Aalice.215 net.columbia utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:mhtsa!alice!sjb Wed Dec 9 18:48:26 1981 update Budget ------ Congress has passed a $6.17 billion budget for NASA, $50 million more than President Reagan wanted. The bill now goes to Reagan for signiture (notice I don't say ``or veto'' -- oops!) The main parts of the bill are: $2.19 billion for the STS program. This will insure the delivery of the three other shuttles, now being built, with a possibility of a fifth shuttle. $1.1 billion for research and program management $908 million for space flight operations. Experiments ----------- Experiments on board Columbia during STS-2 showed that clay, essential to geologists for finding oil, can be detected from space, along with other precious metals. The Shuttle Multispectral Infrared Radiometer, SMIRR, uses the fact that each mineral has its own reflective signiture. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.