For Release: October 28, 1997

June Malone
Media Services Branch
(256) 544-0034
June.E.Malone@msfc.nasa.gov

RELEASE: 97-253

The Environmental Protection Agency has ranked NASA’s Space Shuttle Reusable Solid Rocket Motor team on its "best-of-the-best" list for efforts to protect the stratospheric ozone. Team members from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and Thiokol Corporation of Ogden, Utah, recently accepted the award at ceremonies in Montreal.

Since 1990, 320 companies, organizations and individuals from 25 countries have earned the EPA’s annual Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award. The Marshall-Thiokol team received the EPA annual award in 1993 for its commitment to eliminate ozone-depleting substances.

The EPA’s Best-of-the-Best awards recognize annual winners who have demonstrated the most exceptional commitment to environmental stewardship through precedent-setting innovation and international leadership, according to EPA. The Marshall-managed Reusable Solid Rocket Motor project is one of 71 Best-of-the-Best champions honored this year for outstanding contributions to protect the Earth’s stratospheric ozone layer – which shields the Earth from ultraviolet radiation harmful to life.

"We’ve put substantial effort into dramatically changing the way we clean, preserve and transport the Space Shuttle reusable solid rocket motors to make the processes and materials we use environmentally friendly," said NASA’s Keith Henson, manager of the Reusable Solid Rocket Motor project.

EPA credits the team’s cumulative efforts with reducing Thiokol’s total consumption of methyl chloroform – an industrial solvent consisting of carbon, hydrogen and chlorine – from 1.4 million pounds in 1989 to about 160,000 pounds in 1997. EPA also praised the NASA team for sharing its information with other agencies, programs and industry organizations to further accelerate the global phaseout of ozone-depleting substances, such as methyl chloroform.

The Best-of-the-Best awards were presented on the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of the Montreal Protocol – an international treaty governing the protection of the stratospheric ozone.

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