🚀 go-pugleaf

Edition 10 - 20 March 1999
__________________________

# Russian rocket launches Chinese satellite #

21 March 1999

MOSCOW (Reuters) -- A Russian rocket carrying a Chinese communications
satellite called "Asiasat 3S" blasted into orbit on Sunday, Russian
news agencies said. 

The Proton-K rocket took off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan at 3.09 a.m. Moscow time (0009 GMT), Interfax news agency
said. Russia rents the cosmodrome from Kazakhstan. 

Officials were not immediately available to confirm the reports. 

The commercial satellite, the second to be launched by a Proton rocket
this year, will help transmit television programmes and facilitate
business communications on the territory of southeast Asia, the
agencies said. 

The Moscow-based Khrunichev Space Centre, which makes the Proton
rockets, says it plans 12 such commercial launches this year at a cost
of $60-$70 million each. 

Copyright 1999 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/9903/21/RUSSIA-SATELLITE.reut/index.html


# John Glenn roasted, toasted by colleagues #

19 March 1999

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida (AP) -- For a change, John Glenn wasn't in a
parade, wasn't getting a medal, wasn't even being praised as the great
geriatric hero. Instead, he was among old friends and fellow
astronauts, and the mood was anything but reverential as they toasted
him -- not just for his space-shuttle flight last October, but for the
37th anniversary of his first rocket ride. 

Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon, portrayed Glenn in a
skit as a feeble-minded old geezer bound for space. "I hear they're
going to let me preboard," Cernan deadpanned. 

Fellow Mercury astronauts Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra and Gordon
Cooper took aim at the recently retired senator's squeaky clean image.


"The Larry Flynt report on John Glenn shocked the public today,"
Schirra intoned. "Mr. Flynt revealed that he has photographs of the
astro-senator using his salad fork on his steak and confirms sightings
of John wearing white shoes after Labor Day." 


A zero-g old-folks home?

Glenn, who became the oldest person in space at age 77, aboard the
shuttle Discovery, plunged right into the spirit of things. 

"Space could well be an old folks' home," he told 550 guests who paid
up to $1,000 each to attend the charity fund-raiser at a Walt Disney
World hotel. 

"When you spill food, it doesn't go on your tie or anything. You don't
need a cane or a walker or a wheelchair, you just float. Drive in no
traffic and leave the turn signal on, it doesn't make any difference.
Balance? Who cares, you're upside down anyway. No falls, no broken
hips. If you can't sleep, don't worry about it, night will be coming
along in about 45 minutes." 

Glenn got his first taste of celebrity in February 1962, when he
became the first American to orbit the Earth. Reaction to his second
trip, aboard Discovery, was just as intense. Wherever he goes --
Majorca, Barcelona, Rome, Osaka, Kyoto, Disney World -- he's
recognized. Whenever he stops, he's mobbed by well-wishers. 


Puzzled by his popularity

He says he never expected it, isn't courting it, and isn't sure why
it's happening. 

Maybe it's because of age, or his Senate background, "or the fact that
we were the first orbital flight, or whatever combination," the former
Democratic lawmaker tells reporters, almost apologetically. 

"Maybe you can give me a better analysis of it than I can give
myself." The Astronaut Hall of Fame near the Kennedy Space Center
collected more than 40,000 notes to Glenn between September and March,
enough to fill 21 books. 

He's one of this year's winners of the Ellis Island Medal of Honor,
along with Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chief Justice William Rehnquist.


New York City gave him a ticker tape parade, and he's the first
astronaut to have a NASA center named after him. The Lewis Research
Center in Cleveland is now the John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis
Field. 

He has signed with Bantam Books to write his autobiography, due out
this fall, and he celebrated Christmas two months late because of
post-flight obligations and his departure from the Senate after 24
years. 

Glenn and his six much younger crew mates went on a world tour and
were feted by prime ministers and chancellors, even a king and queen.
(One crew member is from Spain, another from Japan.) 

"Someone figured we were in 11 different hotels in 13 days, so it
wasn't exactly a pleasure trip," Glenn says. "I was recognized most
places," he adds. 


Not courting the limelight

Glenn says he's indifferent to the spotlight: "I don't run to cameras.
I don't run away from cameras. I just try and live my life." 

Doctors at Johnson Space Center in Houston are still studying Glenn to
see what they can learn about geriatrics in space, and the tests will
continue until about May. 

Unusual for an astronaut, Glenn suffered no motion sickness or other
ailment during his nine days in orbit. The moment he got back, though,
nausea struck. 

Returning astronauts often suffer dizziness and stiffness. In Glenn's
case it lasted only a day. By the fourth day after his return -- and
every day since -- he has felt completely normal, he says. 

Glenn plans to spend his retirement working with students at Muskingum
College in his hometown of New Concord, Ohio, and at Ohio State
University. His goal is to encourage young people to go into public
service. 

He'd love to go back into space but doubts his wife, Annie, would
approve. His two children certainly wouldn't. 

His family gave him a stack of books for Christmas figuring reading
ought to keep him on the ground. And his colleagues, as demonstrated
at the roast, will keep his ego in check. But Glenn had the last
laugh. 

"There's no truth whatsoever to the fact that NASA refused to let me
have a spacewalk because they were afraid I'd wander off someplace,"
Glenn said. "And there's also no truth to the claim that I was the
first 77-year-old to leave Florida in something other than a
Winnebago." 

Copyright 1999   The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
 
http://europe.cnn.com/TECH/space/9903/19/glenn.roast.ap/


# EU to launch homegrown satellite navigation system  #

17 March 1999 

by Bob Brewin 
 
(IDG) -- The European Union plans to go ahead with development of its
own $2.4 billion to $3.2 billion global navigation satellite system
(GNSS), partly out of concern about having to rely on the existing
Pentagon-managed Global Positioning System. 

Luc Tytgat, a staff member with the European Commission's Directorate
of Transportation, described the U.S. GPS system as "a military
solution and system," which "will not provide the level of service we
need." 

The European Union also believes that it can build a GPS-like system
that provides greater accuracy than the U.S. system, developed by the
Pentagon over the past decade at a cost of more than $10 billion, said
Tytgat, speaking at the U.S. Coast Guard sponsored Civil GPS Service
Interface Committee meeting here. 

The European Union does plan to use the same signal structure and
frequency bands as the U.S. GPS constellation, allowing existing GPS
receivers and related technology to work with the new system. 

And like the United States, the European Union plans to provide a
basic level of service to all users worldwide at no cost. But, Tytgat
added, users seeking greater accuracy and guarantees of availability
will have to sign up for a higher level of service, which will be
available on a "Pay TV-like basis." 

The European Union plans to seek international partners, potentially
including Australia, Canada and Japan in development of its "Galileo"
satellite constellation, Tytgat said. 

Tytgat did not rule out participation by the Russians, who developed
their own GNSS at the height of the cold war. "We continue to talk to
our Russian colleagues," Tytgat said. "We can learn a lot from the
Russians about the technology." 

Tytgat said the European Commission -- the policy-making arm of the
European Union -- plans to finish an architecture definition phase for
its GNSS this June, will make a financing decision by December 2000
and expects deployment of the 26 to 36 satellites in the Galileo
constellation from 2005 to 2007. He said the European Union expects
operation of Galileo to commence in 2008. 

--

  ~ check out my "Models 'n Babes" site
  ~ join my "Models 'n Babes" webring
  ~ in case you're a model or photographer, get listed for free
    @ http://users.skynet.be/bertie/glamour

  ~ subscribe to E-zine "Bertie's Media Stuff" or "Bertie's Space Stuff"
    @ http://members.xoom.com/bertie4ever/misc/mailing.htm

    @ http://users.skynet.be/bertie you'll find my personal webpage 

Greetz, Bertie