhance weather and climate forecasting.
The design of the satellite will enable it to "scan" the earth and provide continuous global images of cloud cover; surface parameters such as snow, ice, and vegetation; atmospheric temperatures; moisture; and aerosol distributions. It will also enable it to collect and relay information from data platforms.
"With NOAA-K, we will get better measurements of atmospheric temperature and moisture values," said Mike Mignogno, NOAA's polar program manager. "These translate into better information, particularly in the troposphere under cloudy conditions. The result will be accurate global tropospheric temperature and moisture data under all sky conditions."
"The improved cloud, snow cover, and sea surface temperature data means improved forecasts of potential flooding and drought conditions," said Ronald McPherson, director of NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Prediction, one of the primary users of the polar satellite data. "The observations will also enhance the National Weather Service's ability to forecast storms such as those we have experienced during the major El Niño event, as well as the El Niño itself."
NOAA-K will also carry search and rescue instruments that are used internationally in locating ships and aircraft in distress. The use of satellites in search and rescue has been instrumental in saving more than 7000 lives since the inception of the Search and Rescue Satellite-aided Tracking (SARSAT) system.
NOAA operates two polar-orbiting and two geostationary environmental satellites. Currently, NOAA is operating NOAA-12, launched in May 1991, and NOAA-14, launched in December 1994. NOAA-K, to be renamed NOAA-15 once in orbit, will replace NOAA-12, which will be deactivated.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on 4 May that it has revised its regulations for authorizing the use of data collection systems that operate on NOAA's geostationary and polar-orbiting environmental satellites.
In response to the emergence of private sector space services, NOAA will no longer allow the data collection systems on its satellites to be used where there are commercial space-based services available that meet the user's requirements.
NOAA's data collection services play an important national role in collecting real-time environmental and other data deemed critical for government operations. These data are intended primarily for U.S. government users; nongovernment environmental use will be allowed only when there is a government interest in the application. Nongovernment, nonenvironmental use will not be allowed except in rare cases where there is significant possibility of loss of life, such as for Arctic expeditions or scientific campaigns into remote areas.
The NOAA policy that existed before the issuance of these revised regulations predated the emergence of commercial, space-based data collection and location services. Guided by the federal government's long-standing policy against competing with the private sector, the new regulations allow use of the NOAA satellite-based data collection system only when a commercial space-based service does not meet the requirements of the user based on such factors as satellite coverage, accuracy, data throughput, platform compatibility, system access mode, and, in the case of government agencies, cost-effectiveness.
"These new regulations follow an extended dialogue between the government, data collection system users, and the private sector," said Helen Wood, director of NOAA's Office of Satellite Data Processing and Distribution. "More than 100 people attended a public meeting that we held in December 1996. The new regulations reflect the concerns expressed at that meeting as well as comments NOAA received during a public comment period."
Participants at the meeting indicated that new regulations were needed to establish a clear set of criteria for allowing access to the NOAA data collection systems. The final rule was published in the Federal Register on 6 May 1998.
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Within just a few months of his appointment to the post, NASA Associate Administrator for Earth Science Dr. Ghassem Asrar has won praise from the House Science Committee for incorporating a commercial approach into the program, including the implementation of a $50 million data purchase program.
"What encourages me most is that Dr. Asrar is attempting to make data purchases a normal way of doing business for NASA," said committee chair F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-WI), referring to earlier comments by Asrar that he would consider replacing some of the planned Earth Observing System satellites with a data purchase. "I have long advocated the commercial purchase of remote sensing data for use in NASA's Earth Science Program. It eliminates the need for NASA to build some satellites in certain cases, while providing the data to scientists at a hundredth of the cost to the U.S. taxpayers.
"The data purchase program is a prime example of the faster, cheaper, better concept," said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), chair of the Science Committee's Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics. "It is going to require the continuing leadership of Dr. Asrar and constant oversight to overcome NASA's bureaucratic resistance to this new way of doing business."
Referring to NASA's press release detailing further problems with the Earth Observing System Data Information System (EOSDIS), Sensenbrenner said "continued problems in the Earth Science Program vindicate this committee's calls to decentralize the program and make greater use of commercial off-the-shelf capabilities. Data purchases are a step in the right direction on a road that NASA has a long way yet to travel."
Prior to Asrar's appointment, NASA has been criticized for dragging its feet with the Earth Science Data Purchase Program—requested by the president and approved by Congress—for which NASA's FY97 budget had been allocated $50 million.
In a data purchase, NASA approaches the private sector to obtain the desired scientific data from commercial satellites. Instead of building a satellite, NASA simply would purchase the data from the commercial provider at a much lower cost, officials believe. Funds are set to expire 1 October.
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An independent task force assessing the progress of the International Space Station (ISS) has issued a pessimistic report indicating that major problems with the program could lead to more than a $7 billion cost increase and up to a three-year delay in completing the project.
The task force of select industrial, federal, and military experts, headed by Jay Chabrow and known as the Cost Assessment and Validation (CAV) Task Force, made the six-month-long study, the thrust of which was to identify and evaluate major risk elements that would likely contribute to further cost growth and schedule slip.
While admitting the challenging and technical complexity of the effort, the task force members reported, "The program size . . . and ambitious schedule goals were beyond that which could be reasonably achieved within the $2.1 billion annual cap or $17.4 billion total cap.
"The Fiscal Year 1999 budget submission to Congress is not adequate to execute the baseline ISS program, cover normal program growth and address the known critical tasks. Additional annual funding of between $130 million and $250 million will be required.
"Completion of the ISS assembly is likely to be delayed from one to three years beyond December 2003."
The 40-page report, available on the Internet at http://www.nasa.gov/cavtf/, also noted, "The schedule uncertainty associated with Russian implementation of joint partnership agreements is the major threat to the ISS program."
Major development risk elements were listed as hardware qualification testing, on-orbit assembly complexity, crew return vehicle development, multielement integrated testing, U.S. laboratory schedule, training readiness, software development and integration, and parts and spares shortages.
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NASA has found software performance problems with ground system software required to control, monitor, and schedule science activities on the Earth Observing System (EOS) series of spacecraft.
Officials believe these problems will delay the software, which will impact the launch date for the Earth Observing Spacecraft AM-1. The launch, originally planned for late June 1998, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, will be delayed at least until the end of the year.
The ground control software, called the "Flight Operations Segment" (FOS) software, is part of the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), the ground system responsible for spacecraft control, data acquisition, and science information processing and distribution for NASA's earth science enterprise, including the EOS flight missions.
The problem is with the EOSDIS control center system FOS software that supports the command and control of spacecraft and instruments, the monitoring of spacecraft and instrument health and safety, the planning and scheduling of instrument operations, and the analysis of spacecraft trends and anomalies.
What was supposed to have been the final version of the software was delivered to NASA by Lockheed Martin on 31 March, to support integrated simulations with the EOS AM-1 spacecraft. Testing of this software delivery revealed significant performance problems. Program managers expect it to take several weeks to clearly understand whether correcting the current software or taking other measures is the best approach.
"We're concurrently looking at commercial off-the-shelf technology that was not available when this software system initially was designed," said Arthur "Rick" Obenschain, project manager for EOSDIS at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. "If for some reason the current software problems cannot be fixed, we have a backup plan."
Prior to the 31 March delivery, there were three previous incremental deliveries of the software in August 1997, December 1997, and February 1998. Previous versions of the software successfully demonstrated real-time commanding functions with the AM-1 spacecraft. In the new version, however, a number of problems identified in the previous software deliveries were not corrected as expected, and significant problems were found in the new capabilities. Problems include unacceptable response time in developing spacecraft schedules, poor performance in analyzing spacecraft status and trends from telemetry data, and improper implementation of decision rules in the control language used by the flight team to automate operations.
Government–contractor teams have been formed to evaluate options for correcting these problems to minimize impact on the AM-1 launch. A recovery plan is being developed and will be reviewed during the last week of April.
The FOS is being developed by Lockheed Martin under subcontract to Raytheon Information Systems Company under the EOSDIS Core System contract. The Flight Operations Segment of the EOSDIS software has cost $27.5 million as of February 1998.
The EOSDIS and EOS AM-1 are part of NASA's earth science enterprise, a long-term research program designed to study the earth's land, oceans, atmosphere, ice, and life as a total integrated system. Goddard manages the development of EOSDIS and EOS AM-1 for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, D.C.
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Because of design changes of the electrical power system for the spacecraft's main instrument, the Landsat-7 Earth science spacecraft will not be launched in July as planned, according to NASA officials.
A new target launch date will be set after completion of instrument thermal tests in July, they reported.
During a series of instrument-level thermal tests beginning in December 1997, a power supply on the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) instrument failed twice. ETM+ is Landsat-7's only science instrument.
As a result of the most recent failure in January, both internally redundant power supplies were returned to their manufacturer who will make repairs.
Boeing serves as the launch contractor for Landsat-7. The ETM+ was designed and built by Raytheon (formerly Hughes) Santa Barbara Remote Sensing, Santa Barbara, California. The Landsat-7 spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space, with integration of the instrument and spacecraft conducted at the company's facility in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.
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Five aerospace companies were awarded the space agency's highest honor today for excellence and quality. NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin presented the 1998 George M. Low Award to the companies at the 13th Annual NASA Continual Improvement and Reinvention Conference on Quality Management in Alexandria, Virginia. The award, established in 1985, is NASA's highest quality and excellence award for contractors and subcontractors and the oldest award for organizational quality.
ILC Dover, Inc., Frederica, Delaware, received the award in the large business, product category; and Allied Signal Technical Services Corporation, Lanham, Maryland, and DynCorp, Johnson Support Division, Houston, Texas, both received the award in the large business, service category. In the small business, product category BST Systems, Inc., Plainfield, Connecticut, received the award; and Advanced Technology Company, Pasadena, California, received the award in the small business, service category.
"These companies exemplify excellence and outstanding achievements that prove beneficial to NASA and the nation's industry," said Goldin.
ILC Dover, Inc., specializes in developing high technology engineered soft goods. The company has a long record of outstanding performance in the development of EVA spacesuits. Its recent success came from the development and delivery of the Mars Pathfinder airbag landing system.
Allied Signal Technical Services Corporation demonstrated exemplary operational proficiency of over 99.996% from 1995 through 1997 with 99.94% systems reliability covering the same time frame.
"Each of these companies has definitely made a positive impact on NASA's performance goals," said Frederick D. Gregory, associate administrator for safety and mission assurance at NASA Headquarters.
DynCorp, Johnson Support Division, provided and supported a variety of specialties and supports a wide array of aircraft equipment and systems. The success of NASA's astronaut training program and shuttle mission support programs is directly related to the performance of this contractor.
BST achieves consistently outstanding performance in a field often characterized as "black magic": aerospace batteries. BST developed the battery for the Mars Pathfinder. The battery lasted more than three times the planned Mars surface-mission duration, 98 Martian days versus the required 30 days.
Advanced Technology Company is considered a world-class metal joining company, tackling jobs that most organizations consider impossible. The company has produced 20 imaging detectors that are operating error-free in space.
The conference featured NASA Administrator Goldin as well as keynote presentations by Peter B. Teets, president and chief operating officer, Lockheed Martin Corporation; Allan R. Mulally, president, Information Space and Defense Systems, The Boeing Company; and David Crocker, president, Crocker Associates.
In addition to celebrating Low award winners, the conference is a forum to share best practices and lessons learned from quality management initiatives.
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El Niño's warm waters in the Pacific Ocean have caused coral bleaching in the waters off the Pacific coast of Panama, according to a team of scientists from the site reported to experience coral bleaching related to El Niño.
Warmer than normal sea surface temperatures are continuing along the Panama coast. El Niño forecasts from NOAA's National Center for Environmental Prediction call for the warmer than normal temperatures to continue into the summer.
Scientists on a recent research cruise to islands in Panama's Gulf of Chiriqui region observed bleaching in almost all species of corals present. In observations at six sites, 50% to almost 90% of corals had experienced at least partial bleaching. This indicates that a second wave of bleaching has followed earlier bleaching seen to begin in September of 1997. Fortunately for the corals, bleaching in Panama has been much less intense than was seen in 1983.
Sea surface temperatures in the area are currently 29°–31°C, nearly a degree and a half warmer than what is normally observed at that site. Data from temperature monitors on the reefs indicate that elevated temperatures have existed periodically since midsummer 1997. These agree with observations from NOAA satellite and blended sea surface temperature data and predictions of bleaching released in June 1997. The recent observations and temperature monitoring have been supported by awards from the National Science Foundation and conducted in cooperation with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
Corals from the Pacific coast of Panama thrive as long as temperatures remain at or below 29°C, the normal maximum sea surface temperature at this site. An increase of 1° or 2° above the usual maximum temperatures can be deadly to these animals. The temperature range for corals to thrive varies from site to site by only a few degrees. Corals from the nearby Gulf of Panama showed much less evidence of bleaching.
Coral reefs—the "rainforests of the oceans"—support a variety of sea life and provide resources of significant economic importance such as fishing and recreation. Coral bleaching, induced by high water temperatures, has raised concerns about these fragile ecosystems. Coral bleaching occurs as coral tissue expels zooxanthellae, algae that reside within the coral and are essential to the coral's survival. Corals normally recover, unless high ocean temperatures persist for too long a period or become too warm.
During the 1997–98 El Niño, NOAA has also received reports of coral bleaching at sites in the Great Barrier Reef, French Polynesia, Kenya, Galapagos Islands, Florida Keys, Baja California, the Yucatan coast, Cayman Islands, and the Netherlands Antilles.
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Three U.S. cities will partner with NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study how strategically placed "urban forests" and the use of reflective surfaces may help cool cities, reduce pollution, lower energy bills, modify growth plans, and help mitigate further deterioration of air quality.
Slated to participate in the study, scheduled for May and June, are Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Sacramento, California; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
Researchers from NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, will study bubble-like accumulations of hot air, called urban heat islands, and how these change between day and night. Heat islands develop over cities as naturally vegetated surfaces are replaced with asphalt, concrete, rooftops, and other man-made materials.
"The artificial materials store much of the sun's energy and remain hot long after sunset," said the experiment's lead investigator, Dr. Jeff Luvall of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center at Marshall. "This produces a dome of elevated temperatures over a city, 5°–10° higher than air temperatures over adjacent rural areas," he explained.
"The more a city grows—replacing trees and grass with buildings and roads—the warmer it becomes, increasing peak electricity demands. To meet these demands, power plants must utilize fossil fuels to a greater extent, which ultimately has a negative impact on air quality," said Luvall.
To better understand which surfaces contribute or drive the development of heat islands, an aircraft equipped with thermal imaging equipment will fly over the three cities taking high-resolution thermal measurements.
Researchers also will use thermal satellite imagery to map and measure "hot spots" and visible energy rising up into the lower atmosphere of the target cities.
Science team members will use the thermal imagery in meteorological and air-quality models, allowing researchers to better understand how cities in different locations and with different land use characteristics impact local and regional climate.
Additionally, the EPA will use the satellite imagery to determine how urban heat islands contribute to the ground-level generation of ozone. Not to be confused with the ozone layer protecting the earth from ultraviolet rays, ground-level ozone is a powerful and dangerous respiratory irritant found in cities during the summer's hottest months.
In findings from similar studies in Huntsville and Atlanta, Georgia, researchers have learned that parks and other urban areas with trees and grass are cooler than parking lots and areas with a high concentration of buildings.
"These 'green areas' are cooler because they dissipate solar energy by using it to evaporate water from leaves, thereby cooling the air," said the experiment's coinvestigator, Dr. Dale Quattrochi of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center.
Researchers believe that cities could be "cooled" by reintroducing vegetated areas, such as "urban forests," into the cities. Certain varieties of trees shade buildings, preventing solar heating, and are able to naturally cool a city as they release moisture into the air and provide shade over urban surfaces.
Another way to cool cities, the science team believes, is by using reflective surfaces, such as light-colored roofs, roads, and parking lots. Light-colored surfaces reflect rather than absorb heat.
The researchers want to demonstrate that by "cooling" a city, it is possible to directly reduce energy use by buildings, which in turn reduces greenhouse gas emissions and ultimately improves the air quality. Additionally, individuals, businesses, and governments can save money by reducing the amount of energy consumed.
Based on the results of the project, the science team plans to disseminate its findings nationally so other cities also can incorporate what the team has learned into their long-range growth plans.
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Jerry D. Jarrell became the sixth director of the National Weather Service's Tropical National Hurricane Center in Miami effective 23 April, Department of Commerce Secretary William M. Daley announced.
As a major component of the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service, Tropical Prediction Center–National Hurricane Center issues watches and warnings of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and eastern Pacific.
"Jerry Jarrell is widely known and respected by national and international emergency managers and forecasters," said Commerce Secretary Daley. "His depth of experience, dedication and devotion to the communities he serves are essential to furthering our mission of saving lives and property. We are pleased that he has accepted the position as we approach the June 1st beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season."
Jarrell has been acting director of the center since September 1997, serving as deputy to then-director Bob Burpee. He joined the Hurricane Center as deputy director under Bob Sheets in 1988.
He has been active in forecasting tropical weather since serving with the U.S. Navy 1957–77. He held various assignments with the Navy Meteorology and Oceanography Command, including Environmental Sciences Curriculum Office and assistant professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California. He was deputy director of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Guam, from 1970 to 1972.
Jarrell has extensive private sector and government experience in forecasting. Jarrell was a senior research scientist with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), Monterey, California, from 1977 to 1988. He formed a start-up branch office of SAIC working on projects in marine meteorology, including tropical cyclone–related studies and applications of satellite data to forecasting problems.
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The National Science Board (NSB) has named Robert M. White, Ph.D., formerly president of the National Academy of Engineering and vice chairman of the National Research Council, to receive the Vannevar Bush Award for lifetime contributions to science and engineering. White received the Bush Award at the annual NSB Awards Ceremony on 6 May at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
The NSB, governing body of the National Science Foundation (NSF), annually honors a senior scientist and statesperson as a distinguished leader in science, engineering, or technology. The Bush Award recognizes years of pioneering discoveries, public service, and contributions to the welfare of the nation.
White's five decades of contributions to science, technology, and public service cut across several fields. A meteorologist, White developed a numerical basis to improve the understanding of the atmosphere. He was a pioneer in weather satellite development during the 1960s. Over the last three decades, White has been involved with many environmental issues. As the initiator of the World Climate Program, his work provided much of the impetus for today's efforts to mitigate the effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
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In a national survey sponsored by NSF and conducted by Yankelovich Partners and AMS, Americans were asked to identify their favorite weather reporter.
The winner by a wide margin: Al Roker of NBC's Today Show.
Roker's honor is based on a poll of 1000 Americans conducted in recognition of National Science and Technology Week (NTSW), 26 April–2 May, an annual observance of the role science and technology play in everyday life. Theme of NTSW '98 was "Polar Connections Exploring the World's Natural Laboratories," highlighting research conducted at the Arctic and Antarctic polar regions.
As part of the climate and weather survey, Roker was named by 32% of those individuals who named a favorite weather reporter. Spencer Christian (ABC) came in second at 20%, with Craig Allen (CBS) at 13% and Valerie Voss (CNN) at 10%. About one in 10 individuals (17%) named their local weather reporter as their favorite, while 8% cited "other."
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