Dark Matter

http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=dark-matter-2015&episode=s01e06

Springfield! Springfield!


Dark Matter

Episode Six


Well, well, well what do we have here? Looks like a stowaway, maybe a thief.
A junkie? I'm not a junkie.
Then why the meds, hmm? What's the matter, can't talk? Ah, don't worry about it, there's no sound where you're going anyway.
You can't do this! Sure I can, I'm barely breaking a sweat here.
What about the rest of your crew? What about them? Well maybe they'd object to throwing a girl out the airlock! You don't know the rest of my crew.










From 3/3/1959 ( the birthdate in Hawaii of my biological brother Thomas Reagan ) To 5/7/1992 ( the first launch of the US space shuttle Endeavour orbiter vehicle mission STS-49 includes me Kerry Wayne Burgess the United States Marine Corps officer and United States STS-49 pilot astronaut ) is 12119 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/7/1999 is 12119 days



From 3/16/1991 ( my first successful major test of my ultraspace matter transportation device as Kerry Wayne Burgess the successful Ph.D. graduate Columbia South Carolina ) To 1/7/1999 is 2854 days

2854 = 1427 + 1427

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/29/1969 ( premiere US TV series "Name Droppers" ) is 1427 days



From 3/16/1991 ( my first successful major test of my ultraspace matter transportation device as Kerry Wayne Burgess the successful Ph.D. graduate Columbia South Carolina ) To 1/7/1999 is 2854 days

2854 = 1427 + 1427

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 9/29/1969 ( premiere US TV series "Love, American Style" ) is 1427 days



From 7/16/1963 ( Phoebe Cates the United States Army veteran and the Harvard University graduate medical doctor and the world-famous actress and the wife of my biological brother Thomas Reagan ) To 9/19/1996 ( premiere US TV series "The Pretender" ) is 12119 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/7/1999 is 12119 days



From 6/8/1949 ( premiere US film "King of the Rocket Men" ) To 8/13/1982 ( premiere US film "Fast Times At Ridgemont High" ) is 12119 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my birth date in Antlers Oklahoma USA and my birthdate as the known official United States Marshal Kerry Wayne Burgess and active duty United States Marine Corps officer ) To 1/7/1999 is 12119 days





http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=56612

The American Presidency Project

William J. Clinton

XLII President of the United States: 1993-2001

Remarks on Funding for Quality After-School Programs

January 7, 1999

Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President. I want to thank all those who have spoken before and all of you who are here. I say a special word of appreciation to the Members of the Congress who have come, the members of the education community, the employees of the Department of Education.

I want to thank Congressman Ford for his stirring speech. I was looking at Congressman Ford, thinking, you know, I was 28 once. [Laughter] And when I ran for Congress at that age, I got beat. I see why he got elected. [Laughter]

I thank Senator Kennedy, for his lifetime of literally an example of unparalleled service in the United States Senate, and Secretary Riley, who has been my friend since we started our governorships together over 20 years ago now. And I'm glad to see Mrs. Shriver here, and I thank the family of Congressman King for coming, my colleague in the Irish peace process. We're glad to see all of them.

But most of all, I want to thank Lissette Martinez and Leonard for showing up and reminding us why we're all here today, because they were great. When she held her children's pictures up here, I thought, if those kids and their parents are the future of America, we're going to be just fine—we're going to be just fine.

Even though the definition of well-educated was very different over 200 years ago when this country was founded, our Founding Fathers thought it was of pivotal importance. In 1787, they declared that all new territories set aside land for public schools, establishing the principle that public education, though a State and local responsibility, must always be a national priority. In 1862, President Lincoln signed the legislation creating the land grant college system. In 1944, the GI bill gave millions of returning veterans tickets to what became the first mass middle class in the history of the world. In 1958, the launch of Sputnik led to Federal funds to improve science and math education in our country. In 1965, Federal support for education expanded further to bring minorities and the poor, long shut out of the classroom, inside to the full benefits of public education. At each of these turning points in our history, our country strengthened public education to match the challenges of the times.

Now in our time, as others have said, we face another challenge, the emergence of a global economy that is fast-paced, technologically sophisticated, driven by information and, at the same time, the emergence in our country of a breathtakingly diverse group of young people, diverse by race and ethnic background, by religion, by culture, by income, by circumstance.

We now have an economy in which the workplace is no longer just for men but also for women; the workday is no longer bound by the hours of 9 to 5; and the workplace is increasingly at home. When I became President 6 years ago, only 3 million Americans were earning their living at home; when I ran for reelection, the number was 12. Today there are about 20 million Americans earning their primary income out of their homes. This is a stunning statistic.

To meet the challenges of this new economy with our new society, we have to rely on our old values, but we have to make sure that we manifest them in modern ways. That means our public schools must change. They must teach our children while reflecting the way we work and live now and will work and live in the 21st century.

In the last 6 years we have worked hard on this, with the help of all of you in this room and those whom you represent throughout the United States. Forty-eight of our 50 States have now adopted tougher academic standards which we called for when the Goals 2000 program passed back in 1994.

Thousands of schools have become safer, better learning environments, cracking down on gangs and guns, violence and discipline, adopting school uniforms and other systems designed to create a better, more equal learning environment. The percentage of students who report being threatened or injured at school nationwide is down.

We've begun to organize an army of tutors to help elementary school children learn to read and middle school and high school students to prepare for college. And I'm very proud of all the young people all across America who are working in these tutoring and mentoring programs.

We've dramatically increased our investment in early childhood learning through the Head Start program. We're making real progress in connecting every classroom and library to the Internet by the year 2000. And as Secretary Riley said, the E-rate for which the Vice President fought so hard means that we've not only hooked up those classrooms, but they can actually afford to log on.

Last fall, we fought for and won from Congress a downpayment on 100,000 new highly trained teachers to reduce class sizes in the early grades, and we made a beginning on our proposal to offer to pay off the college costs of young people who will go into our most underserved areas and teach for a few years when they graduate from school. I hope the new Congress will keep up the payments so we can keep the teachers going. And I hope they will work with me to build or modernize 5,000 schools.

The charter school movement, which I have championed since 1992, is growing. When I took the oath of office as President, there was one charter school in the whole United States, a public school organized by parents or teachers within the school system but free of a lot of the bureaucratic limitations that are on so many schools. In 1996, there were 700. There are now about 1,000. We are well on our way to our goal of having 3,000 by the year 2000.

All these efforts and others are beginning to show up in SAT scores, which are up; math scores, which have risen in nearly all grades nationwide; even on a lot of the international tests, when we didn't do so well for years and years, our younger people are tending to do better and better.

We should be pleased and thankful, but we should not be fooled into complacency. Why? First, reading scores have hardly budged, and many of our foreign competitors are improving their schools faster than we are. Secondly, while our children do very well on these international test scores in elementary school and reasonably well in middle school, by the time they're in high school their rankings have dropped dramatically.

We know we have more to do. We know that a majority of our schools have not kept pace with the new family patterns and work patterns which dominate America. We know that more and more parents are being drawn into the work force. On any given day, as many as 15 million school children are left to fend for themselves at home, idle in front of the television or out on the streets, vulnerable to gangs, drugs, and crime. On any given day when school lets out, juvenile crime goes up and also the number of children themselves victimized by crime. On any given day when school lets out, tens of millions of working parents look nervously at the clock, hoping and praying their children will be okay.

It is no secret that I believe that the best way for our Nation to meet these challenges is to expand the number and improve the quality of our after-school programs. With quality after-school, parents and educators will be given the tools they need to succeed; students learn their lesson in the schoolhouse, not on the street; youth crime and victimization plummet. Quality after-school programs both enhance opportunity and bolster responsibility. In so doing, they strengthen our communities; they honor our values; they benefit our Nation.

That's why I've supported grants for these kinds of quality programs through the 21st Century Community Learning Center initiative, first introduced by Senator Jeffords from Vermont, championed by Senator Kennedy and Senator Boxer, Congresswoman Lowey from New York, and others.

Two years ago, this program received $1 million from Congress. Then it grew the year before last to $40 million, and then last year, to $200 million, in the budget I signed, serving a quarter of a million children. Yet, the demand for quality after-school programs, the bipartisan support it has gained, and its potential to transform public education in America and the futures of our children far, far outweigh the investment we have made to date.

Therefore, today I am pleased to announce that in the new budget I will present to Congress this year, we will triple our investment in academically enriched after-school programs to give over 1 million children across America somewhere to go.

Now, you heard Lissette talking about the Chicago system. It's one I particularly favor. And last year I asked the Congress to set aside some funds that we could give to other school systems to help to adopt the comprehensive approach they have there. That is, no social promotion; more parent involvement in the schools; high standards, but don't flunk anybody because the system is failing the kids, don't say the kids are failing; give them the after-school programs, give them the summer school programs, give them the tools they need to succeed. So we are going to give priority to communities that end social promotion in the right way.

She talked about that eighth grade test. Hillary and I, when we were working together in Arkansas on education, made our State the first State in the country to have an eighth grade exit exam. But I never saw it as a way of identifying children who were failing. I thought it would identify the schools that were failing and give the children a chance to succeed. And that's what they believe in in Chicago and what we should believe in everywhere.

So I'm looking forward to working with all the Senators and House Members who care so much about this, both to improve after-school programs and to end social promotion but to do it in the right way. We have to do everything in our power—after school, smaller classes, better teachers, modernized facilities, Internet hookups, summer programs—to help our kids succeed. We have to have high standards not only for students but for the preparation of our teachers and for the performance of our schools. And I'll have more to say about that later.

Scarce dollars should not be spent on failed policies. If we've learned anything, Hillary and Dick Riley and I, after 20 years and more of working at this, listening to teachers and parents, going into schools, it is what Congressman Ford said: We do believe all children can learn. And that gives a much greater urgency to this work.

Look, this is not really just about making the American economy strong or even making sure that when we baby boomers retire we'll be supported by two workers that made B's or better instead of a 1.7. [Laughter] It makes a good point, but that's not really what this is about. Everybody just gets one chance. Everyone just has one life. This is about giving people a chance to make the most of that one life. This is about the sure knowledge we have that the rest of us will just be fine, everything is going to work out all right, if we give our children the chance to make the most of their lives.

I watched Harold Ford up here giving that speech, and I thought, there's a 28-year-old young guy with his whole life before him. And I knew that he had a family that told him he had to show up in the morning, that his work was school, that he was expected to learn. And I want that for every child.

You know, I go to a lot of schools. Today when I speak to children—I was out in Maryland or Virginia not long before last November, and I was talking to this group of kids, this wonderful group of kids. And they said, "You know, all the parents are going to come, and we just only wish we had time to translate your remarks into Spanish and into Arabic, because there are so many parents who can't understand you." That's the America of tomorrow.

In a global society where we're trying to get other people to put aside their hatreds, to lay down the burdens of the past, to embrace one another, to reach across the lines that divide them, that's a great resource. But the challenge of giving all of the children, from whatever backgrounds they come from, the chance to make the most of that one life is more formidable than ever. Because of these after-school programs, a million kids will have a better chance.

That's really what this is all about, a million more stories like those two beautiful pictures that Lissette showed us today. And that's what we should always, always remember.

Thank you very much.

NOTE: The President spoke at 3:28 p.m. in the East Room at the White House.










http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1996/09/19/making-it-look-natural/8ad4ffa0-36a9-4fc9-b293-99fd856781ce/

The Washington Post


MAKING IT LOOK NATURAL

By Joel Achenbach September 19, 1996

In a place where change is measured in eons came a man for whom change is measured in four-year terms. At a lodge perched on a cliff, the geologic time scale met the election cycle today. The president made an announcement, while down below the Colorado River eroded a few more grains of limestone, the wind scoured rock, the cliffs crumbled imperceptibly.

It was a campaign event with an overwhelming and humbling backdrop, an ocean of stratified rock, the gorge so vast it could swallow at once the shadows of a hundred clouds. Hawks soared on thermals above the crowd at El Tovar lodge, on the canyon's South Rim. The scene was as spiritually moving as it could possibly have been given that it was a pit stop on a campaign swing that began the day in Chicago and ended in Seattle.



http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/first-lady-hillary-clinton-us-president-bill-clinton-vice-news-photo/51980091

gettyimages


LUKE FRAZZA

First Lady Hillary Clinton(L), US President Bill Clinton(2nd-L), Vice President Al Gore, and his wife Tipper(R) prepare to get on their buses 19 September in Seattle, Washington. The Clintons and Gores are campaigning by bus across Washington










http://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewtopic.php?f=327&t=19597


F.D. » Transcripts » H-L » The Last Ship

02x06 - Long Day's Journey


Here we go.










http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083929/releaseinfo

IMDb


Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Release Info

USA 13 August 1982



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083929/fullcredits

IMDb


Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Full Cast & Crew

Phoebe Cates ... Linda Barrett










http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=falling-skies&episode=s05e04

Springfield! Springfield!


Falling Skies

Pope Breaks Bad


Do you speak English? It's the queen.
Do you speak English? I forgot to try English.
Yes, where are you? This is Professor Cecily at the SETI installation in Inca, Peru.
That's near the Bolivian border.
If they're at SETI, they must be using a very powerful satellite.
Can you hear me? What's happening there? I've been trying AnyoneWith [ Static ] great deal ofAlien activity










http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=dark-matter-2015&episode=s01e06

Springfield! Springfield!


Dark Matter

Episode Six


She has all our memories in our head! She's been having dreams; Dreams she thinks might be memories except that they're not just hers.
Alpha-numeric lock code.
Which none of us can remember.
You ever dream about the code, kid?










http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-49/mission-sts-49.html


STS-49 (47)

Endeavour (1)

Pad 39-B (19)

47th Shuttle Mission

1st Flight OV-105


Payload:

INTELSAT-VI-RESCUE, ASEM, CPGC, UVPI, AMOS


Launch:

May 7, 1992, 7:40 p.m. EDT. First flight of orbiter Endeavour. Launch originally scheduled for May 4 at 8:34 p.m. EDT, but was moved to May 7 for an earlier launch window opening at 7:O6 p.m. EDT which provided better lighting conditions for photographic documentation of vehicle behavior during the launch phase. Launch delayed 34 minutes due to TAL site weather conditions. Launch Weight: 256,597 lbs.

Orbit:

Altitude: 195 nm

Inclination: 28.35 degrees

Orbits: 141

Duration: 8 days, 21 hours, 17 minutes, 38 seconds.

Distance: 3,696,019 miles


Landing:

May 16, 1992, 6:57:38 p.m. EDT, Runway 22, EAFB, CA. Rollout distance 9,49O feet, no braking. First use of a drag chute during landing. Orbiter returned to KSC on May 30, 1992. Landing Weight: 201,649 lbs.

Mission Highlights:

INTELSAT VI (F-3) satellite, stranded in an unusable orbit since launch aboard a Titan vehicle in March 199O, was captured by crewmembers during an EVA (extravehicular activity) and equipped with a new perigee kick motor. The Satellite was subsequently released into orbit and the new motor fired to put the spacecraft into a geosynchronous orbit for operational use.

The capture required three EVAs: a planned one by astronaut

Pierre J. Thuot and Richard J. Hieb who were unable to attach a capture bar to the satellite from a position on the RMS; a second unscheduled but identical attempt the following day; and finally an unscheduled but successful hand capture by Pierre J. Thuot and fellow crewmen

Richard J. Hieb and Thomas D. Akers as commander Daniel C. Brandenstein delicately maneuvered the orbiter to within a few feet of the 4.5-ton communications satellite. An ASEM structure was erected in the cargo bay by the crew to serve as a platform to aid in the hand capture and subsequent attachment of the capture bar.

A planned EVA also was performed by astronauts Kathryn C. Thornton and Thomas D. Akers as part of the Assembly of Station by EVA Methods (ASEM) experiment to demonstrate and verify maintenance and assembly capabilities for Space Station Freedom. The ASEM space walk, originally scheduled for two successive days, was cut to one day because of the lengthy INTELSAT retrieval operation.

Other "payloads of opportunity" experiments conducted included: Commercial Protein Crystal Growth (CPCG), Ultraviolet Plume Imager (UVPI) and the Air Force Maui Optical Station (AMOS) investigation. Mission was extended two days to complete objectives.

The following records were set during the STS-49 mission:

* First EVA involving three astronauts.

* First and second longest EVA to date: 8 hours and 29 minutes and 7 hours and 45 minutes.

* First Shuttle mission to feature four EVAs.

* EVA time for a single Shuttle mission: 25 hours and 27 minutes, or 59:23 person hours.

* First Shuttle mission requiring three rendezvous with an orbiting spacecraft. attached a live rocket motor to an orbiting satellite.

* First use of a-drag chute during a Shuttle landing.










http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1992-05-07/news/9202060993_1_crew-rescue-satellite-rescue-self-rescue-techniques

SunSentinel


`Endeavour` To Practice Rescue Of Spacewalkers

May 7, 1992 By ARDEN MOORE, Staff Writer

Imagine floating helplessly in space, out of reach of your spacecraft, alone in the vast darkness.

America`s space program has lacked a proven self-rescue plan for spacewalking astronauts, NASA officials say.

But the crew of Endeavour plans to change that as it prepares for an ambitious, weeklong voyage set to begin at 7:06 p.m. today.

Forecasts of bad weather at the launch site and at emergency landing strips give NASA only a 30 percent chance of an on-time launch, however. Shuttle weather officer Ed Priselac said on Wednesday that rain, thunderstorms, low clouds, haze and even hail were possible at the Kennedy Space Center and at touchdown sites in California, New Mexico and Africa.

``Right now, it certainly looks pretty unfavorable,`` Priselac said.

The mission is designed to prepare astronauts for long days in space as NASA moves closer to the construction of Space Station Freedom and colonies on the moon and Mars.

Practicing different self-rescue techniques is a priority for the Endeavour crew, Commander Dan Brandenstein said.

``Crew rescue is very important in the space station assembly period,`` Brandenstein said. ``Astronauts could become untethered and float away from the space station.``

Endeavour`s maiden voyage is packed with several firsts for the 11-year-old shuttle program:

-- There will be three consecutive days of spacewalking, each expected to last six to seven hours. Four astronauts plan to repair a satellite, build space station-type structures and practice self-rescue methods.

-- The crew will perform the most complex satellite rescue mission ever attempted. The crew must match the orbit of a wayward satellite, snag it and fit it with a rocket motor.

-- A drag chute will pop out of the orbiter seconds before touching down for added safety.

-- Some viewers will have a chance to feel as if they have a front-row seat to a satellite rescue. All conversations between the crew and mission control will be live and unedited.

``Certainly, it is a difficult mission,`` said G.P. Pennington, flight director. ``Yes, this is ambitious, but we are up to it.``

For months, the crew has practiced countless what-if scenarios at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The biggest what-if: suddenly finding oneself solo in space and out of reach of a space shuttle.

Four crew members will practice self-rescue techniques using rope, a pole and gas-bottled propulsion packs.

``Space Station Freedom will be in operation in a few years, and there may come a time on a (spacewalk) that you don`t have a shuttle around to rescue you if you become untethered,`` said astronaut Tom Akers, in charge of self- rescue techniques.

Akers, one of Endeavour`s astronauts, said NASA engineers have yet to design a foolproof self-rescue method. This mission will give astronauts a chance to try out a few.

``All of these are just concepts and all have limitations,`` Akers said. ``With the grapple devices, you must be able to see your target. With the propulsive type, you are limited by the amount of propellant.``

The mission features another first for space buffs: a ``hot microphone`` to be used during the crew`s retrieval, repair and re-boosting of an Intelsat international telecommunications satellite.

Some viewers can watch and listen as spacewalking astronauts attach a rocket motor to the satellite, which has been spinning uselessly in a wrong orbit since a flawed launch two years ago.

``Everything the crew says in the cabin, we will hear on the ground,`` NASA spokesman Jeff Carr said. ``You will feel like you are right with them.``

The live, unedited coverage will be carried on the NASA Select cable channel during the fourth day of the mission. Also, owners of satellite dishes can tune in by pointing to SATCOM F-2R, transponder 13.

NASA officials call the satellite rescue attempt the trickiest to date. Pilot Keven Chilton must steer Endeavour into a matching orbit with the satellite. Astronauts Pierre Thuot and Rick Hieb will stand ready in the orbiter`s payload bay as the satellite approaches.

``Right now, Intelsat is in a 300-nautical-mile orbit, and the space shuttle will be launched into a 200-nautical-mile orbit,`` Chilton said. ``The spot in the sky where we come together is called the control box. We hope to do that 46 hours after launch.``

Thuot and Hieb must maneuver the 8,900-pound satellite into place, attach a rocket motor and guide Intelsat into a proper orbit.

``This is the first time we have ever brought up a motor to achieve a desired orbit,`` Pennington said.

Brandenstein said this mission, sandwiched between two focusing on science, is crucial to NASA`s future success in space.

``This mission will help us to better understand what it takes to build the Space Station Freedom down the road,`` Brandenstein said.

Construction on the space station, scaled down by congressional budget cuts, is expected to begin in 1995. It is scheduled to be in operation by the end of the decade.

For part of the mission, the orbiter will turn into a workbench in space as astronauts simulate construction techniques in the payload bay. Astronauts will practice building structural trusses.

This launch, the third of nine planned this year, represents the 47th launch in the shuttle program`s history.

Landing is expected at 8:01 p.m. EDT next Thursday at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.










http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/view_episode_scripts.php?tv-show=dark-matter-2015&episode=s01e06

Springfield! Springfield!


Dark Matter

Episode Six


I know I'll never forget it.










http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1992-05-08/news/9202070243_1_intelsat-space-program-spacewalking-astronauts

SunSentinel


`Endeavour` A New Start, Nasa Says

May 8, 1992 By ARDEN MOORE, Staff Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL -- Daniel Goldin, NASA`s new administrator, hailed Endeavour`s launch debut on Thursday as a new start for America`s space program.

The newest space shuttle shook off a threat of rain and hail to pound through a low bed of clouds at 7:40 p.m. on its way to an ambitious, eight-day mission.

``When I saw the flames shoot out of the bottom of Endeavour, I thought, `We have a fresh start,``` said Goldin, the former chief executive of TRW Inc. who plans to run the U.S. space program as a business.

He liked what he saw, saying that the $2 billion shuttle was built under budget, delivered on time and performed a picturesque launch.

The space program is at a critical crossroads, he said. The fleet of four orbiters must be capable of sending astronauts into space to repair the Hubble Space Telescope and build Space Station Freedom during this decade.

``We`ve got to sell our program to the public on merit and not on theatrics,`` Goldin said.

The big test for Endeavour -- which replaces Challenger, the shuttle that exploded in 1986, killing all seven crew members -- comes on Sunday. Its seven-member crew must capture and repair a wayward telecommunications satellite whose first job will be to broadcast this summer`s Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, to an international viewing audience.

The rescue, considered the most complex in the shuttle program`s 11-year history, involves the first rendezvous between an orbiting shuttle and a satellite. It is a $150 million gamble for Intelsat, an international satellite organization, which is paying NASA for the rescue.

Intelsat officials are banking on spacewalking astronauts to attach a rocket motor to their satellite on Sunday. The satellite was stranded in a useless low orbit two years ago after a faulty launch aboard an unmanned Titan rocket.

Intelsat faces six weeks of tests before it will know whether the satellite works.

``I will be a little nervous until then, but I am fully confident in the crew,`` said Pierre Madon, Intelsat vice president.










http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1992-05-09/news/9202070423_1_wayward-satellite-daniel-c-brandenstein-kathryn-c-thornton

SunSentinel


New Shuttle `Endeavour` Speeds Toward Rendezvous With Satellite

May 9, 1992 The New York Times

CAPE CANAVERAL -- The space shuttle Endeavour and a wayward satellite on Friday sped toward an orbital rendezvous on Sunday in which the astroanuts are to walk in space to boost the $150 million communications satellite into its correct orbit.

The Endeavour, which began its inaugural flight at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral on Thursday evening, had few of the problems that have troubled some of the nation`s winged spaceships on their first flights. The biggest glitch was a lint-clogged air filter, which was little more than a nuisance.

The day was mostly spent firing jets on the shuttle and the satellite to position them for a rendezvous 230 miles above Earth, checking out space suits and exercising various shuttle systems, including the Endeavour`s 50-foot robot arm.

The astronauts interrupted their work to exchange greedings with Ukraine`s president, Leonid M. Kravchuk, who was touring the Johnson Space Center in Houston after meeting this week with President Bush.

``I would like to wish you a very successful flight,`` Kravchuk radioed through an interpreter.

The mission commander, Capt. Daniel C. Brandenstein of the Navy, thanked Kravchuk and noted that a successful mission would mean that the world would have a new communications satellite to aid international dialogue.

The Endeavour`s target is the Intelsat 6 satellite, which has been stranded 350 miles above Earth for more than two years and on Friday was slowly lowered toward a linkup with the shuttle.

On Sunday, the astronauts are to attach an engine that will boost the satelilte to its correct orbit 22,300 miles above the Atlantic.

For a decade or more, the 38-foot-long satellite should be able to simultaneously relay 120,000 telephone calls and three television channels.

Flying aboard the shuttle with Brandenstein are the pilot, Lt. Col. Kevin P. Chilton of the Air Force, and the mission specialists, Richard J. Hieb, Cmdr. Bruce E. Melnick of the Coast Guard, Cmdr. Pierre J. Thuot of the Navy, Dr. Kathryn C. Thornton and Lt. Col. Thomas D. Akers of the Air Force.

On Friday morning, the astronauts were awakened by the music of country and western star Lee Greenwood`s God Bless the U.S.A.

The Endeavour is scheduled to land on Thursday at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where it is to deploy a new 40-foot-wide drag parachute to help slow the craft when it lands.

The drag chute is expected to reduce the wear on brakes and landing gear and permit the shuttle to come to a safe halt in a shorter distance on the runway.










JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Annapolis 2


That part about the relay reminds me of a relay when I was in the first grade. Something happened and, being on the last leg, didn't get the baton until late and had to run all the way across by myself. I remember feeling embarrassed.


[JOURNAL ARCHIVE 2006 excerpt ends]










http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1992-05-15/news/9202080514_1_space-walking-space-exploration-space-station-freedom

SunSentinel


Space Is The Place For People, Too

May 15, 1992

The resourceful astronauts of the shuttle Endeavour have demonstrated again that in space as on Earth there are some tasks for which there is simply no substitute for the adaptability and ingenuity of human beings.

After two attempts to capture a wayward communications satellite with a hand- held locking devicehad failed, shuttle commander Daniel Brandenstein improvised a hands-on technique in which three space-walking astronauts were able to corral the maverick 9,000-pound Intelsat-6. The $157-million device was re-fitted with a new rocket motor, re-deployed in space and then fired toward its working orbit 22,300 miles from Earth on Thursday.

If the history-making trio of astronauts had been unsuccessful on their third and last attempt, the satellite that is to carry 120,000 telephone circuits and help beam television of the 1992 Olympic Games around the world would have been a total loss.

The jury-rigged satellite-capture mission provided a rigorous test of man`s ability to work in space and supplied information and experience that should be useful if and when the United States decides to build the space station Freedom.

The Endeavour`s dramatic success may even prove to be crucial to the future of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which is under fire in Congress for its emphasis on manned flights and its obsession with shuttle missions and other ultra-expensive projects. The Bush administration recently replaced NASA leadership and gave new Administrator Daniel Goldin a clear mandate to change the direction of the agency.

Many critics of NASA have argued that the agency`s future should concentrate on unmanned space probes and other tasks that can be accomplished better and cheaper by robots.

That remains a sound and fiscally responsible philosophy, but the Endeavour`s stirring adventure also shows that there always will be an important role in space exploration for thinking, creative humans, too.










http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-17/news/mn-398_1_space-shuttle-program

Los Angeles Times


Thousands Greet Shuttle's Touchdown : Space: About 125,000 view the desert landing. Rescue of satellite highlights Endeavour's maiden voyage.

May 17, 1992 ROBERT W. STEWART TIMES STAFF WRITER

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE — Space shuttle Endeavour sounded its signature twin sonic booms and touched down on a concrete runway at Rogers Dry Lake at 1:57 p.m. Saturday, ending a historic, nine-day maiden voyage.

"Welcome to California and congratulations on a spectacular and historic flight," Jim Halsell, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration official at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, told the seven-member crew after the Endeavour coasted to a stop.

"Thank you, Houston," replied Navy Capt. Daniel C. Brandenstein, the shuttle's commander.

Moments earlier, a red, white and blue drag chute, making its first appearance on a shuttle mission, fell away from the orbiter as it slowed to a speed of 60 knots.

Donald Puddy, an official at the Johnson Space Center, pronounced the crew in "absolutely superb shape."

The public response to Endeavour's mission, which featured an unprecedented three-astronaut capture of a stranded communications satellite, was the most enthusiastic since the shuttle program resumed in 1988, NASA officials said.

A crowd estimated at 125,000 turned out in the high desert to watch the landing.

Endeavour, which blasted off May 7 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, was built at a cost of $2 billion to replace Challenger, lost Jan. 28, 1986, in an explosion that killed seven crew members and stalled America's manned space program for 2 1/2 years.

The astronauts' dramatic capture of the marooned Intelsat 6 satellite, using nothing but their gloved hands, represented a triumph for the manned space program. The crew clamped a new rocket motor onto the satellite, which fired Thursday, boosting the Intelsat 6 into its proper orbit 22,300 nautical miles above the Atlantic Ocean.

The feat involved the longest spacewalk in history and the first three-astronaut walk. It was the product of 36 hours of intense planning and rehearsal on the ground and in space.

"To call what we've all witnessed in the last few days exciting, I think is a gross understatement," Leonard Nicholson, director of the space shuttle program, said at a post-landing news conference.

However, the failure of the tool designed to snare the satellite, a "capture bar" that took two years and $7 million to develop, raised questions about NASA's ability to simulate conditions in space.

The simulation issue will become increasingly important as NASA moves toward construction in late 1995 of the space station Freedom. The station may cost as much as $40 billion by the end of the decade.

"We don't have a simulator that can put all the components together--the orbiter, the (shuttle's robot arm), myself, the capture bar and the satellite, basically five bodies that are all dynamic. . . . So that was probably the area that was most difficult," astronaut Pierre J. Thuot said Friday during an in-flight news conference.

Thuot was repeatedly frustrated last Sunday and Monday as he worked alone trying to snag the $150-million satellite with the capture bar. But the Intelsat 6 proved much more sensitive to force than NASA had expected and spun away every time Thuot attempted to snare it with the bar. That prompted the decision to send three astronauts outside the orbiter Wednesday to grab the satellite with their hands.

The Johnson Space Center simulator developed to train Thuot in capture techniques is a spinning, 12-foot-wide wheel suspended from posts on a platform that rests on a special "air-bearing floor." Air that gushes from jets in the floor suspends the platform and the wheel in an attempt to duplicate weightlessness.

However, engineers concluded that the satellite orbiting in space is at least 10 times more sensitive to forces applied to it than the simulated satellite on which Thuot practiced.

NASA engineer Calvin Seaman, who designed the capture bar, this week blamed incorrect data provided by the satellite's builder and owner for the failure of the instrument.

However, an official at Hughes Aircraft Co. of El Segundo, which built the Intelsat 6, said the data provided by Hughes was correct.

"We supplied them with the data and it was accurate data," said Charles P. Rubin, Hughes' program manager for the Intelsat rescue.

"What I think (Seaman) was trying to say is that there is a lot of difficulty in building a simulator, even when you have the data. Sometimes you just can't achieve what the data tells you.

"I think you can always build a simulator better, but I don't think you can duplicate the (space) environment," Rubin said.










http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-91618

CNN

John McCain Is No "Hero POW"

By 14u2env Posted September 22, 2008


Because he was kept isolated from other U.S. prisoners during these years of captivity, no one, except McCain and his captors, know exactly to what he was subjected or how he responded. Most information in the public record detailing McCain's experience with the North Vietnamese during this time frame came from McCain and McCain only.










http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/business/brian-williamss-apology-over-iraq-account-is-challenged.html?partner=EXCITE&ei=5043&_r=0

The New York Times


With Apology, Brian Williams Digs Himself Deeper

By JONATHAN MAHLER, RAVI SOMAIYA and EMILY STEELFEB. 5, 2015

For years, Brian Williams had been telling a story that wasn’t true. On Wednesday night, he took to his anchor chair on “NBC Nightly News” to apologize for misleading the public.

On Thursday, his real problems started.

A host of military veterans and pundits came forward on television and social media, challenging Mr. Williams’s assertion that he had simply made a mistake when he spoke, on several occasions, about having been in a United States military helicopter forced down by enemy fire in Iraq in 2003. Some went so far as to call for his resignation.

In his apology, Mr. Williams said that he had been on a different helicopter, behind the one that had sustained fire, and that he had inadvertently “conflated” the two. The explanation earned him not only widespread criticism on radio and TV talk shows, but widespread ridicule on Twitter, under the hashtag “#BrianWilliamsMisremembers.”

A Fox News analyst, Howard Kurtz, said, “The admission raises serious questions about his credibility in a business that values that quality above all else.” On CNN’s “New Day,” the host Chris Cuomo said that attributing the lie to “the fog of war” wasn’t acceptable and the Internet would “eat him alive.” Rem Rieder, a USA Today media columnist, wrote, “It’s hard to see how Williams gets past this, and how he survives as the face of NBC News.”

It’s unclear at this point whether Mr. Williams will feel compelled to speak again to the issue. What is clear is that the trustworthiness of one of America’s best-known and most revered TV journalists has been damaged, and that the moral authority of the nightly network news anchor, already diminished in the modern media era, has been dealt another blow.

Mr. Williams first reported on the episode when it happened in 2003, though the current controversy erupted last week after he spoke about it on air during a tribute to a retired soldier. Some veterans took to Facebook to complain, and a reporter at the military newspaper Stars and Stripes picked up the thread.

In fact, some of the soldiers present in Iraq that day had been quietly fuming about Mr. Williams’s reporting for years, and had even tried to alert the news media to it earlier. Joe Summerlin, who was on the helicopter that was forced down, said in an interview that he and some of his fellow crew watched Mr. Williams’s initial story and were angered by his characterization of the events.

The account that Mr. Williams told of the episode evolved over the years, with his personal involvement gradually growing more perilous. In a 2003 segment on NBC that described it as “a close call in the skies over Iraq,” Mr. Williams said, “the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky.”

In 2013, Mr. Williams told David Letterman that he had actually been on the helicopter that got shot down, adding that a crew member had been injured and received a medal. “We figured out how to land safely,” he said, “we landed very quickly and hard. We were stuck, four birds in the desert and we were north out ahead of the other Americans.” And on the “Nightly News” last week, he described “a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an R.P.G.,” a reference to a rocket-propelled grenade.

Mr. Summerlin said that Mr. Williams’s helicopter was part of a different mission and at least 30 minutes behind theirs. His account is supported by two of the pilots of Mr. Williams’s own helicopter, Christopher Simeone and Allan Kelly, who said in an interview that they did not recall their convoy of helicopters coming under fire. After the initial piece aired on NBC in 2003, Mr. Summerlin and his crew went looking for reporters on their base in Kuwait to tell them about the inaccuracies in Mr. Williams’s reporting. Instead, they wound up leaving notes in several news vans encouraging them to get in touch. Years later, they were still frustrated by Mr. Williams’s recounting. “When he was on the air on the Letterman show, I was going crazy,” Mr. Simeone said. “I was thinking ‘This guy is such a liar and everyone believes it.’ ”

On Thursday, yet another pilot, Rich Krell, gave a different account, telling CNN that he had in fact flown Mr. Williams, and their helicopter had come under attack. Mr. Simeone and Mr. Kelly strongly disputed Mr. Krell’s account.

NBC has not commented on the controversy, either to support Mr. Williams or to clarify the details of the episode, nor did it make him available for comment. It’s also not clear if other people at NBC were aware that Mr. Williams’s version of the events was inaccurate.

It’s not unprecedented for a public figure to exaggerate his or her experiences, especially when it comes to military conflict. In 2008, then presidential candidate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged that she had misspoken when she described having to run across a tarmac to avoid sniper fire after landing in Bosnia as first lady in 1996. While running for Senate in 2010, Connecticut’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, falsely claimed to have served in Vietnam.

But for a journalist — and in particular, an anchor — to do so has struck many people in the news industry as a very different sort of offense. While most were unwilling to publicly criticize a colleague, few were persuaded by Mr. Williams’s explanation.

“My inbox is filled today with producers who went to Iraq with me, to Afghanistan with me, to Haiti with me, all kind of wondering how you could mess this up,” said Aaron Brown, a former anchor for CNN. “I have no answer for that. I will tell you that getting shot at is not something you forget.”

Mr. Williams just extended his contract with NBC in December, with the terms reported to be as much as $10 million a year for five years. At the time, Deborah Turness, the president of NBC News, called him one of “the most trusted journalists of our time.”

The anchor and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News” since 2004, Mr. Williams succeeded his mentor, Tom Brokaw. His broadcast has long been considered a block of stability for the network. On Tuesday, “NBC Nightly News” issued a news release announcing that it was the top evening newscast in total viewers for January for the second month in a row.

Mr. Williams is a familiar presence outside the anchor chair, too. He has hosted “Saturday Night Live,” and appeared frequently on late-night TV shows like “The Daily Show” and “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,” assuming a kind of comedic persona that stands in sharp contrast to his identity as a newsman.

Other prominent TV journalists have made big mistakes. Dan Rather of CBS relied on bogus documents for a 2004 story questioning President Bush’s National Guard record. In 2013, Lara Logan took a leave of absence from “60 Minutes” for a flawed story about an attack on the American compound in Benghazi, Libya.

This is a different situation, though. If it turns out that Mr. Williams intentionally misled the public, it will be an instance not of careless or irresponsible reporting, but of a journalist lying for the purpose of self-aggrandizement.

Ever since the days of Walter Cronkite and Vietnam, network anchors have traveled frequently to war zones to get closer to the action and enhance their credibility as reporters. NBC’s ties to the military are especially strong, in part because of Mr. Brokaw, who wrote “The Greatest Generation,” a best-selling book describing the Americans who fought in World War II. Mr. Brokaw reported frequently on soldiers and veterans, and Mr. Williams kept up the tradition when he took over.

While the audience for the nightly news broadcasts has been in decline for years, it’s still significant. Season to date, NBC has averaged 8.95 million total viewers for its evening news broadcast, compared to 8.11 million for ABC and 6.88 million for CBS.

For Ms. Turness, who joined NBC in 2013, the controversy represents yet another unwelcome challenge. She was already facing the unenviable task of keeping the nightly news broadcast relevant in the era of smartphones, as well as turmoil at the “Today” morning show.

Now she is dealing with a scandal involving one of her biggest stars, whose attempt to quell a budding fiasco has only worsened it, spawning — among other things — jokes that Mr. Williams might otherwise have appreciated.

“Brian Williams will be fine,” Andy Levy, a Fox News commentator, wrote on Twitter. “If he can survive being hit by an R.P.G., he can survive this.”



- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 1:57 PM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Monday 20 July 2015