
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, September 18, 1994                   TAG: 9409200047
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: D-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

2 VA. EXPERIMENTS ON SPACE SHUTTLE

Two Virginia-designed experiments, including one put together by Norfolk high school students, are among the payload aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

The other project, designed by engineers and scientists at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, aims laser beams through the atmosphere to study climate and weather.

The high school project is called NORSTAR, for Norfolk Public Schools Science and Technology Advanced Research. NORSTAR is designed to visually record sound-wave patterns in the nearly weightless conditions of space.

``All this work has come to something,'' said Joy Young, a teacher and supervisor of NORSTAR. ``The kids are very excited.''

NORSTAR's gear was packed into an aluminum canister about the size of a 55-gallon drum and mounted in the shuttle's cargo bay. Its results could lead to more efficient engines, quieter air conditioners and better sound-deadening in public places like auditoriums.

The NORSTAR canister is sealed tight but hooked to Discovery's power grid. Astronauts turn the instruments on and off with a hand-held remote.

The NASA Langley experiment is called LITE, for Lidar In-Space Technology Experiment. Lidar - light detection and ranging - is similar to radar, but it uses focused light rather than radio waves to measure distance and speed.

The LITE device is shooting 1.6 million laser beams during the shuttle's mission to study clouds and particles of water and pollution that float in the Earth's atmosphere.

by CNB