University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, April 20, 1988
9
NASA won't launch Journalist-in-Space soon
By Julie Adam
Kansan staff writer
Space shuttle flights will be getting off the ground again soon but NASA's Journalist-in-Space program is up in the air, a NASA spokesman said recently.
The spokesman, David Garrett, news chief at that National Aeronautics and Space Administration in Washington D.C., said, "We just sort of put that thing on the back burner. Nothing right now has been decided."
The program was postponed indefinitely after the space shuttle Challenger exploded in January 1986, killing a schoolteacher and six other crew members on board.
T.
board. Rick Musser, KU associate professor of journalism and
he program was postponed indefinitely after the Challenger explosion in January 1986 that killed the schoolteacher and six other crew members on board.
cants for the project included journalists Walter Cronkite and Geraldo Rivera.
the former regional coordinator for the Journalist-in-Space program, said that he had not heard anything from NASA about the program for more than a year. Musser is on sabbatical in Kansas City, Mo.
Mussler said the applicants had been narrowed to 40 semifinalists before the Challenger explosion. Musser sent all his materials regarding the project to NASA after the project was postponed.
the project was postponed. Garrett said that if NASA decided to continue the project, a journalist probably wouldn't be sent into space for about four or five years.
Although the Journalist-in-Space program is on hold, NASA's Teacher-in-Space program still is scheduled. Garrett said the next teacher to fly in a shuttle would be Barbara Morgan, from Idaho.
He said that NASA would be sending up only astronauts for a couple of years until additional testing of shuttle flights could be conducted. He said that civilians would not be sent into space "until we regain full confidence in the system."
on gebastad in Kuwait. Musser's committee was to help choose the journalist who would go on a shuttle flight. The tentative date for the Journalist-in-Space flight was September 1986. Anni-
NASA is sponsoring a contest for schoolchildren to name the orbiter being built to replace the Challenger, Garrett said. The contest will begin in the fall, and the name will be chosen in May 1989.
The three remaining shuttles are Atlantis, Columbia and Discovery.
Discovery is expected to be launched Aug. 4 with a crew of five. It will be the first shuttle launch since the Challenger explosion. No civilians will be on that flight.
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