Abstract
Space is not the exclusive domain in which NASA operates its assets and undertakes research. In fact, over the years the agency has enjoyed several research opportunities well within the Earth’s atmosphere, carried out by a number of aircraft equipped as airborne laboratories. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Ames Research Center carried out astronomical and Earth observations from a Convair 990 and a Lear Jet, respectively an airliner and a business jet. Such platforms permitted short lead times, a rapid turnaround of experiments, multi-discipline research with direct involvement by the scientists, a rapid high-quality data return and, last but not least, a comfy shirt-sleeve environment. Ames managers and scientists argued that these benefits could easily be extended to a man-tended space-borne platform that offered the additional benefits of weightlessness, a very high quality vacuum, and higher altitudes for comprehensive coverage of the atmosphere and surface. They argued that the generous payload bay envisaged for the Shuttle would permit the installation of one-of-a-kind laboratories on sortie missions.Science Laboratory
2017-01-01
30 pages
Aufsatz/Kapitel (Buch)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
Springer Verlag | 2018
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