"6_2_17_2.TXT" (7114 bytes) was created on 05-06-92 GET AWAY SPECIAL...the first ten years THE CONCEPT To tell the Get Away Special story is to tell more than 50 stories in one, for each payload came from the excitement, dreams, and efforts of groups of individuals. There were students who built their first space experiments; experienced scientists with projects that could lead to new materials; companies testing products for living and working in space; and others, such as artists and medical professionals, who turned their thoughts to experimentation in space for the first time. Finally, there is the story of the NASA and contractor personnel who conceived the program and worked together to make it happen. In the mid l970s, the Customer Services Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. began manifesting (assigning) major payloads aboard Shuttle missions. It soon became apparent that most missions would have a small amount of capacity left after the major payloads were installed. NASA's discussions of how to best utilize this capacity led to the Small Self-Contained Payloads Program, now familiarly known as the Get Away Special Program or, simply, the GAS Program. In October l976, John Yardley, Associate Administrator for the Office of Space Flight at NASA Headquarters, announced the inception of the GAS Program. The next day, Mr. R. Gilbert Moore purchased the first GAS payload reservation. Over the next few months, NASA worked to define the program's boundaries. Three payload options evolved: a 2 1/2-cubic-foot container for payloads up to 60 pounds, costing $3000; a 2 1/2-cubic-foot container for payloads 61 to 100 pounds for $5000; and a 5-cubic-foot container for 200-pound payloads for $10,000. Early in l977, NASA assigned the GAS Program to the Sounding Rocket Division at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Later renamed the Special Payloads Division, its personnel had, at that time, accumulated twenty years of hands-on engineering experience in flying sounding rocket payloads. Their expertise was ideal for a small payloads program. A handful of engineers began meeting weekly to define the hardware and procedures necessary for the GAS Program. This was the beginning of the GAS team. In the ten years to follow, which included the flying of 53 payloads the GAS team kept its enthusiasm for the program---largely because of the experimenters' high level of enthusiasm and endless ability to conceive and design thought-provoking experiments. The originators of the GAS Program could not have envisioned the innovativeness of some of the customers' payloads. Customers' requirements for these experiments sometimes prompted the GAS team to develop new equipment and procedures to meet their experimenters' needs. Readers intrigued by these experiments will no doubt wonder about their results. An unusual feature of the GAS Program is that experimenters are not required to furnish postflight reports to NASA. NASA feels that GAS customers can best speak for their own experiments. The following payload descriptions have been compiled from preflight press releases and discussions with GAS experimenters. Generally, payload results are mentioned only when they illustrate lessons that were learned. Readers can, however, review the payloads and their results in more detail by obtaining papers presented by the experimenters at NASA's Annual Get Away Special Experimenter's Symposiums. Symposium proceedings are available from: The National Technical Information Service Springfield, Virginia 22161 The proceedings of each symposium are assigned a conference publication number, as listed below: GAS Experimenters' NASA Conference Symposium Publication No. l984........................2324 1985........................2401 l986........................2438 1987........................2500 STS-3 Columbia, March 22, 1982 Flight Verification Payload Before GAS customers could prepare realistic payload designs, they needed an accurate description of the environment inside a GAS container. Early in the program, the GAS team proposed flying a Flight Verification Payload (FVP) for this purpose. The FVP would record the vibration, pressure, and microgravity inside a GAS container, as well as the internal and external temperature levels. Along with its environmental data, the FVP proved invaluable in an unforseen way. For the first time, the team had to design a GAS payload and provide for its integration and installation in the Space Transportation System(STS). Having put the FVP through these operations, such procedures were considerably eased for future GAS customers. STS-4 Columbia, June 27, l982 G001 Utah State University STS-5 Columbia, November 11, l982 G026 German Materials Processing STS-6 Challenger, April 4 l983 G005 Japanese Snowflakes G049 Air Force Cadets G381 Exposing Seeds to Space STS-7 Challenger, June 18, l983 G002 German Students G009 Purdue University Students G012 New Jersey Students G033 Cal Tech Students G088 Soldering in Space G305 Space UV Radiation Test G345 Ultraviolet Film Test STS-8 Challenger, August 30, l983 G346 Cosmic Ray Upset G347 Ultraviolet Film Test G348 Atomic Oxygen Test G475 Snowflakes in Space STS-41-B Challenger, February 3, l984 G004 Space Paks G008 Utah Students G051 GTE's Metalarc Lamp G309 Cosmic Ray Upset II G349 Atomic Oxygen Experiment STS-41-G Challenger, October 5, l984 G007 Radio Signals From Space G013 Halogen Lamps G032 Shooting BBs at Waterballs G038 Space Art G074 Improving Spacecraft Fueling G306 Trapped Ions in Space G469 Cosmic Ray Upset II G518 Utah Payloads Fly Again STS-51-D Discovery, April 12, l985 G035 Waterball Collisions G471 Capillary Pumped Loop STS-51-B Challenger, April 29, l985 G010 Northern Utah Satellite G308 CLOMR Satellite STS-51-G Discovery, June 17, l985 G025 Liquid Sloshing Test G027 Ceramic Technology G028 Manganese-Bismuth Alloy G034 El Paso High Schools G314 UV Radiation Environment G471 Capillary Pumped Loop STS-61-A Challenger, October 30, l985 G308 GLOMR's Deployment STS-61-B Atlantis, November 26, l985 G479 Canadian Vapor Disposition STS-61-C Columbia, January 12, l986 EMP GAS Bridge Environment G007 Radio Transmission Test G062 Penn State/GE Payload G310 Air Force Vibrating Beams G332 Houston High Schools G446 Chemical Analysis Tests G449 Medical Laser Tests G462,3,&4 Cosmic Background G470 Moth in Space Project G481 Transporting Art Supplies "6_2_17_3.TXT" (2645 bytes) was created on 10-23-92 NASA REOPENS RESERVATIONS QUEUE FOR GET AWAY SPECICALS HQ 92-174/GET AWAY SPECIAL RESERVATIONS REOPENED Jim Cast Headquarters, Washington, D.C. October 20, 1992 Dolores Beasley Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Release: 92-174 NASA today announced that the Small Self Contained Payloads (SSCP) program, popularly known as the Get Away Special (GAS) program, is now accepting new applications for payload reservations. The program offers standard canisters to customers wanting to carry out scientific research on Shuttle flights on a space-available basis for a nominal fee. Since the first Get Away Special payload flew on Space Shuttle Columbia 10 years ago, 87 GAS payloads have flown on 18 missions, representing customers from industry, educational institutions, domestic and foreign governments, as well as from individuals. Reopening the reservations queue for GAS payloads follows NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin's signing of an updated policy on small self contained payloads. The updated policy was published in the Federal Register on Sept. 9. The announcement was made at the Shuttle Small Payloads Symposium being held at the Sheraton Greenbelt Hotel in New Carrollton, Md. The symposium is being sponsored by NASA's Office of Space Flight and the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Under the revised policy, prices for standard services would be $27,000 for an SSCP payload weighing 200 pounds (90.72 kg) and a volume of 5 cubic feet (.142 cubic meters), $14,000 for a payload weighing 100 pounds (45.36 kg) and a volume of 2.5 cubic feet and $8,000 for a payload weighing 60 pounds (27.22 kg) and a volume of 2.5 cubic feet (.071 cubic meters). These prices compensate for the impact of inflation from fiscal years 1975 through 1991. NASA soon will publish in the Federal Register a related policy whereby domestic educational institutions will have an option to qualify for reduced SSCP prices. Domestic educational institutions would pay $10,000 for an SSCP payload weighing 200 pounds and a volume of 5 cubic feet, $5,000 for a payload weighing 100 pounds and a volume of 2.5 cubic feet and $3,000 for a payload weighing 60 pounds and a volume of 2.5 cubic feet. SSCP experiments must be of a scientific research and development nature and are flown on a space- available basis on Space Shuttle missions. Most recently, 9 GAS experiments from 5 countries flew on the STS-47 Spacelab J mission in September. The SSCP project is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Program management is located at Headquarters' Office of Space Flight.