Crew members aboard Russia's Mir space station will be using "wet wipes" instead of taking showers for personal hygiene in the months ahead as a result of the planned Shuttle/Mir phase of the International Space Station program.
All that aside, the hearing isn't expected to last more than a day. And Specter is said to be pushing for a quick confirmation vote by the full Senate. The reason: The intelligence community hasn't had a director since R. James Woolsey resigned 15 weeks ago, thanks in part to Gen. Michael Carns' withdrawal last month (DAILY, March 14, page 383). "I think this is going to be a pretty easy confirmation," says one Hill source.
Still no word from acting DCI Adm. William Studeman on whether he will stay at the agency when a new director takes over. Studeman, the deputy intelligence director, would have been forced out if Carns was confirmed because the top two intelligence slots by law cannot be filled by members of the military. But the rule doesn't apply now because Deutch is a civilian. Studeman hasn't made up his mind on his future, a CIA spokesman says.
Hassan M. Nagib, an internationally recognized expert in fluid dynamics, has been named dean of Armour College and vice president for the main campus of Illinois Institute of Technology (ITT).
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Donald R. Beall has been awarded the Navy League's Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Award for his outstanding contributions to the enhancement of U.S. maritime strength and national security during his 27-year career at Rockwell.
Byron Harrison, who once supervised inspectors at Lucas Industries' Lucas Western operation in City of Industry, Calif., has pleaded guilty to faking test and inspection reports on fighter aircraft gearboxes. Harrison, a 34-year Lucas veteran, admitted that for over three years, until last April, he faked inspection records for gearboxes on F-14s, F/A- 18s, B-1s, B-2s and F-16s, including 33 gearboxes delivered under a 1992 contract for F/A-18s known to have never been inspected.
Robert C. Mason has been named vice president. Mason will continued to be responsible for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Systems line of business, for which he was named managing director in February.
Expect some sharp questions-and statements-when Director of Central Intelligence-nominee John Deutch undergoes his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday. Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is also expected to use the public hearing to score some points in his bid for the presidency. Two issues that will arise: the cabinet-level status President Clinton intends to give Deutch, and the intelligence community's past failures to keep Congress fully informed of its activities, including CIA links to alleged assassins in Guatemala.
Does the strategy of having bombers move from the initial stages of one major regional conflict to another nearly simultaneous MRC mean that the bomber is getting short shrift at the Pentagon? Not if you listen to Joshua Gotbaum, assistant secretary of defense for economic security. He tells a Senate Armed Services subcommittee that the Dept. of Defense has added two new "sector assessments"-heavy bombers and Meals- Ready-to-Eat.
F-22 FIGHTER is the subject of a "dear colleague" letter from Reps. Robert K. Dornan (R-Calif.) and Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Tex.). The April 12 letter, rather than asking directly for support of the program, asks colleagues to read an article on the plane in the April issue of Air Force Magazine. It says the article "describes the compelling reasons why we need to produce the U.S. Air Force F-22 'air superiority' jet fighter."
Northrop Grumman's F-5E advanced avionics demonstrator aircraft made its first flight April 20, flying from Los Angeles International Airport to Edwards AFB, Calif., where it will undergo nearly six months of flight testing. The tests will evaluate a new digital avionics package and provide data to the U.S. Air Force to help formulate decisions about technology updates to the F-5 series, Northrop Grumman said.
Pratt&Whitney will begin shipping engine upgrade kits to the Royal Netherlands Air Force this year to bring their F-16s' F100 fighter turbofans up to the -220 power and durability standard under a new $90 million contract, P&W reported Friday. The air force flies 92 F100-PW-200-powered F-16s, along with 42 with the -220 engine, and P&W Government Engines and Space Propulsion's Customer Support&Services Dept. will supply 106 -220E kits to the Dutch by 1999.
Dana Skaddan joins Grimes Aerospace Co. as senior vice president -marketing and strategic business development. Most recently,Skaddan served as president, Clarostat Sensors and Controls Unit, BTR Corp.
AIRBUS INDUSTRIE bristles at FAA Administrator David Hinson's comment last week that the Boeing 777 is the first aircraft to receive simultaneous certification from FAA and Europe's Joint Airworthiness Authorities. Actually, the first one was its own A330, in October 1993, the European manufacturing consortium observes.
Stephen L. Key, previously executive vice president and chief financial officer of ConAgra, Inc., has been named executive vice president and chief financial officer at Textron Inc. Richard F. Smith, who most recently served as director, government affairs, has been promoted to staff vice president, government affairs, of Textron Inc.
Dennis G. Ganzak has been appointed to the newly created position of chief financial officer of Westinghouse Electric Corp.'s Electronic Systems business unit.
Lt. Gen. Richard Hawley, the AF principal deputy for acquisition, denies rumors that the F-22 won't be a dogfighter. "This airplane is going to be the dominant dogfight airplane when it is fielded in 2005," he says in an interview.
The U.S. is negotiating to put advanced sensors on European satellites as part of its plans to merge military and civil meteorological satellite efforts. The sensors would be placed on two mid-morning polar-orbiting environmental satellites that Europe is planning to launch in 2001 and 2006 and would complement the future National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental System (NPOESS), a three-satellite follow-on to the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) that will blend military and civil efforts.
When Dunbar went into anaphylactic shock at JSC last fall, she was training as backup to astronaut/physician Norman Thagard for the first U.S. visit to Russia's Mir space station. As it turned out, Thagard was able to make the trip and is aboard Mir, while Dunbar was assigned to the first Shuttle/Mir docking mission early this summer. That mission aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis will deliver two cosmonauts to Mir and retrieve Thagard and his two Russian colleagues.
