Nasa

Unlike the fictional Starship Enterprise, America's space shuttles won't be boldly going anywhere for a while. Now that the Discovery has returned to Earth safely, the shuttle fleet will remain grounded until NASA is certain there won't be a recurrence of fuel tank insulation and other problems. Shuttle Atlantis's crew expected a September launch, but that date is unlikely to be kept. Discovery's mission to the International Space Station was considered a test flight, the first since Columbia blew up during reentry in 2003.

They have been right so often for so long that when the scientists, engineers and managers at NASA blow it, the experience can be as chilling as one of those lizard creatures from the Alien movies. How did these inquisitive techno-pioneers with their vast intellectual resources manage to muff not one but two recent probes of Mars? Was it for want of cash, now in dwindling supply for a space program that was built, as author Tom Wolfe observed, on the credo: "No bucks, no Buck Rogers"?

President Reagan will order the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to carry out the recommendations of the Challenger commission and to report to him on how it intends to do that, a senior White House official said yesterday "I think you can expect the President will basically turn around and say to NASA, 'How're you going to implement this?' " said the official, adding that Reagan's directive may be issued today. "If there's something here that is undoable or is decidedly wrong, they (NASA)

A solid-fuel rocket booster from the space shuttle Challenger might have been located off the coast of Florida by unmanned underwater vehicles, NASA announced yesterday. The interim review board investigating the explosion of Challenger said in a one-sentence statement that sonar readings "indicate a solid rocket booster may have been located. " NASA spokesmen at the Kennedy Space Center said they did not have an exact location. If one or both of the shuttle's booster rockets are recovered, they could help investigators determine what caused the Challenger to explode 74 seconds after launch Jan. 28, killing the seven-member crew in the nation's worst space accident.

NASA scientists have positively identified chunks from the tail section of the space shuttle Challenger's suspect right solid-fuel rocket booster that were found and photographed from a mini-submarine as they lay on the ocean floor 50 miles east of here. The discovery yesterday fueled optimism that searchers would find the segment of the 149-foot rocket booster where investigators believe a jet of extremely hot gas may have burned through the seal formed by two rubber O- rings.

NASA botched its media-information role in the aftermath of the Challenger explosion, a space agency spokesman admitted late last week. The space agency's dismal performance helped turn a human and technological disaster into a public-relations fiasco as well, and ended a 28-year honeymoon between NASA and the media. "Our goal is to answer any question within four hours," said Ken Atchison, NASA assistant news chief, in a telephone interview. For four weeks following the Jan. 28 disaster, the Daily News made numerous requests for information about the agency's public relations guidelines for handling a crisis.

With eager curiosity, more than 300 children from Ridge Park Elementary School giggled uncontrollably as Lisa McLeod demonstrated the finer points of shoveling food into the mouth. With a portable tray only inches from her mouth and a firm grip on a spoon, McLeod dramatized dumping cereal, eggs, orange juice and hot chocolate into her mouth without spilling a drop. "This is the quickest and best way to get all of the food into your mouth," she told the students. "You're almost guaranteed not to spill a drop this way. " Moments later, oohs and aahs could be heard as McLeod lit a blowtorch and heated a large ceramic tile.

An unsuccessful bidder vying to build the space shuttle's solid-fuel rocket boosters warned NASA 12 years ago that the rocket design ultimately selected - with its reliance on fragile O-ring seals between segments - could jeopardize crew safety. In language foreshadowing preliminary findings by investigators probing the cause of the Challenger disaster, the Aerojet Solid Propulsion Co., which was proposing a one-piece design, wrote that multi-segment boosters were "burdened with design features that can detract from safe, efficient and reliable operation.

In October 1984, Philadelphia officials received a letter containing some of the best economic news the region had heard in years. After months of competition among several cities, NASA, the national space agency, informed local officials that it had settled on the University City Science Center in West Philadelphia as the site for one of two new centers for research into the commercial applications of the space age. The National Aeronautics and...

Paul F. Bikle, director of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Facility when technology used in the space shuttle program was developed, has died, officials said. He was 75. Officials said Bikle died Saturday at a son's home in Salinas, Calif., where he had been staying after suffering a heart attack at his home in Lancaster, near the base. There will be no service, officials said. Bikle headed the Dryden facility at Edwards Air Force Base, from September 1959 until his retirement in May 1971.