[SVXphile]

Just one more personal note. Last year, my science students participated with many other students in our country and around the world, in Project Starshine. The project was designed to study the effect of sunspots on the upper atmosphere, and to study how the swelling of the atmosphere can accelerate the drag on, and early reentry of, low orbit spacecraft. Our job was to hand-polish three mirrors that would be installed on the satellite's outer shell. The satellite was to look like a large disco-ball, with its many mirrors reflecting light that would be easily seen on the ground. Counting the flashes, observers on the ground could calculate the rate of desent of the satellite until it would eventually reenter and burn up. There had been several earlier satellites in the series. This last summer, cracks were discovered in the shuttle engines and all the engines had to be inspected and repaired. This pushed back the schedule of the various payloads, and our little Starshine satellite was pushed back until later this year (03). Before the delay caused by the engines, our project was to have gone up this month......just a couple of weeks ago.....and would have been launched from.... Columbia.
Don