PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release:
Contact: Candace Crandall
Tel: (703) 503-5064
e-mail: Crandall@SEPP.org

NASA RECOGNIZES DR. S. FRED SINGER FOR IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO SPACE RESEARCH

FAIRFAX, VA, JUNE 19, 1997---The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has presented a cash award to Dr. S. Fred Singer in recognition of his work in developing a method and apparatus for determining the time, direction, and composition of impacting particles on orbiting space vehicles-- research NASA deemed "of significant value" in advancing its space and aeronautical programs.

Dr. Singer's project, undertaken in cooperation with a team of researchers at the Institute for Space Science and Technology in Gainesville, Florida, orbited earth on the LDEF satellite, gathering data on so-called micro-meteors for five years before being retrieved by the space shuttle in 1990. Later analysis of the data revealed the presence of vast, dense particle clouds--largely composed of disintegrating space debris and aluminum from rocket exhaust--circling some 400 miles above the earth's surface at speeds of 4 to 5 miles per second.

Because they can severely damage or destroy delicate satellite instruments and, if large enough, puncture a space craft, the discovery of these clouds and their location was vitally important. Singer's research was publicly presented in 1991 at the annual meeting of the Congress of Space Research (COSPAR) and was published in Advances in Space Research that same year. It has since been reprinted in numerous reports and journals and presented at international scientific congresses.

S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, holds a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University. Singer was formerly chief scientist with the U.S. Department of Transportation, first director of the National Weather Satellite Service, deputy assistant administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and founding dean of the School of Environmental and Planetary Sciences at the University of Miami, among other government and academic positions. He is now president of The Science & Environmental Policy Project, a Washington-based research group he founded in 1992 to foster environmental policies based on sound science.