NASA PREPARED TO DELIVER 1 MILLION SIGNATURES ABOARD ITS PLANETARY 1997

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From:AOLNewsProfiles@aol.net
Title:NASA PREPARED TO DELIVER 1 MILLION SIGNATURES ABOARD ITS PLANETARY 1997
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Date:April 04, 1996


The Philadelphia Inquirer

Knight-Ridder/Tribune Business News

Apr. 3--Tell 'em you're here: Want to send your signature to Saturn

next

year? The U.S. Postal Service will deliver it part way, then NASA takes over.

If you sign a postcard and send it to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

in California, the space agency will send it 1.5 billion miles farther.

NASA will take as many as 1 million signatures to Saturn aboard its $2

billion Cassini planetary probe, scheduled to be launched from Cape Canaveral

Air Station in October, 1997. So far 50,000 autographs have come in.

In the past, NASA has sent a couple thousand signatures to other

planets, but this time Cassini can carry far more autographs because

volunteers will scan and load the signatures on a CD-ROM disc, said Charley

Kohlhase, Cassini's science and project engineering manager.

However, the six-ton Cassini won't be carrying CD reader, Kohlhase

said.

So any non-Earthling trying to read your name could be out of luck.

You have until Jan. 1, 1997 to get your signature on a plain postcard

and send it to: Suzanne Barber, MS 264-441, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800

Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, Calif. 91109.

The better to see you with: The idea came to 17-year-old Ian Hagemann

in

September, after a visit to his eye doctor. He had seen the machine his

doctor used to diagnose eye diseases and brain disorders, and he wondered why

it had to be so large, nearly the size of a telephone booth.

So the Fairfax County, Va., high school senior followed his instincts.

He invented his own machine. Using about $100 worth of computer chips,

speakers and other supplies, Hagemann designed and built a briefcase-sized

version of the $20,000-plus device, known as a visual field analyzer.

Ophthalmologists say the teenager's creation is more than a nifty

science project. If put into mass production, it would allow glaucoma testing

in places such as supermarkets, homes and public health clinics, doctors

said, making it easier to screen poor people, rural residents and elderly

shut-ins.

Hagemann, who attends Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and

Technology in Annandale and lives in Great Falls, has applied for a patent on

his invention. In the meantime, the portable device has earned him first

place in the National Science Teachers Association's annual Duracell/NSTA

Scholarship Competition. He will go to St. Louis this week to accept the

award, a $20,000 savings bond.