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Better late than never!
The following is a list with our opinions about the top ten space stories of 1996. It was a tough list to compile: there were a lot of remarkable, important events that took place in 1996. We've managed to order those events into a top ten list, with a number of "honorable mentions" for important stories that got squeezed out of the top ten.
Your idea of the top ten stories may be considerably different from ours. If so, don't hesitate to sound off in our newly-redesigned SpaceViews Forum, once again open for your discussions.
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Space shuttle operations were handed over to a single private contractor for the first time ever on October 1. The United Space Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Rockwell (now Boeing), will handle space shuttle operations, although NASA remains in charge of the program and maintains oversight on USA's activities. The move caused some concern about safety procedures under the new management, but USA and NASA maintain safety is still the top priority. |  |
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Carl Sagan passed away on the morning of December 20. Sagan was a renowned scientist who studied the greenhouse effect on Venus and dust storms on Mars, but he became legendary as a communicator of science to the public. His book and PBS series Cosmos thrust him into the international spotlight, after another book, The Dragons of Eden, won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction. While he was the focus of "billions and billions" of bad jokes, his ability to communicate science, particularly space, to the public were without compare. | 9 |
| 8 | Space and politics didn't mix in the 1996 election campaigns in the United States. Republican challengers to President Bill Clinton barely mentioned a word about NASA, and Clinton was virtually silent on the subject until he announced plans for a "space summit" (scheduled for early 1997) the day NASA held its famous Mars life press conference. In September, the Clinton administration released its space policy, which was roundly criticized among space activists for not including any mention of human space activities beyond the International Space Station. Space activists were able to announce a moral victory in Congress later in Setpember, when the Space Commercialization Promotion Act passed the House and was strongly supported (but not approved) in the Senate. |  |
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Comet Hyakutake sped through the inner solar system in early 1996, to the delight of amateur and professional astronomers around the world. Discovered at the end of January by its namesake, a Japanese amateur astronomer, the comet made a close approach to Earth in late March and dazzled observers throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Observations from groundbased and Earth-orbiting telescopes showed jets of gas and dust eminating from its coma and even (weak) X-rays. Hyakutake may have upstaged another comet, Hale-Bopp, which had been discovered in July 1995 but is not due to pass through the inner solar system until 1997. Hyakutake at least set the standard for a dazzling display Hale-Bopp will have to meet... | 7 |
| 6 | "The first Ariane-5 flight did not result in validation of Europe's new launcher," an ESA press release reported after the Ariane-5 went off-course and was destroyed 37 seconds after launch June 4. The failure was traced to a tiny, embarrassing bug in the software on the booster, and the next Ariane-5 launches are scheduled for mid-1997. Europe had good company, though: a Chinese Long March rocket crashed into the ground and exploded in February. Chinese officials downplayed the extent of the damage caused by the crash, but Western sources hinted that the damage and deaths were much worse than Chinese reports. Also, Russia had problems with its normally-reliable Proton rocket, and an American Pegasus rocket launched two science satellites into orbit in November... but refused to released them from the booster's upper stage, rendering the satellites useless. |  |
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The once-mighty Russian space program showed how far it had fallen in 1996. Delays with the assembly of Soyuz boosters have forced cosmonaut crews on Mir to stay longer than planned and have also delayed Progress resupply missions, increasing the importance of the supplies brought to Mir during the shuttle docking missions. Russia also abandoned its Soyuz-U2 booster in favor of the less-powerful Soyuz-U because the synthetic fuel used by the -U2 could no longer be produced: "redundant" equipment in the Soyuz capsules will be eliminated to allow them to continue to be used to ferry crews to and from Mir. Quality control problems may have been behind a number of problems with Russia's Proton booster, including the failed Mars-96 launch. Finally, NASA announced that Russia is so far behind schedule in the contruction of its Service Module for the International Space Station that the U.S. will build a temporary module to support the station until Russia completes its module, now 8 months behind. | 5 |
| 4 | Reusable launch vehicles were all the rage in 1996. In a California ceremony July 2, Vice-President Al Gore announced that the Lockheed Martin "VentureStar" proposal had won the X-33 design competition. The space agency will provide LockMart with $900 million which, along with $200 million or more of the company's own money, will be used for the prototype, scheduled for a early 1999 first test flight. The original X-34 project between Rockwell and Orbital Sciences Corporation broke down early in 1996 in disagreements over the type of rocket engine to use. The X-34 was reborn as an OSC-only project which, unlike the earlier version, will be a technology demonstrator only and not a satellite launch vehicle. Finally, we said farewell to the DC-XA "Clipper Graham" (nee DC-X), which was destroyed July 31 when a landing leg failed to deploy and the craft tipped over and exploded. The faiure was traced to an unconnected hose in the landing leg's pneumatic system. The vehicle was finishing its 4th flight since being modified by NASA to test new technologies for use in future vehicles. |  |
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"Two out of three ain't bad," is not only a Jack Nicholson line from the Tim Burton movie Mars Attacks, but the state of mind after a flotilla of spacecraft were launched to the Red Planet in late 1996. The Mars Global Surveyor launch on November 7 and the Mars Pathfinder launch on December 4 both went fine, and both spacecraft are healthy as they speed towards Mars. The Russian Mars-96 mission lifted off normally on November 16, but a failure in the Proton booster's 4th stage sent the spaceraft tumbling back to Earth after only a few orbits. After initial reports placed the crash somewhere in the South Pacific Ocean, later data moved the impact point to the Chile-Bolivian border in South America. Some debris possibly linked to the crash may have been found, but no evidence of four tiny RTGs, containing a total of 200 grams of plutonium, has been uncovered. Meanwhile, Mars Global Surveyor will go into orbit around Mars in September 1997 while Mars Pathfinder will land on the planet on -- you guessed it -- Independence Day (July 4), 1997. | 3 |
| 2 | Shannon Lucid was scheduled to spend about 140 days on the Russian space station Mir, but when problems with a new adhesive used in the shuttle's solid rocket boosters delayed her trip home, she ended up breaking the record for the longest stay in space by a woman, reaching 188 days before returning in late September. In the process she captured the interest of millions in the United States and elsewhere, making the cover of Newsweek and meeting President Clinton after returning. She also showed that the debilitating effects of extended stays in zero-g can be minimized with extensive exercise, a point she proved dramatically when she walked out of the shuttle after landing under her own power. |  |
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They're not little green men, or anything closely resembling the Martians of pulp science-fiction, but microscopic fossils found in an ancient Mars rock produced a dramatic impact nonetheless. A team of scientists at NASA's Johnson Space Center and Stanford University provided "compelling but not conclusive" evidence that primitive life once existed on Mars billions of years ago. The findings ignited a firestorm of interest in the Red Planet among the public and the popular press which continues to this day. The findings prompted President Clinton to announce a "space summit" and brought new interest in NASA's plans for unmanned Mars missions, and the possiblity for manned missions. This is a story that will continue to make news in 1997, as scientists seek to prove, or refute, the findings. | 1 |
Honorable Mentions
Galileo spent 1996 studying Jupiter and its moons, discovering a magnetosphere around Ganymede and possible liquid oceans beneath the icy crust of Europa's surface. Analysis of the data returned by the Galileo probe into Jupiter's atmosphere in December 1995 showed the planet to be windier, hotter, and drier than expected, but the findings were complicated by the fact that the probe appeared to hit a peculiar "hot spot" in the atmosphere that's not indicative of the rest of the planet.
Discoveries of extrasolar planets abounded in 1996, as more than half a dozen planets, all large and many unusually near their suns, were detected by astronomers. The discoveries have caused some stir among experts as they puzzle how the giant planets can exist so near their suns. None is a likely candidate for life, but some are the right distance from their suns so that any moons around these planets might be hospitable to life.
The Hubble Space Telescope peered farther into the universe than ever before, with a spectacular "Hubble Deep Field" image which showed hundreds of galaxies extending back for billions of light-years in an extremely tiny area of the sky. Closer to Earth, Hubble provided some of our best images yet of tiny Pluto, showing evidence of a mix of bright and dark features. It will take a spacecraft mission, still many years away, to fully resolve the surface details of the distant planet.
Four years after the original shuttle tethered satellite experiment had been canceled when a bolt jammed the tether system, mission controllers were relieved to see the tether extend to nearly its full length on its reflight mission. Then... snap! The tether broke near the base in the shuttle's cargo bay, and the Italian-built satellite and kilometers of tether trailed away. A spark between the experiment apparatus and a frayed region of the cable was the likely cause of the break. Scientists were still somewhat pleased with the results, which showed that far more electricity was being generated by the cable than had been expected.
What fear stalks the hearts of NASA employees thoughout the agency? The ongoing Reduction In Force (RIF), as NASA cuts thousands of employees from the agency. A plan announced in April to cut the number of headquarters employees in half met with cries of protest from employees and even members of Congress, but the plans march on. NASA employees have turned to outside resources, like the RIF Watch Web site, for more information as NASA's plans slowly crystallize.
Boeing paved the way to become the other big player (with Lockeed Martin) in the American aerospace busines in 1996. It purchased the aerospace and defense divisions of Rockwell in late 1996, renaming them Boeing North American (North American Aerospace was the name of the company that merged with Rockwell 30 years ago.) Barely a week after that deal had been finalized, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas announced plans to merge under the Boeing name. If that merger is approved, it will be just Boeing, Lockheed Martin (itself a product of a merger betweem Lockheed and Martin Marietta a few years ago) and a bunch of small companies left to compete...