Transcription: Shuttle forecasts 1985 IU endeavor
By George Vlahakis
While thousands of interested people around the world focused their attention on Sunday’s launching of the space shuttle, members of the IU Astronomy Department had a special stake in the shuttle’s successful liftoff.
In 1985, members of the astronomy department will be analyzing data sent from a large telescope that will be put into orbit by a space shuttle, according to Frank Edmondson, director of the IU Goethe Link Observatory and professor of astronomy.
Once in orbit around the Earth, the telescope will be the largest telescope of its kind in space. The telescope will be 98 inches in diameter.
The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), of which IU is a member, is scheduled to begin the project in 1985. AURA was chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in January to be the contractor for the space telescope project.
The telescope will benefit astronomy research more than telescopes on earth. Edmondson said, because it will provide a sharp, clearer image, will be unhampered by day and night conditions and will detect ultraviolet rays, which do not penetrate our atmosphere.
NASA will continue to maintain the telescope and will place it in orbit, but IU astronomers will be analyzing the data sent form it, Edmondson said.
“Any success for the shuttle is a success for the (AURA) program,” Edmondson said.
AURA is involved in many projects around the globe which promote research in astronomy. Its list of projects include the Kit Peak National Observatory in Tuscon, Ariz., the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile and the Sacremento Peak Observatory in New Mexico.
Edmondson said the computer failures which delayed the space shuttles’s launch Friday should not have been a surprise.
“When something as complicated as this is being done for the very first time, you will want to find out the problems,” Edmondson said. “This was not a rush project. The same problems would have arisen if the launch had taken place two minutes later.
“I am glad that it got launched on schedule today. I can’t peer that far into my crystal ball to see what it will do to the space program,” Edmondson said.
