http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1992_1032753
chron
Houston Chronicle Archives
Robots in budget for moon mining/Bush also asks more for space station
WILLIAM E. CLAYTON JR., Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau Staff
SAT 01/25/1992
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
WASHINGTON -- President Bush said Friday he will ask Congress for full funding for the space station and wants to revive a space exploration effort, including robot prospectors on the moon.
In a speech to the Young Astronauts Council, Bush confirmed earlier reports that he will ask Congress next week in his fiscal 1993 budget for $2.25 billion for Space Station Freedom, up 11 percent from the current budget of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
The Young Astronauts Council is made up of schoolchildren with an interest in science who are briefed periodically on the space program.
After a congressional fight last year that saw a House committee try to kill the space station, "Space Station Freedom is back on track and on schedule," Bush said Friday.
The two-pronged moon-mapping program would have orbiting satellites scanning the surface. Then, landers would be sent to the moon: "Rovers" would wander about, taking samples; moon-based observatories would be operated by remote control from Earth; and robotic prospectors would poke about for minerals that could be mined.
Bush said Friday his space budget request to Congress will include "a dramatic expansion of two exciting new programs, $250 million to triple funding for our new launch system to develop a new family of rockets for the 21st century, and $80 million for the national aerospace plane."
The aerospace plane, which got minimum funding in the current budget, is to be a craft that can take off and land like conventional aircraft, but fly into space orbit.
Bush announced he will set up a new national space exploration office, "led by NASA and including scientific talent from our defense and energy departments" as well as other agencies.
"We have challenged America to go back to the moon to stay, and then onward to Mars," Bush said.
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/2F08.html
Fear of Flying
Original airdate in N.A.: 18-Dec-94
Back at Moe's Tavern, a man in a top hat with a mustache walks in. He looks and sounds like Homer, only he has a British accent.
Guy: Greetings, good men. Might I trouble you for a drink?
Moe: Oh, get out of here, Homer.
Guy: Homer? Who is Homer? My name is Guy Incognito.
[he gets beaten up and tossed out, unconscious]
Homer: [walks up, looks at Guy] [gasps] Oh my God! This man is my exact double. [gasps] Oh my God! That dog has a puffy tail!
[he chases it, giggling] Here, Puff! Here, Puff!
http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1988_537336
chron Houston Chronicle Archives
U.S. blasts 5 Iranian targets
Houston Chronicle News Services
MON 04/18/1988 HOUSTON CHRONICLE
MANAMA, Bahrain - The U.S. Navy today destroyed two offshore Iranian oil platforms, sank a defending Iranian patrol boat and bombed two Iranian frigates. Iran attacked oil facilities off Sharjah and fired on at least two U.S. vessels.
The U.S. attack on the Persian Gulf oil platforms came in retaliation for a mine explosion that tore a hole in a U.S. frigate last week, injuring 10 crewmen.
"We aim to deter further Iranian aggression - not provoke it," President Reagan said. "They must know that we will protect our ships, and if they threaten us, they'll pay a price."
Official estimates of the toll from today's fighting changed through the day, but Reagan stated without elaboration that at least five Iranian vessels of various sizes - but no U.S. ones - had been damaged.
"Following the destruction of the two Iranian military platforms, whose personnel had evacuated after our warning, several Iran naval vessels and small boats attempted to engage our ships and aircraft," Reagan said.
"Three Iranian naval vessels and at least two small boats were sunk or very severely damaged," he added.
Also today, Iran said the United States had entered the Iran-Iraq war, charging U.S. helicopters supported an Iraqi land offensive in the Faw Peninsula. The Pentagon dismissed the charge, saying no U.S. military forces have been involved with Iraqi units.
The White House said three U.S. warships ships blasted each Iranian platform. No U.S. casualties were reported in the attacks, and the Iranians fled prior to the shelling, the White House said.
Iran said a number of oil workers aboard the two platforms were killed or injured. It gave no details.
Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci said a U.S. helicopter also was fired upon during the raid but was not hit.
One U.S. warship fired missiles at two approaching Iranian jet fighters, but the fighters reversed course; it was unclear whether they were hit, Carlucci said.
He said an Iranian patrol boat fired on the U.S. cruiser Wainwright, which took part in the attack on one of the platforms. The Wainwright was not hit.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ambush/etc/synopsis.html
PBS
AMBUSH IN MOGADISHU
September 29, 1998 (Original broadcast date)
"Ambush in Mogadishu" tells the story of the most violent U.S. combat firefight since Vietnam. On October 3, 1993 elite units of the U.S. Army's Rangers and Delta Force were ambushed by Somali men, women and children armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. The Rangers were pinned down in the most dangerous part of Mogadishu, Somalia and taking casualties. What had started out as an operation to capture warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid--turned into a tragic firefight that lasted seventeen hours, left eighteen Americans dead, eighty four wounded and continues to haunt the U.S. military
