KSC Deputy Director Named
William F. Readdy, associate administrator for Space Flight at NASA Headquarters in Washington, yesterday named Woodrow Whitlow Jr. as the new deputy director of KSC, effective Aug. 31. Whitlow will succeed Jim Kennedy, who becomes Center director Aug. 10. Whitlow has served as director of Research and Technology at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, since 1998.

NASA spacecraft arrives at
Vandenberg AFB launch site
The NASA spacecraft designed to test two important predictions of Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity was shipped yesterday from the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Facility in Sunnyvale, Calif., to the launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., after com-pleting environmental testing.

NASA's Gravity Probe B mission, also known as GP-B, will use four ultra-precise gyroscopes to test Einstein's theory that space and time are distorted by the presence of massive objects. To accomplish this, the mission will measure two factors – how space and time are warped by the presence of the Earth, and how the Earth’s rotation drags space-time around with it.

ELV Update
The SIRTF observatory is in NASA’s class 10,000 laminar flow clean room at spacecraft Hangar AE awaiting its return to the launch pad Aug. 10. Observatory power-on testing resumed last week. Installation of the flight battery followed by the associated electrical testing is scheduled for July 21- 22. Erection of the Boeing Delta II launch vehicle on Pad 17-B will begin July 17 with the erection of the first stage. Erection of the nine solid rocket boosters is currently scheduled to occur in sets of three on July 19, 22 and 24. The second stage is planned for hoisting atop the first stage July 28.

SIRTF is the fourth and final element in NASA’s family of orbiting “Great Observatories.” All objects in the universe with temperatures above absolute zero
(- 460° F) emit some infrared radiation, or heat. Infrared wavelengths lie beyond the red portion of the visible spec-trum and are invisible to the human eye. For more information, go to the Web at http://sirtf.caltech.edu/ .

Health Tip from KSC Fitness Center
Banish Buffet Thinking. Do you suffer from buffet thinking? If your temptation level rises when more food items are readily available, then you probably do. A recent study suggested that the more food choices you have, the more you will eat. Stick to a healthy variety of a fewer number of items and you may be less likely to overeat.